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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Book About Lawyers, by John Cordy
+Jeaffreson
+
+
+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: A Book About Lawyers
+
+
+Author: John Cordy Jeaffreson
+
+
+
+Release Date: January 12, 2009  [eBook #27785]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BOOK ABOUT LAWYERS***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Graeme Mackreth, and Project
+Gutenberg the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+A BOOK ABOUT LAWYERS.
+
+by
+
+JOHN CORDY JEAFFRESON,
+
+Barrister-at-Law
+Author of
+"A Book About Doctors,"
+Etc., Etc.
+
+Reprinted from the London Edition.
+
+Two Volumes in One.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+New York:
+_Carleton, Publisher, Madison Square._
+London: S. Low, Son & Co.,
+M DCCC LXXV.
+
+Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1807, by
+G.W. Carleton & Co.,
+In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the
+Southern District of New York.
+
+John F. Trow & Son, Printers,
+205-213 East 12th St., New York.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+PART I. HOUSES AND HOUSEHOLDERS.
+
+CHAPTER                                             PAGE
+
+      I. LADIES IN LAW COLLEGES                        7
+
+     II. THE LAST OF THE LADIES                       13
+
+    III. YORK HOUSE AND POWIS HOUSE                   22
+
+     IV. LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS                         27
+
+      V. THE OLD LAW QUARTER                          36
+
+
+PART II. LOVES OF THE LAWYERS.
+
+     VI. A LOTTERY                                    49
+
+    VII. GOOD QUEEN BESS                              55
+
+   VIII. REJECTED ADDRESSES                           62
+
+     IX. "CICERO" UPON HIS TRIAL                      71
+
+      X. BROTHERS IN TROUBLE                          75
+
+     XI. EARLY MARRIAGES                              86
+
+
+PART III. MONEY.
+
+    XII. FEES TO COUNSEL                              97
+
+   XIII. RETAINERS, GENERAL AND SPECIAL              113
+
+    XIV. JUDICIAL CORRUPTION                         122
+
+     XV. GIFTS AND SALES                             136
+
+    XVI. A ROD PICKLED BY WILLIAM COLE               143
+
+   XVII. CHIEF JUSTICE POPHAM                        149
+
+  XVIII. JUDICIAL SALARIES                           153
+
+
+PART IV. COSTUME AND TOILET.
+
+    XIX. BRIGHT AND SAD                              163
+
+    XX.  MILLINERY                                   169
+
+    XXI. WIGS                                        171
+
+   XXII. BANDS AND COLLARS                           182
+
+  XXIII. BAGS AND GOWNS                              187
+
+   XXIV. HATS                                        195
+
+
+PART V. MUSIC.
+
+    XXV. THE PIANO IN CHAMBERS                       206
+
+   XXVI. THE BATTLE OF THE ORGANS                    208
+
+  XXVII. THE THICKNESS IN THE THROAT                 219
+
+
+PART VI. AMATEUR THEATRICALS.
+
+ XXVIII. ACTORS AT THE BAR                           224
+
+   XXIX. "THE PLAY'S THE THING"                      230
+
+    XXX. THE RIVER AND THE STRAND BY TORCHLIGHT      238
+
+   XXXI. ANTI-PRYNNE                                 243
+
+  XXXII. AN EMPTY GRATE                              251
+
+
+PART VII. LEGAL EDUCATION
+
+ XXXIII. INNS OF COURT AND INNS OF CHANCERY          258
+
+  XXXIV. LAWYERS AND GENTLEMEN                       265
+
+   XXXV. LAW-FRENCH AND LAW-LATIN                    277
+
+  XXXVI. STUDENT LIFE IN OLD TIME                    287
+
+ XXXVII. READERS AND MOOTMEN                         298
+
+XXXVIII. PUPILS IN CHAMBERS                          307
+
+
+PART VIII. MIRTH.
+
+  XXXIX. WIT OF LAWYERS                              316
+
+     XL. HUMOROUS STORIES                            334
+
+    XLI. WITS IN 'SILK' AND PUNSTERS IN 'ERMINE'     349
+
+   XLII. WITNESSES                                   365
+
+  XLIII. CIRCUITEERS                                 376
+
+   XLIV. LAWYERS AND SAINTS                          390
+
+
+PART IX. AT HOME: IN COURT: AND IN SOCIETY.
+
+    XLV. LAWYERS AT THEIR OWN TABLES                 402
+
+   XLVI. WINE                                        413
+
+  XLVII. LAW AND LITERATURE                          423
+
+
+
+
+PART I.
+
+HOUSES AND HOUSEHOLDERS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+LADIES IN LAW COLLEGES.
+
+
+A law-student of the present day finds it difficult to realize the
+brightness and domestic decency which characterized the Inns of Court in
+the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Under existing
+circumstances, women of character and social position avoid the gardens
+and terraces of Gray's Inn and the Temple.
+
+Attended by men, or protected by circumstances that guard them from
+impertinence and scandal, gentlewomen can without discomfort pass and
+repass the walls of our legal colleges; but in most cases a lady enters
+them under conditions that announce even to casual passers the object of
+her visit. In her carriage, during the later hours of the day, a
+barrister's wife may drive down the Middle Temple Lane, or through the
+gate of Lincoln's Inn, and wait in King's Bench Walk or New Square,
+until her husband, putting aside clients and papers, joins her for the
+homeward drive. But even thus placed, sitting in her carriage and
+guarded by servants, she usually prefers to fence off inquisitive eyes
+by a bonnet-veil, or the blinds of her carriage-windows. On Sunday, the
+wives and daughters of gentle families brighten the dingy passages of
+the Temple, and the sombre courts of Lincoln's Inn: for the musical
+services of the grand church and little chapel, are amongst the
+religious entertainments of the town. To those choral celebrations
+ladies go, just as they are accustomed to enter any metropolitan church;
+and after service they can take a turn in the gardens of either Society,
+without drawing upon themselves unpleasant attention. So also,
+unattended by men, ladies are permitted to inspect the floral
+exhibitions with which Mr. Broome, the Temple gardener, annually
+entertains London sightseers.
+
+But, save on these and a few similar occasions and conditions,
+gentlewomen avoid an Inn of Court as they would a barrack-yard, unless
+they have secured the special attendance of at least one member of the
+society. The escort of a barrister or student, alters the case. What
+barrister, young or old, cannot recall mirthful eyes that, with quick
+shyness, have turned away from his momentary notice, as in answer to the
+rustling of silk, or stirred by sympathetic consciousness of women's
+noiseless presence, he has raised his face from a volume of reports, and
+seen two or three timorous girls peering through the golden haze of a
+London morning, into the library of his Inn? What man, thus drawn away
+for thirty seconds from prosaic toil, has not in that half minute
+remembered the faces of happy rural homes,--has not recalled old days
+when his young pulses beat cordial welcome to similar intruders upon the
+stillness of the Bodleian, or the tranquil seclusion of Trinity library?
+What occupant of dreary chambers in the Temple, reading this page,
+cannot look back to a bright day, when young, beautiful, and pure as
+sanctity, Lilian, or Kate, or Olive, entered his room radiant with
+smiles, delicate in attire, and musical with gleesome gossip about
+country neighbors, and the life of a joyous home?
+
+Seldom does a Templar of the present generation receive so fair and
+innocent a visitor. To him the presence of a gentlewoman in his court,
+is an occasion for ingenious conjecture; encountered on his staircase
+she is a cause of lively astonishment. His guests are men, more or less
+addicted to tobacco; his business callers are solicitors and their
+clerks; in his vestibule the masculine emissaries of tradesmen may
+sometimes be found--head-waiters from neighboring taverns, pot-boys from
+the 'Cock' and the 'Rainbow.' A printer's devil may from time to time
+knock at his door. But of women--such women as he would care to mention
+to his mother and sisters--he sees literally nothing in his dusty,
+ill-ordered, but not comfortless rooms. He has a laundress, one of a
+class on whom contemporary satire has been rather too severe.
+
+Feminine life of another sort lurks in the hidden places of the law
+colleges, shunning the gaze of strangers by daylight; and even when it
+creeps about under cover of night, trembling with a sense of its own
+incurable shame. But of this sad life, the bare thought of which sends a
+shivering through the frame of every man whom God has blessed with a
+peaceful home and wholesome associations, nothing shall be said in this
+page.
+
+In past time the life of law-colleges was very different in this
+respect. When they ceased to be ecclesiastics, and fixed themselves in
+the hospices which soon after the reception of the gowned tenants, were
+styled Inns of Courts; our lawyers took unto themselves wives, who were
+both fair and discreet. And having so made women flesh of their flesh
+and bone of their bone, they brought them to homes within the immediate
+vicinity of their collegiate walls, and sometimes within the walls
+themselves. Those who would appreciate the life of the Inns in past
+centuries, and indeed in times within the memory of living men, should
+bear this in mind. When he was not on circuit, many a counsellor learned
+in the law, found the pleasures not less than the business of his
+existence within the bounds of his 'honorable society.' In the fullest
+sense of the words, he took his ease in his Inn; besides being his
+workshop, where clients flocked to him for advice, it was his club, his
+place of pastime, and the shrine of his domestic affections. In this
+generation a successful Chancery barrister, or Equity draftsman, looks
+upon Lincoln's Inn merely as a place of business, where at a prodigious
+rent he holds a set of rooms in which he labors over cases, and
+satisfies the demands of clients and pupils. A century or two centuries
+since the case was often widely different. The rising barrister brought
+his bride in triumph to his 'chambers,' and in them she received the
+friends who hurried to congratulate her on her new honors. In those
+rooms she dispensed graceful hospitality, and watched her husband's
+toils. The elder of her children first saw the light in those narrow
+quarters; and frequently the lawyer, over his papers, was disturbed by
+the uproar of his heir in an adjoining room.
+
+Young wives, the mistresses of roomy houses in the western quarters of
+town, shudder as they imagine the discomforts which these young wives of
+other days must have endured. "What! live in chambers?" they exclaim
+with astonishment and horror, recalling the smallness and cheerless
+aspect of their husbands' business chambers. But past usages must not be
+hastily condemned,--allowance must be made for the fact that our
+ancestors set no very high price on the luxuries of elbow-room and
+breathing-room. Families in opulent circumstances were wont to dwell
+happily, and receive whole regiments of jovial visitors in little houses
+nigh the Strand and Fleet Street, Ludgate Hill and Cheapside;--houses
+hidden in narrow passages and sombre courts--houses, compared with
+which the lowliest residences in a "genteel suburb" of our own time
+would appear capacious mansions. Moreover, it must be borne in mind that
+the married barrister, living a century since with his wife in
+chambers--either within or hard-by an Inn or Court--was, at a
+comparatively low rent, the occupant of far more ample quarters than
+those for which a working barrister now-a-days pays a preposterous sum.
+Such a man was tenant of a 'set of rooms' (several rooms, although
+called 'a chamber') which, under the present system, accommodates a
+small colony of industrious 'juniors' with one office and a clerk's room
+attached. Married ladies, who have lived in Paris or Vienna, in the 'old
+town' of Edinburgh, or Victoria Street, Westminster, need no assurance
+that life 'on a flat' is not an altogether deplorable state of
+existence. The young couple in chambers had six rooms at their
+disposal,--a chamber for business, a parlor, not unfrequently a
+drawing-room, and a trim, compact little kitchen. Sometimes they had two
+'sets of rooms,' one above another; in which case the young wife could
+have her bridesmaids to stay with her, or could offer a bed to a friend
+from the country. Occasionally during the last fifty years of the last
+century, they were so fortunate as to get possession of a small detached
+house, originally built by a nervous bencher, who disliked the sound of
+footsteps on the stairs outside his door. Time was when the Inns
+comprised numerous detached houses, some of them snug dwellings, and
+others imposing mansions, wherein great dignitaries lived with proper
+ostentation. Most of them have bean pulled down, and their sites covered
+with collegiate 'buildings;' but a few of them still remain, the grand
+piles having long since been partitioned off into chambers, and the
+little houses striking the eye as quaint, misplaced, insignificant
+blocks of human habitation. Under the trees of Gray's Inn gardens may
+be seen two modest tenements, each of them comprising some six or eight
+rooms and a vestibule. At the present time they are occupied as offices
+by legal practitioners, and many a day has passed since womanly taste
+decorated their windows with flowers and muslin curtains; but a certain
+venerable gentleman, to whom the writer of this page is indebted for
+much information about the lawyers of the last century, can remember
+when each of those cottages was inhabited by a barrister, his young
+wife, and three or four lovely children. Into some such a house near
+Lincoln's Inn, a young lawyer who was destined to hold the seals for
+many years, and be also the father of a Lord Chancellor, married in the
+year of our Lord, 1718. His name was Philip Yorke: and though he was of
+humble birth, he had made such a figure in his profession that great
+men's doors, were open to him. He was asked to dinner by learned judges,
+and invited to balls by their ladies. In Chancery Lane, at the house of
+Sir Joseph Jekyll, Master of the Rolls, he met Mrs. Lygon, a beauteous
+and wealthy widow, whose father was a country squire, and whose mother
+was the sister of the great Lord Somers. In fact, she was a lady of such
+birth, position, and jointure, that the young lawyer--rising man though
+he was--seemed a poor match for her. The lady's family thought so; and
+if Sir Joseph Jekyll had not cordially supported the suitor with a
+letter of recommendation, her father would have rejected him as a man
+too humble in rank and fortune. Having won the lady and married her, Mr.
+Philip Yorke brought her home to a 'very small house' near Lincoln's
+Inn; and in that lowly dwelling, the ground-floor of which was the
+barrister's office, they spent the first years of their wedded life.
+What would be said of the rising barrister who, now-a-days, on his
+marriage with a rich squire's rich daughter and a peer's niece, should
+propose to set up his household gods in a tiny crip just outside
+Lincoln's Inn gate, and to use the parlor of the 'very small house' for
+professional purposes? Far from being guilty of unseemly parsimony in
+this arrangement, Philip Yorke paid proper consideration to his wife's
+social advantages, in taking her to a separate house. His contemporaries
+amongst the junior bar would have felt no astonishment if he had fitted
+up a set of chambers for his wealthy and well-descended bride. Not
+merely in his day, but for long years afterward, lawyers of gentle birth
+and comfortable means, who married women scarcely if at all inferior to
+Mrs. Yorke in social condition, lived upon the flats of Lincoln's Inn
+and the Temple.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE LAST OF THE LADIES.
+
+
+Whatever its drawbacks, the system which encouraged the young barrister
+to marry on a modest income, and make his wife 'happy in chambers,' must
+have had special advantages. In their Inn the husband was near every
+source of diversion for which he greatly cared, and the wife was
+surrounded by the friends of either sex in whose society she took most
+pleasure--friends who, like herself, 'lived in the Inn,' or in one of
+the immediately adjacent streets. In 'hall' he dined and drank wine with
+his professional compeers and the wits of the bar: the 'library'
+supplied him not only with law books, but with poems and dramas, with
+merry trifles written for the stage, and satires fresh from the Row;
+'the chapel'--or if he were a Templer, 'the church'--was his habitual
+place of worship, where there were sittings for his wife and children
+as well as for himself; on the walks and under the shady trees of 'the
+garden' he sauntered with his own, or, better still, a friend's wife,
+criticising the passers, describing the new comedy, or talking over the
+last ball given by a judge's lady. At times those gardens were pervaded
+by the calm of collegiate seclusion, but on 'open days' they were brisk
+with life. The women and children of the legal colony walked in them
+daily; the ladies attired in their newest fashions, and the children
+running with musical riot over lawns and paths. Nor were the grounds
+mere places of resort for lawyers and their families. Taking rank
+amongst the pleasant places of the metropolis, they attracted, on 'open
+days,' crowds from every quarter of the town--ladies and gallants from
+Soho Square and St. James's Street, from Whitehall and Westminster;
+sightseers from the country and gorgeous alderwomic dowagers from
+Cheapside. From the days of Elizabeth till the middle, indeed till the
+close, of the eighteenth century the ornamental grounds of the four
+great Inns were places of fashionable promenade, where the rank and
+talent and beauty of the town assembled for display and exercise, even
+as in our own time they assemble (less universally) in Hyde Park and
+Kensington Gardens.
+
+When ladies and children had withdrawn, the quietude of the gardens
+lured from their chambers scholars and poets, who under murmuring
+branches pondered the results of past study, or planned new works. Ben
+Jonson was accustomed to saunter beneath the elms of Lincoln's Inn; and
+Steele--alike on 'open' and 'close' days--used to frequent the gardens
+of the same society. "I went," he writes in May, 1809, "into Lincoln's
+Inn Walks, and having taking a round or two, I sat down, according to
+the allowed familiarity of these places, on a bench." In the following
+November he alludes to the privilege that he enjoyed of walking there
+as "a favor that is indulged me by several of the benchers, who are very
+intimate friends, and grown in the neighborhood."
+
+But though on certain days, and under fixed regulations, the outside
+public were admitted to the college gardens, the assemblages were always
+pervaded by the tone and humor of the law. The courtiers and grand
+ladies from 'the west' felt themselves the guests of the lawyers; and
+the humbler folk, who by special grant had acquired the privilege of
+entry, or whose decent attire and aspect satisfied the janitors of their
+respectability, moved about with watchfulness and gravity, surveying the
+counsellors and their ladies with admiring eyes, and extolling the
+benchers whose benevolence permitted simple tradespeople to take the air
+side by side with 'the quality.' In 1736, James Ralph, in his 'New
+Critical Review of the Publick Buildings,' wrote about the square and
+gardens of Lincoln's Inn in a manner which testifies to the respectful
+gratitude of the public for the liberality which permitted all outwardly
+decent persons to walk in the grounds. "I may safely add," he says,
+"that no area anywhere is kept in better order, either for cleanliness
+and beauty by day, or illumination by night; the fountain in the middle
+is a very pretty decoration, and if it was still kept playing, as it was
+some years ago, 'twould preserve its name with more propriety." In his
+remarks on the chapel the guide observes, "The raising this chapel on
+pillars affords a pleasing, melancholy walk underneath, and by night,
+particularly, when illuminated by the lamps, it has an effect that may
+be felt, but not described." Of the gardens Mr. Ralph could not speak in
+high praise, for they were ill-arranged and not so carefully kept as the
+square; but he observes, "they are convenient; and considering their
+situation cannot be esteemed to much. There is something hospitable in
+laying them open to public use; and while we share in their pleasures,
+we have no title to arraign their taste."
+
+The chief attraction of Lincoln's Inn gardens, apart from its beautiful
+trees, was for many years the terrace overlooking 'the Fields,' which
+was made _temp._ Car. II. at the cost of nearly £1000. Dugdale, speaking
+of the recent improvements of the Inn, says, "And the last was the
+enlargement of their garden, beautifying with a large tarras walk on the
+west side thereof, and raising the wall higher towards Lincoln's Inne
+Fields, which was done in An. 1663 (15 Car. II.), the charge thereof
+amounting to a little less than a thousand pounds, by reason that the
+levelling of most part of the ground, and raising the tarras, required
+such great labor." A portion of this terrace, and some of the old trees,
+were destroyed to make room for the new dining-hall.
+
+The old system supplied the barrister with other sources of recreation.
+Within a stone's throw of his residence was the hotel where his club had
+its weekly meeting. Either in hall, or with his family, or at a tavern
+near 'the courts,' it was his use, until a comparatively recent date, to
+dine in the middle of the day, and work again after the meal. Courts sat
+after dinner as well as before; and it was observable that counsellors
+spoke far better when they were full of wine and venison than when they
+stated the case in the earlier part of the day. But in the evening the
+system told especially in the barrister's favor. All his many friends
+lying within a small circle, he had an abundance of congenial society.
+Brother-circuiteers came to his wife's drawing-room for tea and chat,
+coffee and cards. There was a substantial supper at half-past eight or
+nine for such guests (supper cooked in my lady's little kitchen, or
+supplied by the 'Society's cook'); and the smoking dishes were
+accompanied by foaming tankards of ale or porter, and followed by
+superb and richly aromatic bowls of punch. On occasions when the learned
+man worked hard and shut out visitors by sporting his oak, he enjoyed
+privacy as unbroken and complete as that of any library in Kensington or
+Tyburnia. If friends stayed away, and he wished for diversion, he could
+run into the chambers of old college-chums, or with his wife's gracious
+permission could spend an hour at Chatelin's or Nando's, or any other
+coffeehouse in vogue with members of his profession. During festive
+seasons, when the judges' and leaders' ladies gave their grand balls,
+the young couple needed no carriage for visiting purposes. From Gray's
+Inn to the Temple they walked--if the weather was fine. When it rained
+they hailed a hackney-coach, or my lady was popped into a sedan and
+carried by running bearers to the frolic of the hour.
+
+Of course the notes of the preceding paragraphs of this chapter are but
+suggestions as to the mode in which the artistic reader must call up the
+life of the old lawyers. Encouraging him to realize the manners and
+usages of several centuries, not of a single generation, they do not
+attempt to entertain the student with details. It is needless to say
+that the young couple did not use hackney-coaches in times prior to the
+introduction of those serviceable vehicles, and that until sedans were
+invented my lady never used them.
+
+It is possible, indeed it is certain, that married ladies living in
+chambers occasionally had for neighbors on the same staircase women whom
+they regarded with abhorrence. Sometimes it happened that a dissolute
+barrister introduced to his rooms a woman more beautiful than virtuous,
+whom he had not married, though he called her his wife. People can no
+more choose their neighbors in a house broken up into sets of chambers,
+than they can choose them in the street. But the cases where ladies
+were daily liable to meet an offensive neighbor on their common
+staircase were comparatively rare; and when the annoyance actually
+occurred, the discipline of the Inn afforded a remedy.
+
+Uncleanness too often lurked within the camp, but it veiled its face;
+and though in rare cases the error and sin of a powerful lawyer may have
+been notorious, the preccant man was careful to surround himself with
+such an appearance of respectability that society should easily feign
+ignorance of his offence. An Elizabethan distich--familiar to all
+barristers, but too rudely worded for insertion in this page--informs us
+that in the sixteenth century Gray's Inn had an unenviable notoriety
+amongst legal hospices for the shamelessness of its female inmates. But
+the pungent lines must be regarded as a satire aimed at certain
+exceptional members, rather than as a vivacious picture of the general
+tone of morals in the society. Anyhow the fact that Gray's Inn[1] was
+alone designated as a home for infamy--whilst the Inner Temple was
+pointed to as the hospice most popular with rich men, the Middle Temple
+as the society frequented by Templars of narrow means, and Lincoln's Inn
+as the abode of gentlemen--is, of itself, a proof that the pervading
+manners of the last three institutions were outwardly decorous. Under
+the least favorable circumstances, a barrister's wife living in
+chambers, within or near Lincoln's Inn, or the Temple, during Charles
+II.'s reign, fared as well in this respect as she would have done had
+Fortune made her a lady-in-waiting at Whitehall.
+
+A good story is told of certain visits paid to William Murray's chambers
+at No. 5, King's Bench Walk Temple, in the year 1738. Born in 1705,
+Murray was still a young man when in 1738 he made his brilliant speech
+in behalf of Colonel Sloper, against whom Colley Cibber's rascally son
+had brought an action for _crim. con._ with his wife--the lovely actress
+who was the rival of Mrs. Clive. Amongst the many clients who were drawn
+to Murray by that speech, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, was neither the
+least powerful nor the least distinguished. Her grace began by sending
+the rising advocate a general retainer, with a fee of a thousand
+guineas; of which sum he accepted only the two-hundredth part,
+explaining to the astonished duchess that "the professional fee, with a
+general retainer, could neither be less nor more than five guineas." If
+Murray had accepted the whole sum he would not have been overpaid for
+his trouble; for her grace persecuted him with calls at most
+unseasonable hours. On one occasion, returning to his chambers after
+"drinking champagne with the wits," he found the duchess's carriage and
+attendants on King's Bench Walk. A numerous crowd of footmen and
+link-bearers surrounded the coach; and when the barrister entered his
+chambers he encountered the mistress of that army of lackeys. "Young
+man," exclaimed the grand lady, eying the future Lord Mansfield with a
+look of warm displeasure, "if you mean to rise in the world, you must
+not sup out." On a subsequent night Sarah of Marlborough called without
+appointment at the same chambers, and waited till past midnight in the
+hope that she would see the lawyer ere she went to bed. But Murray being
+at an unusually late supper-party, did not return till her grace had
+departed in an over-powering rage. "I could not make out, sir, who she
+was," said Murray's clerk, describing her grace's appearance and manner,
+"for she would not tell me her name; _but she swore so dreadfully that I
+am sure she must be a lady of quality_."
+
+Perhaps the Inns of Court may still shelter a few married ladies, who
+either from love of old-world ways, or from stern necessity, consent to
+dwell in their husbands' chambers. If such ladies can at the present
+time be found, the writer of this page would look for them in Gray's
+Inn--that straggling caravansary for the reception of money-lenders,
+Bohemians, and eccentric gentlemen--rather than in the other three Inns
+of Court, which have undoubtedly quite lost their old population of
+lady-residents. But from those three hospices the last of the ladies
+must have retreated at a comparatively recent date. Fifteen years since,
+when the writer of this book was a beardless undergraduate, he had the
+honor of knowing some married ladies, of good family and unblemished
+repute, who lived with their husbands in the Middle Temple. One of those
+ladies--the daughter of a country magistrate, the sister of a
+distinguished classic scholar--was the wife of a common law barrister
+who now holds a judicial appointment in one of our colonies. The women
+of her old home circle occasionally called on this young wife: but as
+they could not reach her quarters in Sycamore Court without attracting
+much unpleasant observation, their visits were not frequent. Living in a
+barrack of unwed men, that charming girl was surrounded by honest
+fellows who would have resented as an insult to themselves an
+impertinence offered to her. Still her life was abnormal, unnatural,
+deleterious; it was felt by all who cared for her that she ought not to
+be where she was; and when an appointment with a good income in a
+healthy and thriving colony was offered to her husband, all who knew
+her, and many who had never spoken to her, rejoiced at the intelligence.
+At the present time, in the far distant country which looks up to her
+as a personage of importance, this lady--not less exemplary as wife and
+mother than brilliant as a woman of society--takes pleasure in recalling
+the days when she was a prisoner in the Temple.
+
+One of the last cases of married life in the Temple, that came before
+the public notice, was that of a barrister and his wife who incurred
+obloquy and punishment for their brutal conduct to a poor servant girl.
+No one would thank the writer for re-publishing the details of that
+nauseous illustration of the degradation to which it is possible for a
+gentleman and scholar to sink. But, however revolting, the case is not
+without interest for the reader who is curious about the social life of
+the Temple.
+
+The portion of the Temple in which the old-world family life of the Inns
+held out the longest, is a clump of commodious houses lying between the
+Middle Temple Garden and Essex Street, Strand. Having their
+entrance-doors in Essex Street, these houses are, in fact, as private as
+the residences of any London quarter. The noise of the Strand reaches
+them, but their occupants are as secure from the impertinent gaze or
+unwelcome familiarities of law-students and barristers' clerks, as they
+would be if they lived at St. John's Wood. In Essex Street, on the
+eastern side, the legal families maintained their ground almost till
+yesterday. Fifteen years since the writer of this page used to be
+invited to dinners and dances in that street--dinners and dances which
+were attended by prosperous gentlefolk from the West End of the town. At
+that time he often waltzed in a drawing-room, the windows of which
+looked upon the spray of the fountain--at which Ruth Pinch loved to gaze
+when its jet resembled a wagoner's whip. How all old and precious things
+pass away! The dear old 'wagoner's whip' has been replaced by a pert,
+perky squirt that will never stir the heart or brain of a future Ruth.
+
+[1] The scandalous state of Gray's Inn at this period is shown by the
+following passage in Dugdale's 'Origines:'--"In 23 Eliz. (30 Jan.) there
+was an order made that no laundress, nor women called victuallers,
+should thenceforth come into the gentlemen's chambers of this society,
+until they were full forty years of age, and not send their
+maid-servants, of what age soever, in the said gentlemen's chambers,
+upon penalty, for the first offence of him that should admit of any
+such, to be put out of Commons: and for the second, to be expelled the
+House." The stringency and severity of this order show a determination
+on the part of the authorities to cure the evil.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter III.
+
+YORK HOUSE AND POWIS HOUSE.
+
+
+Whilst the great body of lawyers dwelt in or hard by the Inns, the
+dignitaries of the judicial bench, and the more eminent members of the
+bar, had suitable palaces or mansions at greater or less distances from
+the legal hostelries. The ecclesiastical Chancellors usually enjoyed
+episcopal or archiepiscopal rank, and lived in the London palaces
+attached to their sees or provinces. During his tenure of the seals,
+Morton, Bishop of Ely, years before he succeeded to the archbishopric of
+Canterbury, and received the honors of the Cardinalate, grew
+strawberries in his garden on Holborn Hill, and lived in the palace
+surrounded by that garden. As Archbishop of Canterbury, Chancellor
+Warham maintained at Lambeth Palace the imposing state commemorated by
+Erasmus.
+
+When Wolsey made his first progress to the Court of Chancery in
+Westminster Hall, a progress already alluded to in these pages, he
+started from the archiepiscopal palace, York House or Place--an official
+residence sold by the cardinal to Henry VIII. some years later; and when
+the same superb ecclesiastic, towards the close of his career, went on
+the memorable embassy to France, he set out from his palace at
+Westminster, "passing through all London over London Bridge, having
+before him of gentlemen a great number, three in rank in black velvet
+livery coats, and the most of them with great chains of gold about their
+necks."
+
+At later dates Gardyner, whilst he held the seals, kept his numerous
+household at Winchester House in Southwark; and Williams, the last
+clerical Lord Keeper, lived at the Deanery, Westminster.
+
+The lay Chancellors also maintained costly and pompous establishments,
+apart from the Inns of Court. Sir Thomas More's house stood in the
+country, flanked by a garden and farm, in the cultivation of which
+ground the Chancellor found one of his chief sources of amusement. In
+Aldgate, Lord Chancellor Audley built his town mansion, on the site of
+the Priory of the Canons of the Holy Trinity of Christ Church.
+Wriothesley dwelt in Holborn at the height of his unsteady fortunes, and
+at the time of his death. The infamous but singularly lucky Rich lived
+in Great St. Bartholomew's, and from his mansion there wrote to the Duke
+of Northumberland, imploring that messengers might be sent to him to
+relieve him of the perilous trust of the Great Seal. Christopher Hatton
+wrested from the see of Ely the site of Holborn, whereon he built his
+magnificent palace. The reluctance with which the Bishop of Ely
+surrendered the ground, and the imperious letter by which Elizabeth
+compelled the prelate to comply with the wish of her favorite courtier,
+form one of the humorous episodes of that queen's reign. Hatton House
+rose over the soil which had yielded strawberries to Morton; and of that
+house--where the dancing Chancellor received Elizabeth as a visitor, and
+in which he died of "diabetes _and_ grief of mind"--the memory is
+preserved by Hatton Garden, the name of the street where some of our
+wealthiest jewelers and gold assayers have places of business.
+
+Public convenience had long suggested the expediency of establishing a
+permanent residence for the Chancellors of England, when either by
+successive expressions of the royal will, or by the individual choice of
+several successive holders of the _Clavis Regni_, a noble palace on the
+northern bank of the Thames came to be regarded as the proper domicile
+for the Great Seal. York House, memorable as the birthplace of Francis
+Bacon, and the scene of his brightest social splendor, demands a brief
+notice. Wolsey's 'York House' or Whitehall having passed from the
+province of York to the crown, Nicholas Heath, Archbishop of York,
+established himself in another York House on a site lying between the
+Strand and the river. In this palace (formerly leased to the see of
+Norwich as a bishop's Inn, and subsequently conferred on Charles Brandon
+by Henry VIII.) Heath resided during his Chancellorship; and when, in
+consequence of his refusal to take the oath of supremacy, Elizabeth
+deprived him of his archbishopric, York House passed into the hands of
+her new Lord Keeper, Sir Nicholas Bacon. On succeeding to the honors of
+the Marble Chair, Hatton did not move from Holborn to the Strand; but
+otherwise all the holders of the Great Seal, from Heath to Francis Bacon
+inclusive, seem to have occupied York House; Heath, of course, using it
+by right as Archbishop of York, and the others holding it under leases
+granted by successive archbishops of the northern province. So little is
+known of Bromley, apart from the course which he took towards Mary of
+Scotland, that the memory of old York House gains nothing of interest
+from him. Indeed it has been questioned whether he was one of its
+tenants. Puckering, Egerton, and Francis Bacon certainly inhabited it in
+succession. On Bacon's fall it was granted to Buckingham, whose desire
+to possess the picturesque palace was one of the motives which impelled
+him to blacken the great lawyer's reputation. Seized by the Long
+Parliament, it was granted to Lord Fairfax. In the following generation
+it passed into the hands of the second Duke of Buckingham, who sold
+house and precinct for building-ground. The bad memory of the man who
+thus for gold surrendered a spot of earth sacred to every scholarly
+Englishman is preserved in the names of _George_ Street, _Duke_ Street,
+_Villiers_ Street, _Buckingham_ Street.
+
+The engravings commonly sold as pictures of the York House, in which
+Lord Bacon kept the seals, are likenesses of the building after it was
+pulled about, diminished, and modernized, and in no way whatever
+represent the architecture of the original edifice. Amongst the
+art-treasures of the University of Oxford, Mr. Hepworth Dixon
+fortunately found a rough sketch of the real house, from which sketch
+Mr. E.M. Ward drew the vignette that embellishes the title-page of 'The
+Story of Lord Bacon's Life.'
+
+After the expulsion of the Great Seal from old York House, it wandered
+from house to house, manifesting, however, in its selections of London
+quarters, a preference for the grand line of thoroughfare between
+Charing Cross and the foot of Ludgate Hill. Escaping from the
+Westminster Deanery, where Williams kept it in a box, the _Clavis Regni_
+inhabited Durham House, Strand, whilst under Lord Keeper Coventry's
+care. Lord Keeper Littleton, until he made his famous ride from London
+to York, lived in Exeter House. Clarendon resided in Dorset House,
+Salisbury Court, Fleet Street, and subsequently in Worcester House,
+Strand, before he removed to the magnificent palace which aroused the
+indignation of the public in St. James's Street. The greater and happier
+part of his official life was passed in Worcester House. There he held
+councils in his bedroom when he was laid up with gout; there King
+Charles visited him familiarly, even condescending to be present to the
+bedside councils; and there he was established when the Great Fire of
+London caused him, in a panic, to send his most valuable furniture to
+his Villa at Twickenham. Thanet House, Aldersgate Street, is the
+residence with which Shaftesbury, the politician, is most generally
+associated; but whilst he was Lord Chancellor he occupied Exeter House,
+Strand, formerly the abode of Keeper Littleton. Lord Nottingham slept
+with the seals under his pillow in Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn
+Fields, the same street in which his successor, Lord Guildford, had the
+establishment so racily described by his brother, Roger North. And Lord
+Jeffreys moving westward, gave noisy dinners in Duke Street,
+Westminster, where he opened a court-house that was afterwards
+consecrated as a place of worship, and is still known as the Duke Street
+Chapel. Says Pennant, describing the Chancellor's residence, "It is
+easily known by a large flight of stone steps, which his royal master
+permitted to be made into the park adjacent for the accommodation of his
+lordship. These steps terminate above in a small court, on three sides
+of which stands the house." The steps still remain, but their history is
+unknown to many of the habitual frequenters of the chapel. After
+Jefferys' fall the spacious and imposing mansion, where the
+_bon-vivants_ of the bar used to drink inordinately with the wits and
+buffoons of the London theatres, was occupied by Government; and there
+the Lords of the Admiralty had their offices until they moved to their
+quarters opposite Scotland Yard. Narcissus Luttrell's Diary contains the
+following entry:--"April 23, 1690. The late Lord Chancellor's house at
+Westminster is taken for the Lords of the Admiralty to keep the
+Admiralty Office at."
+
+William III., wishing to fix the holders of the Great Seal in a
+permanent official home, selected Powis House (more generally known by
+the name of Newcastle House), in Lincoln's Inn Fields, as a residence
+for Somers and future Chancellors. The Treasury minute books preserve an
+entry of September 11, 1696, directing a Privy Seal to "discharge the
+process for the apprised value of the house, and to declare the king's
+pleasure that the Lord Keeper or Lord Chancellor for the time being
+should have and enjoy it for the accommodation of their offices." Soon
+after his appointment to the seals, Somers took possession of this
+mansion at the north-west corner of the Fields; and after him Lord
+Keeper Sir Nathan Wright, Lord Chancellor Cowper, and Lord Chancellor
+Harcourt used it as an official residence. But the arrangement was not
+acceptable to the legal dignitaries. They preferred to dwell in their
+private houses, from which they were not liable to be driven by a change
+of ministry or a grist of popular disfavor. In the year 1711 the mansion
+was therefore sold to John Holles, Duke of Newcastle, to whom it is
+indebted for the name which it still bears. This large, unsightly
+mansion is known to every one who lives in London, and has any knowledge
+of the political and social life of the earlier Georgian courtiers and
+statesmen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS.
+
+
+The annals of the legal profession show that the neighborhood of
+Guildhall was a favorite place of residence with the ancient lawyers,
+who either held judicial offices within the circle of the Lord Mayor's
+jurisdiction, or whose practice lay chiefly in the civic courts. In the
+fifteenth and sixteenth centuries there was quite a colony of jurists
+hard by the temple of Gogmagog and Cosineus--or Gog and Magog, as the
+grotesque giants are designated by the unlearned, who know not the
+history of the two famous effigies, which originally figured in an
+Elizabethan pageant, stirring the wonder of the illiterate, and
+reminding scholars of two mythical heroes about whom the curious reader
+of this paragraph may learn further particulars by referring to Michael
+Drayton's 'Polyolbion.'
+
+In Milk Street, Cheapside, lived Sir John More, judge in the Court of
+King's Bench; and in Milk street, A.D. 1480, was born Sir John's famous
+son Thomas, the Chancellor, who was at the same time learned and simple,
+witty and pious, notable for gentle meekness and firm resolve, abounding
+with tenderness and hot with courage. Richard Rich--who beyond Scroggs
+or Jeffreys deserves to be remembered as the arch-scoundrel of the legal
+profession--was one of Thomas More's playmates and boon companions for
+several years of their boyhood and youth. Richard's father was an
+opulent mercer, and one of Sir John's near neighbors; so the youngsters
+were intimate until Master Dick, exhibiting at an early age his vicious
+propensities, came to be "esteemed very light of his tongue, a great
+dicer and gamester, and not of any commendable fame."
+
+On marrying his first wife Sir Thomas More settled in a house in
+Bucklersbury, the City being the proper quarter for his residence, as he
+was an under-sheriff of the city of London, in which character he both
+sat in the Court of the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs, and presided over a
+separate court on the Thursday of each week. Whilst living in
+Bucklersbury he had chambers in Lincoln's Inn. On leaving Bucklersbury
+he took a house in Crosby Place, from which he moved, in 1523, to
+Chelsea, in which parish he built the house that was eventually pulled
+down by Sir Hans Sloane in the year 1740.
+
+A generation later, Sir Nicholas Bacon was living in Noble Street,
+Foster Lane, where he had built the mansion known as Bacon House, in
+which he resided till, as Lord Keeper, he took possession of York House.
+Chief Justice Bramston lived, at different parts of his career, in
+Whitechapel; in Philip Lane, Aldermanbury; and (after his removal from
+Bosworth Court) in Warwick Lane, Sir John Bramston (the autobiographer)
+married into a house in Charterhouse Yard, where his father, the Chief
+Justice, resided with him for a short time.
+
+But from an early date, and especially during the seventeenth and
+eighteenth centuries, the more prosperous of the working lawyers either
+lived within the walls of the Inns, or in houses lying near the law
+colleges. Fleet Street, the Strand, Holborn, Chancery Lane, and the good
+streets leading into those thoroughfares, contained a numerous legal
+population in the times between Elizabeth's death and George III.'s
+first illness. Rich benchers and Judges wishing for more commodious
+quarters than they could obtain at any cost within college-walls,
+erected mansions in the immediate vicinity of their Inns; and their
+example was followed by less exalted and less opulent members of the bar
+and judicial bench. The great Lord Strafford first saw the light in
+Chancery Lane, in the house of his maternal grandfather, who was a
+bencher of Lincoln's Inn. Lincoln's Inn Fields was principally built for
+the accommodation of wealthy lawyers; and in Charles II.'s reign Queen
+Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields was in high repute with legal magnates. Sir
+Edward Coke lived alternately in chambers, and in Hatton House, Holborn,
+the palace that came to him by his second marriage. John Kelyng's house
+stood in Hatton Garden, and there he died in 1671. In his mansion in
+Lincoln's Inn Fields, Sir Harbottle Grimston, on June 25, 1660 (shortly
+before his appointment to the Mastership of the Rolls, for which place
+he is said to have given Clarendon £8000), entertained Charles II. and a
+grand gathering of noble company. After his marriage Francis North took
+his high-born bride into chambers, which they inhabited for a short time
+until a house in Chancery Lane, near Serjeants' Inn, was ready for
+their use. On Nov. 15, 1666,--the year of the fire of London, in which
+year Hyde had his town house in the Strand--Glyn died in his house, in
+Portugal Row, Lincoln's Inn Fields. On June 15, 1691, Henry Pollexfen,
+Chief Justice of Common Pleas, expired in his mansion in Lincoln's Inn
+Fields. These addresses--taken from a list of legal addresses lying
+before the writer--indicate with sufficient clearness the quarter of the
+town in which Charles II.'s lawyers mostly resided.
+
+Under Charles II. the population of the Inns was such that barristers
+wishing to marry could not easily obtain commodious quarters within
+College-walls. Dugdale observes "that all but the benchers go two to a
+chamber: a bencher hath only the privilege of a chamber to himself." He
+adds--"if there be any one chamber consisting of two parts, and the one
+part exceeds the other in value, and he who hath the best part sells the
+same, yet the purchaser shall enter into the worst part; for it is a
+certain rule that the auntient in the chamber--_viz._, he who was
+therein first admitted, without respect to their antiquity in the house,
+hath his choice of either part." This custom of sharing chambers gave
+rise to the word 'chumming,' an abbreviation of 'chambering.' Barristers
+in the present time often share a chamber--_i.e._, set of rooms. In the
+seventeenth century an utter-barrister found the half of a set of rooms
+inconveniently narrow quarters for himself and wife. By arranging
+privately with a non-resident brother of the long robe, he sometimes
+obtained an entire "chamber," and had the space allotted to a bencher.
+When he could not make such an arrangement, he usually moved to a house
+outside the gate, but in the immediate vicinity of his inn, as soon as
+his lady presented him with children, if not sooner.
+
+Of course working, as well as idle, members of the profession were found
+in other quarters. Some still lived in the City; others preferred more
+fashionable districts. Roger North, brother of the Lord Keeper and son
+of a peer, lived in the Piazza of Covent Garden, in the house formerly
+occupied Lely the painter. To this house Sir Dudley North moved from his
+costly and dark mansion in the City, and in it he shortly afterwards
+died, under the hands of Dr. Radcliffe and the prosperous apothecary,
+Mr. St. Amand. "He had removed," writes Roger, "from his great house in
+the City, and came to that in the Piazza which Sir Peter Lely formerly
+used, and I had lived in alone for divers years. We were so much
+together, and my incumbrances so small, that so large a house might hold
+us both." Roger was a practicing barrister and Recorder of Bristol.
+
+During his latter years Sir John Bramston (the autobiographer) kept
+house in Greek Street, Soho.
+
+In the time of Charles II. the wealthy lawyers often maintained suburban
+villas, where they enjoyed the air and pastimes of the country. When his
+wife's health failed, Francis North took a villa for her at Hammersmith,
+"for the advantage of better air, which he thought beneficial for her;"
+and whilst his household tarried there, he never slept at his chambers
+in town, "but always went home to his family, and was seldom an evening
+without company agreeable to him." In his latter years, Chief Justice
+Pemberton had a rural mansion in Highgate, where his death occurred on
+June 10, 1699, in the 74th year of his age. A pleasant chapter might be
+written on the suburban seats of our great lawyers from the Restoration
+down to the present time. Lord Mansfield's 'Kenwood' is dear to all who
+are curious in legal _ana_. Charles Yorke had a villa at Highgate, where
+he entertained his political and personal friends. Holland, the
+architect, built a villa at Dulwich for Lord Thurlow; and in consequence
+of a quarrel between the Chancellor and the builder, the former took
+such a dislike to the house, that after its completion he never slept a
+night in it, though he often passed his holidays in a small lodge
+standing in the grounds of the villa. "Lord Thurlow," asked a lady of
+him, as he was leaving the Queen's Drawing-room, "when are you going
+into your new house?" "Madam," answered the surly Chancellor, incensed
+by her curiosity, "the Queen has asked me that impudent question, and I
+would not answer her; I will not tell you." For years Loughborough and
+Erskine had houses in Hampstead. "In Lord Mansfield's time," Erskine
+once said to Lord Campbell, "although the King's Bench monopolized all
+the common-law business, the court often rose at one or two o'clock--the
+papers, special, crown, and peremptory, being cleared; and then I
+refreshed myself by a drive to my villa at Hampstead." It was on
+Hampstead Heath that Loughborough, meeting Erskine in the dusk, said,
+"Erskine, you must not take Paine's brief;" and received the prompt
+reply, "But I have been retained, and I will take it, by G-d!" Much of
+that which is most pleasant in Erskine's career occurred at his
+Hampstead villa. Of Lord Kenyon's weekly trips from his mansion in
+Lincoln's Inn Fields to his farm-house at Richmond notice has been taken
+in a previous chapter. The memory of Charles Abbott's Hendon villa is
+preserved in the name, style, and title of Lord Tenterden, of Hendon, in
+the county of Middlesex. Indeed, lawyers have for many generations
+manifested much fondness for fresh air; the impure atmosphere of their
+courts in past time apparently whetting their appetites for wholesome
+breezes.
+
+Throughout the eighteenth century Lincoln's Inn Fields, an open though
+disorderly spot, was a great place for the residence of legal magnates.
+Somers, Nathan Wright, Cowper, Harcourt, successively inhabited Powis
+House. Chief Justice Parker (subsequently Lord Chancellor Macclesfield)
+lived there when he engaged Philip Yorke (then an attorney's articled
+clerk, but afterwards Lord Chancellor of England) to be his son's law
+tutor. On the south side of the square, Lord Chancellor Henley kept high
+state in the family mansion that descended to him on the death of his
+elder brother, and subsequently passed into the hands of the Surgeons,
+whose modest but convenient college stands upon its site. Wedderburn and
+Erskine had their mansions in Lincoln's Inn Fields, as well as their
+suburban villas. And between the lawyers of the Restoration and the
+judges of George III.'s reign, a large proportion of our most eminent
+jurists and advocates lived in that square and the adjoining streets;
+such as Queen Street on the west, Serle Street, Carey Street, Portugal
+Street, Chancery Lane, on the south and south-east. The reader, let it
+be observed, may not infer that this quarter was confined to legal
+residents. The lawyers were the most conspicuous and influential
+occupants; but they had for neighbors people of higher quality, who,
+attracted to the square by its openness, or the convenience of its site,
+or the proximity of the law colleges, made it their place of abode in
+London. Such names as those of the Earl of Lindsey and the Earl of
+Sandwich in the seventeenth, and of the Duke of Ancaster and the Duke of
+Newcastle in the eighteenth century, establish the patrician character
+of the quarter for many years. Moreover, from the books of popular
+antiquaries, a long list might be made of wits, men of science, and
+minor celebrities, who, though in no way personally connected with the
+law, lived during the same period under the shadow of Lincoln's Inn.
+
+Whilst Lincoln's Inn Fields took rank amongst the most aristocratic
+quarters of the town, it was as disorderly a square as could be found in
+all London. Royal suggestions, the labors of a learned committee
+especially appointed by James I. to decide on a proper system of
+architecture, and Inigo Jones's magnificent but abortive scheme had but
+a poor result. In Queen Anne's reign, and for twenty years later, the
+open space of the fields was daily crowded with beggars, mountebanks,
+and noisy rabble; and it was the scene of constant uproar and frequent
+riots. As soon as a nobleman's coach drew up before one of the
+surrounding mansions, a mob of half-naked rascals swarmed about the
+equipage, asking for alms in alternate tones of entreaty and menace.
+Pugilistic encounters, and fights resembling the faction fights of an
+Irish row, were of daily occurrence there; and when the rabble decided
+on torturing a bull with dogs, the wretched beast was tied to a stake in
+the centre of the wide area, and there baited in the presence of a
+ferocious multitude, and to the diversion of fashionable ladies, who
+watched the scene from their drawing-room windows. The Sacheverell
+outrage was wildest in this chosen quarter of noblemen and blackguards;
+and in George II.'s reign, when Sir Joseph Jekyll, the Master of the
+Rolls, made himself odious to the lowest class by his Act for laying an
+excise upon gin, a mob assailed him in the middle of the fields, threw
+him to the ground, kicked him over and over, and savagely trampled upon
+him. It was a marvel that he escaped with his life; but with
+characteristic good humor, he soon made a joke of his ill-usage, saying
+that until the mob made him their football he had never been master of
+_all_ the _rolls_. Soon after this outbreak of popular violence, the
+inhabitants enclosed the middle of the area with palisades, and turned
+the enclosure into an ornamental garden. Describing the Fields in 1736,
+the year in which the obnoxious Act concerning gin became law, James
+Ralph says, "Several of the original houses still remain, to be a
+reproach to the rest; and I wish the disadvantageous comparison had
+been a warning to others to have avoided a like mistake.... But this is
+not the only quarrel I have to Lincoln's Inn Fields. The area is capable
+of the highest improvement, might be made a credit to the whole city,
+and do honor to those who live round it; whereas at present no place can
+be more contemptible or forbidding; in short, it serves only as a
+nursery for beggars and thieves, and is a daily reflection on those who
+suffer it to be in its abandoned condition."
+
+During the eighteenth century, a tendency to establish themselves in the
+western portion of the town was discernible amongst the great law lords.
+For instance, Lord Cowper, who during his tenure of the seals resided in
+Powis House, during his latter years occupied a mansion in Great George
+Street, Westminster--once a most fashionable locality, but now a street
+almost entirely given up to civil engineers, who have offices there, but
+usually live elsewhere. In like manner, Lord Harcourt, moving westwards
+from Lincoln's Inn Fields, established himself in Cavendish Square. Lord
+Henley, on retiring from the family mansion in Lincoln's Inn Fields,
+settled in Grosvenor Square. Lord Camden lived in Hill Street, Berkeley
+Square. On being entrusted with the sole custody of the seals, Lord
+Apsley (better known as Lord Chancellor Bathurst) made his first
+state-progress to Westminster Hall from his house in Dean Street, Soho;
+but afterwards moving farther west, he built Apsley House (familiar to
+every Englishman as the late Duke of Wellington's town mansion) upon the
+site of Squire Western's favorite inn--the 'Hercules' Pillars.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE OLD LAW QUARTER.
+
+
+Fifteen years since the writer of this page used to dine with a
+conveyancer--a lawyer of an old and almost obsolete school--who had a
+numerous household, and kept a hospitable table in Lincoln's Inn Fields;
+but the conveyancer was almost the last of his species. The householding
+legal _resident_ of the Fields, like the domestic resident of the
+Temple, has become a feature of the past. Among the ordinary nocturnal
+population of the square called Lincoln's Inn Fields, may be found a few
+solicitors who sleep by night where they work by day, and a sprinkling
+of young barristers and law students who have residential chambers in
+grand houses that less than a century since were tenanted by members of
+a proud and splendid aristocracy; but the gentle families have by this
+time altogether disappeared from the mansions.
+
+But long before this aristocratic secession, the lawyers took possession
+of a new quarter. The great charm of Lincoln's Inn Fields had been the
+freshness of the air which played over the open space. So also the
+recommendation of Great Queen Street had been the purity of its rural
+atmosphere. Built between 1630 and 1730, that thoroughfare--at present
+hemmed in by fetid courts and narrow passages--caught the keen breezes
+of Hampstead, and long maintained a character for salubrity as well as
+fashion. Of those fine squares and imposing streets which lie between
+High Holborn and Hampstead, not a stone had been laid when the ground
+covered by the present Freemason's Tavern was one of the most desirable
+sites of the metropolis. Indeed, the houses between Holborn and Great
+Queen Street were not erected till the mansions on the south side of
+the latter thoroughfare--built long before the northern side--had for
+years commanded an unbroken view of Holborn Fields. Notwithstanding many
+gloomy predictions of the evils that would necessarily follow from
+over-building, London steadily increased, and enterprising architects
+deprived Lincoln's Inn Fields and Great Queen Street of their rural
+qualities. Crossing Holborn, the lawyers settled on a virgin plain
+beyond the ugly houses which had sprung up on the north of Great Queen
+Street, and on the country side of Holborn. Speedily a new quarter
+arose, extending from Gray's Inn on the east to Southampton Row on the
+West, and lying between Holborn and the line of Ormond Street, Red Lion
+Street, Bedford Row, Great Ormond Street, Little Ormond Street, Great
+James Street, and Little James Street were amongst its best
+thoroughfares; in its centre was Red Lion Square, and in its
+northwestern corner lay Queen's Square. Steadily enlarging its
+boundaries, it comprised at later dates Guildford Street, John's Street,
+Doughty Street, Mecklenburgh Square, Brunswick Square, Bloomsbury
+Square, Russell Square, Bedford Square--indeed, all the region lying
+between Gray's Inn Lane (on the east), Tottenham Court Road (on the
+west), Holborn (on the south), and a line running along the north of the
+Foundling Hospital and 'the squares.' Of course this large residential
+district was more than the lawyers required for themselves. It became
+and long remained a favorite quarter with merchants, physicians,[2] and
+surgeons; and until a recent date it comprised the mansions of many
+leading members of the aristocracy. But from its first commencement it
+was so intimately associated with the legal profession that it was often
+called the 'law quarter;' and the writer of this page has often heard
+elderly ladies and gentlemen speak of it as the 'old law quarter.'
+
+Although lawyers were the earliest householders in this new quarter, its
+chief architect encountered at first strong opposition from a section of
+the legal profession. Anxious to preserve the rural character of their
+neighborhood, the gentlemen of Gray's Inn were greatly displeased with
+the proposal to lay out Holborn Fields in streets and squares. Under
+date June 10, 1684, Narcissus Luttrell wrote in his diary--"Dr.
+Barebone, the great builder, having some time since bought the Red Lyon
+Fields, near Graie's Inn walks, to build on, and having for that purpose
+employed severall workmen to goe on with the same, the gentlemen of
+Graie's Inn took notice of it, and, thinking it an injury to them, went
+with a considerable body of 100 persons; upon which the workmen
+assaulted the gentlemen, and flung bricks at them, and the gentlemen at
+them again. So a sharp engagement ensued, but the gentlemen routed them
+at last, and brought away one or two of the workmen to Graie's Inn; in
+this skirmish one or two of the gentlemen and servants of the house were
+hurt, and severall of the workmen."
+
+James Ralph's remarks on the principal localities of this district are
+interesting. "Bedford Row," he says, "is one of the most noble streets
+that London has to boast of, and yet there is not one house in it which
+deserves the least attention." He tells us that "Ormond Street is
+another place of pleasure, and that side of it next the Fields is,
+beyond question, one of the most charming situations about town." This
+'place of pleasure' is now given up for the most part to hospitals and
+other charitable institutions, and to lodging-houses of an inferior
+sort. Passing on to Bloomsbury Square, and speaking of the Duke of
+Bedford's residence, which stood on the North side of the square, he
+says, "Then behind it has the advantage of most agreeable gardens, and a
+view of the country, which would make a retreat from the town almost
+unnecessary, besides the opportunity of exhibiting another prospect of
+the building, which would enrich the landscape and challenge new
+approbation." This was written in 1736. At that time the years of two
+generations were appointed to pass away ere the removal of Bedford House
+should make way for Lower Bedford Place, leading into Russell Square.
+
+So late as the opening years of George III.'s reign, Queen's Square
+enjoyed an unbroken prospect in the direction of Highgate and Hampstead.
+'The Foreigner's Guide: or a Necessary and Instructive Companion both to
+the Foreigner and Native, in their Tours through the Cities of London
+and Westminster' (1763), contains the following passage:--"Queen's
+Square, which is pleasantly situated at the extreme part of the town,
+has a fine open view of the country, and is handsomely built, as are
+likewise the neighboring streets--viz., Southampton Row, Ormond Street,
+&c. In this last is Powis House, so named from the Marquis of Powis, who
+built the present stately structure in the year 1713. It is now the town
+residence of the Earl of Hardwicke, late Lord Chancellor. The
+apartments are noble, and the whole edifice is commendable for its
+situation, and the fine prospect of the country. Not far from thence is
+Bloomsbury Square. This square is commendable for its situation and
+largeness. On the North side is the house of the Duke of Bedford. This
+building was erected from a design of Inigo Jones, and is very elegant
+and spacious." From the duke's house in Bloomsbury Square and his
+surrounding property, the political party, of which he was the Chief,
+obtained the nickname of the Bloomsbury Gang.
+
+Chief Justice Holt died March 5, 1710, at his house[3] in Bedford Row.
+In Red Lion Square Chief Justice Raymond had the town mansion wherein he
+died on April 15, 1733; twelve years after Sir John Pratt, Lord Camden's
+father, died at his house in Ormond Street. On December 15, 1761, Chief
+Justice Willes died at his house in Bloomsbury Square. Chagrin at
+missing the seals through his own arrogance, when they had been actually
+offered to him, was supposed to be a principal cause of the Chief
+Justice's death. His friends represented that he died of a broken heart;
+to which assertion flippant enemies responded that no man ever had a
+heart after living seventy-four years. Murray for many years inhabited a
+handsome house in Lincoln's Inn Fields; but his name is more generally
+associated with Bloomsbury Square, where stood the house which was
+sacked and burnt by the Gordon rioters. In Bloomsbury Square our
+grandfathers used to lounge, watching the house of Edward Law,
+subsequently Lord Ellenborough, in the hope of seeing Mrs. Law, as she
+watered the flowers of her balcony. Mrs. Law's maiden name was Towry,
+and, as a beauty, she remained for years the rage of London. Even at
+this date there remain a few aged gentlemen whose eyes sparkle and whose
+checks flush when they recall the charms of the lovely creature who
+became the wife of ungainly Edward Law, after refusing him on three
+separate occasions.
+
+On becoming Lord Ellenborough and Chief Justice, Edward Law moved to a
+great mansion in St. James's Square, the size of which he described to a
+friend by saying: "Sir, if you let off a piece of ordnance in the hall,
+the report is not heard in the bedrooms." In this house the Chief
+Justice expired, on December 13, 1818. Speaking of Lord Ellenborough's
+residence in St. James's Square, Lord Campbell says: "This was the first
+instance of a common law judge moving to the 'West End.' Hitherto all
+the common law judges had lived within a radius of half a mile from
+Lincoln's Inn; but they are now spread over the Regent's Park, Hyde Park
+Gardens, and Kensington Gore."
+
+Lord Harwicke and Lord Thurlow have been more than once mentioned as
+inhabitants of Ormond Street.
+
+Eldon's residences may be noticed with advantage in this place. On
+leaving Oxford and settling in London, he took a small house for himself
+and Mrs. Scott in Cursitor Street, Chancery Lane. About this dwelling he
+wrote to his brother Henry:--"I have got a house barely sufficient to
+hold my small family, which (so great is the demand for them here) will,
+in rent and taxes, cost me annually six pounds." To this house he used
+to point in the days of his prosperity, and, in allusion to the poverty
+which he never experienced, he would add, "There was my first perch.
+Many a time have I run down from Cursitor Street to Fleet Market and
+bought sixpenn'orth of sprats for our supper." After leaving Cursitor
+Street, he lived in Carey Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, where also, in
+his later years, he believed himself to have endured such want of money
+that he and his wife were glad to fill themselves with sprats. When he
+fixed this anecdote upon Carey Street, the old Chancellor used to
+represent himself as buying the sprats in Clare Market instead of Fleet
+Market. After some successful years he moved his household from the
+vicinity of Lincoln's Inn, and took a house in the law quarter,
+selecting one of the roomy houses (No. 42) of Gower Street, where he
+lived when as Attorney General he conducted the futile prosecutions of
+Hardy, Horne Tooke, and Thelwall, in 1794.
+
+On quitting Gower Street, Eldon took the house in Bedford Square, which
+witnessed so many strange scenes during his tenure of the seals, and
+also during his brief exclusion from office. In Bedford Square he played
+the part of chivalric protector to the Princess of Wales, and chuckled
+over the proof-sheets of that mysterious 'book' by the publication of
+which the injured wife and the lawyer hoped to take vengeance on their
+common enemy. There the Chancellor, feeling it well to protract his
+flirtation with the Princess of Wales, entertained her in the June of
+1808, with a grand banquet, from which Lady Eldon was compelled by
+indisposition to be absent. And there, four years later, when he was
+satisfied that her Royal Highness's good opinion could be of no service
+to him, the crafty, self-seeking minister gave a still more splendid
+dinner to the husband whose vices he had professed to abhor, whose
+meanness of spirit he had declared the object of his contempt.
+"However," writes Lord Campbell, with much satiric humor, describing
+this alliance between the selfish voluptuary and the equally selfish
+lawyer, "he was much comforted by having the honor, at the prorogation,
+of entertaining at dinner his Royal Highness the Regent, with whom he
+was now a special favorite, and who, enjoying the splendid hospitality
+of Bedford Square, forgot that the Princess of Wales had sat in the same
+room; at the same table; on the same chair; had drunk of the same wine;
+out of the same cup; while the conversation had turned on her barbarous
+usage, and the best means of publishing to the world _her_ wrongs and
+_his_ misconduct."
+
+Another of the Prince Regent's visits to Bedford Square is surrounded
+with comic circumstances and associations. In the April of 1815, a
+mastership of chancery became vacant by the death of Mr. Morris; and
+forthwith the Chancellor was assailed with entreaties from every
+direction for the vacant post. For two months Eldon, pursuing that
+policy of which he was a consummate master, delayed to appoint; but
+on June 23, he disgusted the bar and shocked the more intelligent
+section of London society, by conferring the post on Jekyll, the
+courtly _bon vivant_ and witty descendant of Sir Joseph Jekyll, Master
+of the Rolls. Amiable, popular, and brilliant, Jekyll received the
+congratulations of his numerous personal friends; but beyond the
+circle of his private acquaintance the appointment created lively
+dissatisfaction--dissatisfaction which was heightened rather than
+diminished by the knowledge that the placeman's good fortune was
+entirely due to the personal importunity of the Prince Regent, who
+called at the Chancellor's house, and having forced his way into the
+bedroom, to which Eldon was confined by an attack of gout, refused
+to take his departure without a promise that his friend should have
+the vacant place. How this royal influence was applied to the
+Chancellor, is told in the 'Anecdote Book.'
+
+Fortunately Jekyll was less incompetent for the post than his enemies
+had declared, and his friends admitted. He proved a respectable master,
+and held his post until age and sickness compelled him to resign it;
+and then, sustained in spirits by the usual retiring pension, he
+sauntered on right mirthfully into the valley of the shadow of death. On
+the day after his retirement, the jocose veteran, meeting Eldon in the
+street, observed:--"Yesterday, Lord Chancellor, I was your master;
+to-day I am my own."
+
+From Bedford Square, Lord Eldon, for once following the fashion, moved
+to Hamilton Place, Piccadilly. With the purpose of annoying him the
+'Queen's friends,' during the height of the 'Queen Caroline agitation,'
+proposed to buy the house adjoining the Chancellor's residence in
+Hamilton Place, and to fit it up for the habitation of that not
+altogether meritorious lady. Such an arrangement would have been an
+humiliating as well as exasperating insult to a lawyer who, as long as
+the excitement about the poor woman lasted, would have been liable to
+affront whenever he left his house or looked through the windows facing
+Hamilton Place. The same mob that delighted in hallooing round whatever
+house the Queen honored with her presence, would have varied their
+'hurrahs' for the lady with groans for the lawyer who, after making her
+wrongs the stalking-horse of his ambition, had become one of her chief
+oppressors. Eldon determined to leave Hamilton Place on the day which
+should see the Queen enter it; and hearing that the Lords of the
+Treasury were about to assist her with money for the purchase of the
+house, he wrote to Lord Liverpool, protesting against an arrangement
+which would subject him to annoyance at home and to ridicule out of
+doors. "I should," he wrote, "be very unwilling to state anything
+offensively, but I cannot but express my confidence that Government will
+not aid a project which must remove the Chancellor from his house the
+next hour that it takes effect, and from his office at the same time."
+This decided attitude caused the Government to withdraw their
+countenance from the project; whereupon a public subscription was opened
+for its accomplishment. Sufficient funds were immediately proffered; and
+the owner of the mansion had verbally made terms with the patriots, when
+the Chancellor, outbidding them, bought the house himself. "I had no
+other means," he wrote to his daughter, "of preventing the destruction
+of my present house as a place in which I could live, or which anybody
+else would take. The purchase-money is large, but I have already had
+such offers, that I shall not, I think, lose by it."
+
+Russell Square--where Lord Loughborough (who knows aught of the Earl of
+Rosslyn?) had his town house, after leaving Lincoln's Inn Fields, and
+where Charles Abbott (Lord Tenterden) established himself on leaving the
+house in Queen Square, into which he married during the summer of
+1795--maintained a quasi-fashionable repute much later than the older
+and therefore more interesting parts of the 'old law quarter.' Theodore
+Hook's disdain for Bloomsbury is not rightly appreciated by those who
+fail to bear in mind that the Russell Square of Hook's time was tenanted
+by people who--though they were unknown to 'fashion,' in the sense given
+to the word by men of Brummel's habit and tone--had undeniable status
+amongst the aristocracy and gentry of England. With some justice the
+witty writer has been charged with snobbish vulgarity because he
+ridiculed humble Bloomsbury for being humble. His best defence is found
+in the fact that his extravagant scorn was not directed at helpless and
+altogether obscure persons so much as at an educated and well-born class
+who laughed at his caricatures, and gave dinners at which he was proud
+to be present. Though it fails to clear the novelist of the special
+charge, this apology has a certain amount of truth; and in so far as it
+palliates some of his offences against good taste and gentle feeling, by
+all means let him have the full benefit of it. Criticism can afford to
+be charitable to the clever, worthless man, now that no one admires or
+tries to respect him. Again, it may be advanced, in Hook's behalf, that
+political animosity--a less despicable, though not less hurtful passion
+than love of gentility--contributed to Hook's dislike of the quarter on
+the north side of Holborn. As a humorist he ridiculed, as a panderer to
+fashionable prejudices he sneered at, Bloomsbury; but as a tory he
+cherished a genuine antagonism to the district of town that was
+associated in the public mind with the wealth and ascendency of the
+house of Bedford. Anyhow, the Russell Square neighborhood--although it
+was no longer fashionable, as Belgravia and Mayfair are fashionable at
+the present day--remained the locality of many important families, at
+the time when Mr. Theodore Hook was pleased to assume that no one above
+the condition of a rich tradesman or second-rate attorney lived in it.
+Of the lawyers whose names are mournfully associated with the square
+itself are Sir Samuel Romilly and Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd. In 1818, the
+year of his destruction by his own hand, Sir Samuel Romilly lived there;
+and Talfourd had a house on the east side of the square up to the time
+of his lamented death in 1854.
+
+That Theodore Hook's ridicule of Bloomsbury greatly lessened for a time
+the value of its houses there is abundant evidence. When he deluged the
+district with scornful satire, his voice was a social power, to which a
+considerable number of honest people paid servile respect. His clever
+words were repeated; and Bloomsbury having become a popular by-word for
+contempt, aristocratic families ceased to live, and were reluctant to
+invest money, in its well-built mansions. But Hook only accelerated a
+movement which had for years been steadily though silently making
+progress. Erskine knew Red Lion Square when every house was occupied by
+a lawyer of wealth and eminence, if not of titular rank; but before he
+quitted the stage, barristers had relinquished the ground in favor of
+opulent shopkeepers. When an ironmonger became the occupant of a house
+in Red Lion Square on the removal of a distinguished counsel, Erskine
+wrote the epigram--
+
+   "This house, where once a lawyer dwelt,
+     Is now a smith's,--alas!
+   How rapidly the iron age
+     Succeeds the age of brass."
+
+These lines point to a minor change in the social arrangements of
+London, which began with the century, and was still in progress when
+Erskine had for years been mouldering in his grave. In 1823, the year of
+Erskine's death, Chief Baron Richards expired in his town house, in
+Great Ormond Street. In the July of the following year Baron
+Wood--_i.e._, George Wood, the famous special pleader--died at his house
+in Bedford Square, about seventeen months after his resignation of his
+seat in the Court of Exchequer to John Hullock.
+
+At the present time the legal fraternity has deserted Bloomsbury. The
+last of the Judges to depart was Chief Baron Pollock, who sold his great
+house in Queen Square at a quite recent date. With the disappearance of
+this venerable and universally respected judge, the legal history of the
+neighborhood may be said to have closed. Some wealthy solicitors still
+live in Russell Square and the adjoining streets; a few old-fashioned
+barristers still linger in Upper Bedford Place and Lower Bedford Place.
+Guilford Street and Doughty Street, and the adjacent thoroughfares of
+the same class, still number a sprinkling of rising juniors, literary
+barristers, and fairly prosperous attorneys. Perhaps the ancient aroma
+of the 'old law quarter'--Mesopotamia, us it is now disrespectfully
+termed--is still strong and pleasant enough to attract a few lawyers who
+cherish a sentimental fondness for the past. A survey of the Post Office
+Directory creates an impression that, compared with other neighborhoods,
+the district north and northeast of Bloomsbury Square still possesses
+more than an average number of legal residents; but it no longer remains
+the quarter of the lawyers.
+
+There still resides in Mecklenburgh Square a learned Queen's Counsel,
+for whose preservation the prayers of the neighborhood constantly
+ascend. To his more scholarly and polite neighbors this gentleman is an
+object of intellectual interest and anxious affection. As the last of an
+extinct species, as a still animate Dodo, as a lordly Mohican who has
+outlived his tribe, this isolated counselor of her Gracious Majesty is
+watched by heedful eyes whenever he crosses his threshold. In the
+morning, as he paces from his dwelling to chambers, his way down Doughty
+Street and John Street, and through Gray's Inn Gardens, is guarded by
+men anxious for his safety. Shreds of orange-peel are whisked from the
+pavement on which he is about to tread; and when he crosses Holborn he
+walks between those who would imperil their lives to rescue him from
+danger. The gatekeeper in Doughty Street daily makes him low obeisance,
+knowing the historic value and interest of his courtly presence.
+Occasionally the inhabitants of Mecklenburgh Square whisper a fear that
+some sad morning their Q.C. may flit away without giving them a warning.
+Long may it be before the residents of the 'Old Law Quarter' shall wail
+over the fulfillment of this dismal anticipation!
+
+[2] Dr. Clench lived in Brownlow Street, Holborn; and until his death,
+in 1831, John Abernethy occupied in Bedford Row the house which is still
+inhabited by an eminent surgeon, who was Abernethy's favorite pupil. Of
+Dr. Clench's death in January, 1691-2, Narcissus Luttrell gives the
+following account: "The 5th, last night, Dr. Clench, the physician, was
+strangled in a coach; two persons came to his house in Brownlow Street,
+Holborn, in a coach, and pretended to carry him to a patient's in the
+City; they drove backward and forward, and after some time stopt by
+Leadenhall, and sent the coachman to buy a couple of fowls for supper,
+who went accordingly; and in the meantime they slipt away, and the
+coachman when he returned found Dr. Clench with a handkerchief tyed
+about his neck, with a hard sea-coal twisted in it, and clapt against
+his windpipe; he had spirits applied to him and other means, but too
+late, he having been dead some time." Dr. Clench's murderer, one Mr.
+Harrison, a man of gentle condition, was apprehended, tried, found
+guilty, and hung in chains.
+
+[3] Holt's country seat was Redgrave Hall, formerly the home of the
+Bacons. It was on his manor of Redgrave, that Sir Nicholas Bacon
+entertained Queen Elizabeth, when she remarked that her Lord Keeper's
+house was too small for him, and he answered--"Your Majesty has made me
+too great for my house."
+
+
+
+
+PART II.
+
+LOVES OF THE LAWYERS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+A LOTTERY.
+
+
+"I would compare the multitude of women which are to be chosen for wives
+unto a bag full of snakes, having among them a single eel; now if a man
+should put his hand into this bag, he may chance to light on the eel;
+but it is an hundred to one he shall be stung by a snake."
+
+These words were often heard from the lips of that honest judge, Sir
+John More, whose son Thomas stirred from brain to foot by the bright
+eyes, and snowy neck, and flowing locks of _cara Elizabetha_ (the _cara
+Elizabetha_ of a more recent Tom More was 'Bessie, my darling')--penned
+those warm and sweetly-flowing verses which delight scholars of the
+present generation, and of which the following lines are neither the
+least musical nor the least characteristic:--
+
+   "Jam subit illa dies quæ ludentem obtulit olim
+     Inter virgineos te mibi prima choros.
+   Lactea cum flavi decuerunt colla capilli,
+     Cum gena par nivibus visa, labella rosis:
+   Cum tua perstringunt oculos duo sydera nostros
+     Perque oculos intrant in mea corda meos."
+
+The goddess of love played the poet more than one droll trick. Having
+approached her with musical flattery, he fled from her with fear and
+abhorrence. For a time the highest and holiest of human affections was
+to his darkened mind no more than a carnal appetite; and he strove to
+conquer the emotions which he feared would rouse within him a riot of
+impious passions. With fasting and cruel discipline he would fain have
+killed the devil that agitated him, whenever he passed a pretty girl in
+the street. As a lay Carthusian he wore a hair-shirt next his skin,
+disciplined his bare back with scourges, slept on the cold ground or a
+hard bench, and by a score other strong measures sought to preserve his
+spiritual by ruining his bodily health. But nature was too powerful for
+unwholesome doctrine and usage, and before he rashly took a celibatic
+vow, he knelt to fair Jane Colt--and rising, kissed her on the lips.
+
+When spiritual counsel had removed his conscientious objections to
+matrimony, he could not condescend to marry for love, but must,
+forsooth, choose his wife in obedience to considerations of compassion
+and mercy. Loving her younger sister, he paid his addresses to Jane,
+because he shrunk from the injustice of putting the junior above the
+older of the two girls. "Sir Thomas having determined, by the advice and
+direction of his ghostly father, to be a married man, there was at that
+time a pleasant conceited gentleman of an ancient family in Essex, one
+Mr. John Colt, of New Hall, that invited him into his house, being much
+delighted in his company, proffering unto him the choice of any of his
+daughters, who were young gentlewomen of very good carriage, good
+complexions, and very religiously inclined; whose honest and sweet
+conversation and virtuous education enticed Sir Thomas not a little; and
+although his affection most served him to the second, for that he
+thought her the fairest and best favored, yet when he thought within
+himself that it would be a grief and some blemish to the eldest to have
+the younger sister preferred before her, he, out of a kind of
+compassion, settled his fancy upon the eldest, and soon after married
+her with all his friends' good liking."
+
+The marriage was a fair happy union, but its duration was short. After
+giving birth to four children Jane died, leaving the young husband, who
+had instructed her sedulously, to mourn her sincerely. That his sorrow
+was poignant may be easily believed; for her death deprived him of a
+docile pupil, as well as a dutiful wife.
+
+"Virginem duxit admodum puellam," Erasmus says of his friend, "claro
+genere natam, rudem adhuc utpote ruri inter parentes ac sorores semper
+habitam, quo magis illi liceret illam ad suos mores fingere. Hanc et
+literis instruendam curavit, et omni musices genere doctam reddidit."
+Here is another insight into the considerations which brought about the
+marriage. When he set out in search of a wife, he wished to capture a
+simple, unsophisticated, untaught country girl, whose ignorance of the
+world should incline her to rely on his superior knowledge, and the
+deficiencies of whose intellectual training should leave him an ample
+field for educational experiments. Seeking this he naturally turned his
+steps toward the eastern countries; and in Essex he found the young
+lady, who to the last learnt with intelligence and zeal the lessons
+which he set her.
+
+More's second choice of a wife was less fortunate than his first.
+Wanting a woman to take care of his children and preside over his rather
+numerous establishment, he made an offer to a widow, named Alice
+Middleton. Plain and homely in appearance and taste, Mistress Alice
+would have been invaluable to Sir Thomas as a superior domestic servant,
+but his good judgment and taste deserted him when he decided to make
+her a closer companion. Bustling, keen, loquacious, tart, the good dame
+scolded servants and petty tradesmen with admirable effect; but even at
+this distance of time the sensitive ear is pained by her sharp,
+garrulous tongue, when its acerbity and virulence are turned against her
+pacific and scholarly husband. A smile follows the recollection that he
+endeavored to soften her manners and elevate her nature by a system of
+culture similar to that by which Jane Colt, 'admodum puella,' had been
+formed and raised into a polished gentlewoman. Past forty years of age,
+Mistress Alice was required to educate herself anew. Erasmus assures his
+readers that "though verging on old age, and not of a yielding temper,"
+she was prevailed upon "to take lessons on the lute, the cithara, the
+viol, the monochord, and the flute, which she daily practised to him."
+
+It has been the fashion with biographers to speak bitterly of this poor
+woman, and to pity More for his cruel fate in being united to a
+termagant. No one has any compassion for her. Sir Thomas is the victim;
+Mistress Alice the shrill virago. In those days, when every historic
+reprobate finds an apologist, is there no one to say a word in behalf of
+the Widow Middleton, whose lot in life and death seems to this writer
+very pitiable? She was quick in temper, slow in brain, domineering,
+awkward. To rouse sympathy for such a woman is no easy task; but if
+wretchedness is a title to compassion, Mistress Alice has a right to
+charity and gentle usage. It _was not_ her fault that she could not
+sympathize with her grand husband, in his studies and tastes, his lofty
+life and voluntary death; it _was_ her misfortune that his steps
+traversed plains high above her own moral and intellectual level. By
+social theory they were intimate companions; in reality, no man and
+woman in all England were wider apart. From his elevation he looked
+down on her with commiseration that was heightened by curiosity and
+amazement; and she daily writhed under his gracious condescension and
+passionless urbanity; under her own consciousness of inferiority and
+consequent self-scorn. He could no more sympathize with her petty aims,
+than she with the high views and ambitions; and conjugal sympathy was
+far more necessary to her than to him. His studious friends and clever
+children afforded him an abundance of human fellowship; his public cares
+and intellectual pursuits gave him constant diversion. He stood in such
+small need of her, that if some benevolent fairy had suddenly endowed
+her with grace, wisdom, and understanding, the sum of his satisfaction
+would not have been perceptibly altered. But apart from him she had no
+sufficient enjoyments. His genuine companionship was requisite for her
+happiness; but for this society nature had endowed her with no fitness.
+In the case of an unhappy marriage, where the unhappiness is not caused
+by actual misconduct, but is solely due to incongruity of tastes and
+capacities, it is cruel to assume that the superior person of the
+ill-assorted couple has the stronger claim to sympathy.
+
+Finding his wife less tractable than he wished, More withheld his
+confidence from her, taking the most important steps of his life,
+without either asking for her advice, or even announcing the course
+which he was about to take. His resignation of the seals was announced
+to her on the day _after_ his retirement from office, and in a manner
+which, notwithstanding its drollery, would greatly pain any woman of
+ordinary sensibility. The day following the date of his resignation was
+a holiday; and in accordance with his usage the ex-Chancellor, together
+with his household, attended service in Chelsea Church. On her way to
+church, Lady More returned the greetings of her friends with a
+stateliness not unseemly at that ceremonious time in one who was the
+lady of the Lord High Chancellor. At the conclusion of service, ere she
+left her pew, the intelligence was broken to her in a jest that she had
+lost her cherished dignity. "And whereas upon the holidays during his
+High Chancellorship one of his gentlemen, when the service of the church
+was done, ordinarily used to come to my lady his wife's pew-door, and
+say unto her '_Madam, my lord is gone_,' he came into my lady his wife's
+pew himself, and making a low courtesy, said unto her, 'Madam, my lord
+is gone,' which she, imagining to be but one of his jests, as he used
+many unto her, he sadly affirmed unto her that it was true. This was the
+way he thought fittest to break the matter unto his wife, who was full
+of sorrow to hear it."
+
+Equally humorous and pathetic was that memorable interview between More
+and his wife in the Tower, when she, regarding his position by the
+lights with which nature had endowed her, counseled him to yield even at
+that late moment to the king. "What the goodyear, Mr. More!" she cried,
+bustling up to the tranquil and courageous man. "I marvel that you, who
+have been hitherto always taken for a wise man, will now so play the
+fool as to lie here in this close, filthy prison, and be content to be
+shut up thus with mice and rats, when you might be abroad at your
+liberty, with the favor and good-will both of the king and his council,
+if you would but do as the bishops and best learned of his realm have
+done; and, seeing you have at Chelsea a right fair house, your library,
+your books, your gallery, and all other necessaries so handsome about
+you, where you might, in company with me, your wife, your children, and
+household, be merry, I muse what, in God's name, you mean, here thus
+fondly to tarry." Having heard her out--preserving his good-humor, he
+said to her, with a cheerful countenance, "I pray thee, good Mrs.
+Alice, tell me one thing!" "What is it?" saith she, "Is not this house
+as near heaven as my own?"
+
+Sir Thomas More was looking towards heaven.
+
+Mistress Alice had her eye upon the 'right fair house' at Chelsea.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+GOOD QUEEN BESS.
+
+
+Amongst the eminent men who are frequently mentioned as notorious
+suitors for the personal affection of Queen Elizabeth, a conspicuous
+place is awarded to Hatton, by the scandalous memoirs of his time and
+the romantic traditions of later ages. Historians of the present
+generation have accepted without suspicion the story that Hatton was
+Elizabeth's amorous courtier, that the fanciful letters of 'Lydds' were
+fervent solicitations for response to his passion; that he won her favor
+and his successive promotions by timely exhibition of personal grace and
+steady perseverance in flattery. Campbell speaks of the queen and her
+chancellor as 'lovers;' and the view of the historian has been upheld by
+novelists and dramatic writers.
+
+The writer of this page ventures to reject a story which is not
+consistent with truth, and casts a dark suspicion on her who was not
+more powerful as a queen than virtuous as a woman.
+
+For illustrations of lovers' pranks amongst the Elizabethan lawyers, the
+reader must pass to two great judges, the inferior of whom was a far
+greater man than Christopher Hatton. Rivals in law and politics, Bacon
+and Coke were also rivals in love. Having wooed the same proud, lovely,
+capricious, violent woman, the one was blessed with failure, and the
+other was cursed with success.
+
+Until a revolution in the popular estimate of Bacon was effected by Mr.
+Hepworth Dixon's vindication of that great man, it was generally
+believed that love was no appreciable element in his nature. Delight in
+vain display occupied in his affections the place which should have been
+held by devotion to womanly beauty and goodness; he had sneered at love
+in an essay, and his cold heart never rebelled against the doctrine of
+his clever brain; he wooed his notorious cousin for the sake of power,
+and then married Alice Barnham for money. Such was the theory, the most
+solid foundation of which was a humorous treatise,[4] misread and
+misapplied.
+
+The lady's wealth, rank, and personal attractions were in truth the only
+facts countenancing the suggestion that Francis Bacon proffered suit to
+his fair cousin from interested motives. Notwithstanding her defects of
+temper, no one denies that she was a woman qualified by nature to rouse
+the passion of man. A wit and beauty, she was mistress of the arts which
+heighten the powers of feminine tact and loveliness. The daughter of Sir
+Thomas Cecil, the grandchild of Lord Burleigh, she was Francis Bacon's
+near relation; and though the Cecils were not inclined to help him to
+fortune, he was nevertheless one of their connection, and consequently
+often found himself in familiar conversation with the bright and
+fascinating woman. Doubtless she played with him, persuading herself
+that she merely treated him with cousinly cordiality, when she was
+designedly making him her lover. The marvel was that she did not give
+him her hand; that he sought it is no occasion for surprise--or for
+insinuations that he coveted her wealth. Biography is by turns
+mischievously communicative and vexatiously silent. That Bacon loved Sir
+William Hatton's widow, and induced Essex to support his suit, and that
+rejecting him she gave herself to his enemy, we know; but history tells
+us nothing of the secret struggle which preceded the lady's resolution
+to become the wife of an unalluring, ungracious, peevish, middle-aged
+widower. She must have felt some tenderness for her cousin, whose
+comeliness spoke to every eye, whose wit was extolled by every lip.
+Perhaps she, like many others, had misread the essay 'Of Love,' and felt
+herself bound in honor to bring the philosopher to his knees at her
+feet. It is credible that from the outset of their sentimental
+intercourse, she intended to win and then to flout him. But coquetry
+cannot conquer the first laws of human feeling. To be a good flirt, a
+woman must have nerve and a sympathetic nature; and doubtless the flirt
+in this instance paid for her triumph with the smart of a lasting wound.
+Is it fanciful to argue that her subsequent violence and misconduct, her
+impatience of control and scandalous disrespect for her aged husband,
+may have been in some part due to the sacrifice of personal inclination
+which she made in accepting Coke at the entreaty of prudent and selfish
+relations--and to the contrast, perpetually haunting her, between what
+she was as Sir Edward's termagant partner, and what she might have been
+as Francis Bacon's wife?
+
+She consented to a marriage with Edward Coke, but was so ashamed of her
+choice, that she insisted on a private celebration of their union,
+although Archbishop Whitgift had recently raised his voice against the
+scandal of clandestine weddings, and had actually forbidden them. In the
+face of the primate's edict the ill-assorted couple were united in
+wedlock, without license or publication of banns, by a country parson,
+who braved the displeasure of Whitgift, in order that he might secure
+the favor of a secular patron. The wedding-day was November 24, 1598,
+the bridegroom's first wife having been buried on the 24th of the
+previous July.[5] On learning the violation of his orders, the
+archbishop was so incensed that he resolved to excommunicate the
+offenders, and actually instituted for that purpose legal proceedings,
+which were not dropped until bride and bridegroom humbly sued for
+pardon, pleading ignorance of law in excuse of their misbehavior.
+
+The scandalous consequences of that marriage are known to every reader
+who has laughed over the more pungent and comic scenes of English
+history. Whilst Lady Hatton gave masques and balls in the superb palace
+which came into her possession through marriage with Sir Christopher
+Hatton's nephew, Coke lived in his chambers, working at cases and
+writing the books which are still carefully studied by every young man
+who wishes to make himself a master of our law. In private they had
+perpetual squabbles, and they quarrelled with equal virulence and
+indecency before the world. The matrimonial settlement of their only and
+ill-starred daughter was the occasion of an outbreak on the part of
+husband and wife, that not only furnished diversion for courtiers but
+agitated the council table. Of all the comic scenes connected with that
+unseemly _fracas_, not the least laughable and characteristic was the
+grand festival of reconciliation at Hatton House, when Lady Hatton
+received the king and queen in Holborn, and expressly forbade her
+husband to presume to show himself among her guests. "The expectancy of
+Sir Edward's rising," says a writer of the period,[6] "is much abated by
+reason of his lady's liberty,[7] who was brought in great honor to
+Exeter House by my Lord of Buckingham from Sir William Craven's, whither
+she had been remanded, presented by his lordship to the king, received
+gracious usage, reconciled to her daughter by his Majesty, and her house
+in Holborn enlightened by his presence at a dinner, where there was a
+royal feast; and to make it more absolutely her own, express
+commandment given by her ladyship, that neither Sir Edward Coke nor any
+of his servants should be admitted."
+
+If tradition may be credited, the law is greatly indebted to the class
+of women whom it was our forefathers' barbarous wont to punish with the
+ducking-stool. Had Coke been happy in his second marriage, it is assumed
+that he would have spent more time in pleasure and fewer hours at his
+desk, that the suitors in his court would have had less careful
+decisions, and that posterity would have been favored with fewer
+reports. If the inference is just, society may point to the commentary
+on Littleton, and be thankful for the lady's unhappy temper and sharp
+tongue. In like manner the wits of the following century maintained that
+Holt's steady application to business was a consequence of domestic
+misery. The lady who ruled his house in Bedford Row, is said to have
+been such a virago, that the Chief Justice frequently retired to his
+chambers, in order that he might place himself beyond reach of her
+voice. Amongst the good stories told of Radcliffe, the Tory physician,
+is the tradition of his boast, that he kept Lady Holt alive out of pure
+political animosity to the Whig Chief Justice. Another eminent lawyer,
+over whose troubles people have made merry in the same fashion, was
+Jeffrey Gilbert, Baron of the Exchequer. At his death, October 14, 1726,
+this learned judge left behind him that mass of reports, histories, and
+treatises by which he is known as one of the most luminous, as well as
+voluminous of legal writers. None of his works passed through the press
+during his life, and when their number and value were discovered after
+his departure to another world, it was whispered that they had been
+composed in hours of banishment from a hearth where a _scolding wife_
+made misery for all who came within the range of her querulous notes.
+
+Disappointed in his suit to his beautiful and domineering cousin, Bacon
+let some five or six years pass before he allowed his thoughts again to
+turn to love, and then he wooed and waited for nearly three years more,
+ere, on a bright May day, he met Alice Barnham in Marylebone Chapel, and
+made her his wife in the presence of a courtly company. In the July of
+1603, he wrote to Cecil:--"For this divulged and almost prostituted
+title of knighthood, I could, without charge by your honor's mean, be
+content to have it, both because of this late disgrace, and because I
+have three new knights in my mess in Gray's Inn Commons, and because I
+have found out an alderman's daughter, a handsome maiden, to my liking.
+So as if your honor will find the time, I will come to the court from
+Gorhambury upon any warning." This expression, 'an alderman's daughter,'
+contributed greatly, if it did not give rise to, the misapprehension
+that Bacon's marriage was a mercenary arrangement. In these later times
+the social status of an alderman is so much beneath the rank of a
+distinguished member of the bar, that a successful queen's counsel, who
+should make an offer to the daughter of a City magistrate, would be
+regarded as bent upon a decidedly unambitious match; and if in a
+significant tone he spoke of the lady as 'an alderman's daughter' his
+words might be reasonably construed as a hint that her fortune atoned
+for her want of rank. But it never occurred to Bacon's contemporaries to
+put such a construction on the announcement. Far from using the words in
+an apologetic manner, the lover meant them to express concisely that
+Alice Barnham was a lady of suitable condition to bear a title as well
+as to become his bride. Cecil regarded them merely as an assurance that
+his relative meditated a suitable and even advantageous alliance, just
+as any statesman of the present day would read an announcement that a
+kinsman, making his way in the law-courts, intended to marry 'an
+admiral's daughter' or a 'bishop's daughter.' That it was the reverse of
+a mercenary marriage, Mr. Hepworth Dixon has indisputably proved in his
+eighth chapter of 'The Story of Lord Bacon's Life,' where he contrasts
+Lady Bacon's modest fortune with her husband's personal acquisitions and
+prospects.
+
+[4] To readers who have no sense of humor and irony, the essay 'Of Love'
+unquestionably gives countenance to the theory that Francis Bacon was
+cold and passionless in all that concerned woman. Of the many strange
+constructions put upon this essay, not the least amusing and perverse is
+that which would make it a piece of adroit flattery to Elizabeth, who
+never permitted love "to check with business," though she is represented
+to have used it as a diversion in idle moments. If Sir Thomas More's
+'Utopia' had been published a quarter of a century after 1518 (the date
+of its appearance), a similar construction would have been put on the
+passage, which urges that lovers should not be bound by an indissoluble
+tie of wedlock, until mutual inspection has satisfied each of the
+contracting parties that the other does not labor under any grave
+personal defect. If it were possible to regard the passage containing
+this proposal as an interpolation in the original romance, it might then
+be regarded as an attempt to palliate Henry VIII.'s conduct to Anne of
+Cleves.
+
+[5] When due allowance has been made for the difference between the
+usages of the sixteenth century and the present time, decency was
+signally violated by this marriage, which followed so soon upon Mrs.
+Coke's death, and still sooner upon the death of Lady Hatton's famous
+grandfather, at whose funeral the lawyer made the first overtures for
+her hand. Mrs. Coke died June 27, 1598, and was buried at Huntingfield,
+co. Suffolk, July 24, 1598. Lord Burleigh expired on August 4, of the
+same year. Coke's first marriage was not unhappy; and on the death of
+his wife by that union, he wrote in his note-book:--"Most beloved and
+most excellent wife, she well and happily lived, and, as a true handmaid
+of the Lord, fell asleep in the Lord, and now lives and reigns in
+heaven." In after years he often wished most cordially that he could say
+_as much_ for his second wife.
+
+[6] Strafford's Letters and Despatches, I. 5.
+
+[7] Lady Hatton never used her second husband's name either before or
+after his knighthood. A good case, touching the customary right of a
+married lady to bear the name, and take her title from the rank of a
+former husband, is that of Sir Dudley North, Charles II.'s notorious
+sheriff of London. The son of an English peer, he married Lady Gunning,
+the widow of a wealthy civic knight, and daughter of Sir Robert Cann, "a
+morose old merchant of Bristol"--the same magistrate whom Judge
+Jeffreys, in terms not less just than emphatic, upbraided for his
+connection with, or to speak moderately, his connivance at, the Bristol
+kidnappers. It might be thought that the merchant's daughter, on her
+marriage with a peer's son, would be well content to relinquish the
+title of Lady Gunning; but Roger North tells us that his brother Dudley
+accepted knighthood, in order that he might avoid giving offence to the
+city, and also, in order that his wife might be called Lady North, and
+not Lady Gunning.--_Vide Life of the Hon. Sir Dudley North._ After Sir
+Thomas Wilde (subsequently Lord Truro), married Augusta Emma d'Este, the
+daughter of the duke of Sussex and Lady Augusta Murray, that lady, of
+whose legitimacy Sir Thomas had vainly endeavored to convince the House
+of Lords, retained her maiden surname. In society she was generally
+known as the Princess d'Este, and the bilious satirists of the Inns of
+Court used to speak of Sir Thomas as 'the Prince.' It was said that one
+of Wilde's familiar associates, soon after the lawyer's marriage, called
+at his house and asked if the Princess d'Este was at home. "No, sir,"
+replied the servant, "the Princess d'Este is not at home, but the Prince
+is!" That this malicious story obtained a wide currency is not
+wonderful; that it is a truthful anecdote the writer of this book would
+not like to pledge his credit. The case of Sir John Campbell and Lady
+Strathedon, was a notable instance of a lawyer and his wife bearing
+different names. Raised to the peerage, with the title of Baroness
+Stratheden, the first Lord Abinger's eldest daughter was indebted to her
+husband for an honor that made him her social inferior. Many readers
+will remember a droll story of a misapprehension caused by her
+ladyship's title. During an official journey, Sir John Campbell and
+Baroness Stratheden slept at lodgings which he had frequently occupied
+as a circuiteer. On the morning after his arrival, the landlady obtained
+a special interview with Campbell, and in the baroness's absence thus
+addressed him, with mingled indignation and respectfulness:--"Sir John
+Campbell, I am a lone widow, and live by my good name. It is not in my
+humble place to be too curious about the ladies brought to my lodgings
+by counsellors and judges. It is not in me to make remarks if a
+counsellor's lady changes the color of her eyes, and her complexion
+every assizes. But, Sir John, a gentleman ought not to bring a lady to a
+lone widow's lodgings, unless so long as he 'okkipies' the apartments he
+makes all honorable professions that the lady is his wife, and as such
+gives her the use of his name."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+REJECTED ADDRESSES.
+
+
+No lawyer of the Second Charles's time surpassed Francis North in love
+of money, or was more firmly resolved not to marry, without due and
+substantial consideration.
+
+His first proposal was for the daughter of a Gray's Inn money-lender.
+Usury was not a less contemptible vocation in the seventeenth century
+than it is at the present time; and most young barristers of gentle
+descent and fair prospects would have preferred any lot to the
+degradation of marriage with the child of the most fortunate usurer in
+Charles II.'s London. But the Hon. Francis North was placed comfortably
+_beneath_ the prejudices of his order and time of life. He was of noble
+birth, but quite ready to marry into a plebeian family; he was young,
+but loved money more than aught else. So his hearing was quickened and
+his blood beat merrily when, one fine morning, "there came to him a
+recommendation of a lady, who was an only daughter of an old usurer in
+Gray's Inn, supposed to be a good fortune in present, for her father was
+rich; but, after his death, to become worth, nobody could tell what."
+One would like to know how that 'recommendation of a lady' reached the
+lawyer's chambers; above all, who sent it?
+
+"His lordship," continues Roger North, "got a sight of the lady, and did
+not dislike her; thereupon he made the old man a visit, and a proposal
+of himself to marry his daughter." By all means let this ingenuous,
+high-spirited Templar have a fair judgment. He would not have sold
+himself to just any woman. He required a _maximum_ of wealth with a
+_minimum_ of personal repulsiveness. He therefore 'took a sight of the
+lady' (it does not appear that he talked with her) before he committed
+himself irrevocably by a proposal. The _sight_ having been taken, as he
+did not dislike her (mind, he did not positively like her) he made the
+old man a visit. Loving money, and believing in it, this 'old man'
+wished to secure as much of it as possible for his only child; and
+therefore looking keenly at the youthful admirer of a usurer's heiress,
+"asked him what estate his father intended to settle upon him for
+present maintenance, jointure, and provision for children." Mildly and
+not unjustly Roger calls this "an inauspicious question." It was so
+inauspicious that Mr. Francis North abruptly terminated the discussion
+by wishing the usurer good-morning. So ended Love Affair No. 1.
+
+Having lost his dear companion, Mr. Edward Palmer, son of the powerful
+Sir Geoffry Palmer, Mr. Francis North soon regarded his friend's wife
+with tender longing. It was only natural that he should desire to
+mitigate his sorrow for the dead by possession of the woman who was
+"left a flourishing widow, and very rich." But the lady knew her worth,
+as well she might, for "never was lady more closely besieged with
+wooers: she had no less than five younger sons sat down before her at
+one time, and she kept them well in hand, as they say, giving no
+definite answers to any of one of them." Small respect did Mistress
+Edward Palmer show her late husband's most intimate friend. For weeks
+she tortured the wretched, knavish fellow with coquettish tricks, and
+having rendered him miserable in many ways, made him ludicrous by
+jilting him. "He was held at the long saw above a month, doing his duty
+as well as he might, and that was but clumsily; for he neither dressed
+nor danced, when his rivals were adroit at both, and the lady used to
+shuffle her favors amongst them affectedly, and on purpose to mortify
+his lordship, and at the same time be as civil to him, with like purpose
+to mortify them." Poor Mr. Francis! Well may his brother write
+indignantly, "It was very grievous to him--that had his thoughts upon
+his clients' concerns, which came in thick upon him--to be held in a
+course of bo-peep play with a crafty widow." At length, "after a
+clancular proceeding," this crafty widow, by marrying "a jolly knight of
+a good estate," set her victims free; and Mr. Francis was at liberty to
+look elsewhere for a lapful of money.
+
+Roger North tells the story of the third affair so concisely and pithily
+that his exact words must be put before the reader:--"Another
+proposition came to his lordship," writes the fraternal biographer,
+giving Francis North credit for the title he subsequently won, although
+at the time under consideration he was plain _Mister_ North, on the keen
+look-out for the place of Solicitor General, "by a city broker, from Sir
+John Lawrence, who had many daughters, and those reputed beauties; and
+the fortune was to be £6000. His lordship went and dined with the
+alderman, and liked the lady, who (as the way is) was dressed out for a
+muster. And coming to treat, the portion shrank to £5000, and upon that
+his lordship parted, and was not gone far before Mr. Broker (following)
+came to him, and said Sir John would give £500 more at the birth of the
+first child; but that would not do, for his lordship hated such
+screwing. Not long after this dispute, his lordship was made the King's
+Solicitor General, and then the broker came again, with news that Sir
+John would give £10,000. 'No,' his lordship said, 'after such usage he
+would not proceed if he might have £20,000.'" The intervention of the
+broker in this negotiation is delightfully suggestive. More should have
+been said about him--his name, address, and terms for doing business.
+Was he paid for his services on all that he could save from a certain
+sum beyond which his employer would not advance a single gold-piece for
+the disposal of his child? Were there, in olden time, men who avowed
+themselves 'Heart and Jointure Brokers, Agents for Lovers of both Sexes,
+Contractors of Mutual Attachments, Wholesale and Retail Dealers in
+Reciprocal Affection, and General Referees, Respondents, and Insurers in
+all Sentimental Affairs, Clandestine or otherwise?'
+
+After these mischances Francis North made an eligible match under
+somewhat singular circumstances. As co-heiresses of Thomas, Earl of
+Down, three sisters, the Ladies Pope, claimed under certain settlements
+large estates of inheritance, to which Lady Elizabeth Lee set up a
+counter claim. North, acting as Lady Elizabeth Lee's counsel, effected a
+compromise which secured half the property in dispute to his client, and
+diminished by one-half the fortunes to which each of the three suitors
+on the other side had maintained their right. Having thus reduced the
+estate of Lady Frances Pope to a fortune estimated at about £14,000, the
+lawyer proposed for her hand, and was accepted. After his marriage,
+alluding to his exertions in behalf of Lady Elizabeth Lee's very
+disputable claim, he used to say that "he had been counsel against
+himself;" but Roger North frankly admits that "if this question had not
+come to such a composition, which diminished the ladies' fortunes, his
+brother had never compassed his match."
+
+It was not without reluctance that the Countess of Downs consented to
+the union of her daughter with the lawyer who had half ruined her, and
+who (though he was Solicitor General and in fine practice) could settle
+only £5000 upon the lady. "I well remember," observes Roger, "the good
+countess had some qualms, and complained that she knew not how she could
+justify what she had done (meaning the marrying her daughters with no
+better settlement)." To these qualms Francis North, with lawyer-like
+coolness, answered--"Madam, if you meet with any question about that,
+_say_ that your daughter has £1000 per annum jointure."
+
+The marriage was celebrated in Wroxton Church; and after bountiful
+rejoicings with certain loyalist families of Oxfordshire, the happy
+couple went up to London and lived in chambers until they moved into a
+house in Chancery Lane.
+
+It may surprise some readers of this book to learn that George Jeffreys,
+the odious judge of the Bloody Circuit, was a successful gallant. Tall,
+well-shaped, and endowed by nature with a pleasant countenance and
+agreeable features, Jeffreys was one of the most fascinating men of his
+time. A wit and a _bon-vivant_, he could hit the humor of the roystering
+cavaliers who surrounded the 'merry monarch;' a man of gallantry and
+polite accomplishments, he was acceptable to women of society. The same
+tongue that bullied from the bench, when witnesses were perverse or
+counsel unruly, could flatter with such melodious affectation of
+sincerity, that he was known as a most delightful companion. As a
+musical connoisseur he spoke with authority; as a teller of good stories
+he had no equal in town. Even those who detested him did not venture to
+deny that in the discharge of his judicial offices he could at his
+pleasure assume a dignity and urbane composure that well became the seat
+of justice. In short, his talents and graces were so various and
+effective, that he would have risen to the bench, even if he had labored
+under the disadvantages of pure morality and amiable temper.
+
+Women declared him irresistible. At court he had the ear of Nell Gwyn
+and the Duchess of Portsmouth--the Protestant favorite and the Catholic
+mistress; and before he attained the privilege of entering Whitehall--at
+a time when his creditors were urgent, and his best clients were the
+inferior attorneys of the city courts--he was loved by virtuous girls.
+He was still poor, unknown, and struggling with difficulties, when he
+induced an heiress to accept his suit,--the daughter of a rural squire
+whose wine the barrister had drunk upon circuit. This young lady was
+wooed under circumstances of peculiar difficulty; and she promised to
+elope with him if her father refused to receive him as a son-in-law.
+Ill-luck befell the scheme; and whilst young Jeffreys was waiting in
+the Temple for the letter which should decide his movements, an
+intimation reached him that elopement was impossible and union
+forbidden. The bearer of this bad news was a young lady--the child of a
+poor clergyman--who had been the confidential friend and paid companion
+of the squire's daughter.
+
+The case was hard for Jeffreys, cruel for the fair messenger. He had
+lost an advantageous match, she had lost her daily bread. Furious with
+her for having acted as the _confidante_ of the clandestine lovers, the
+squire had turned this poor girl out of his house; and she had come to
+London to seek for employment as well as to report the disaster.
+
+Jeffreys saw her overpowered with trouble and shame--penniless in the
+great city, and disgraced by expulsion from her patron's roof. Seeing
+that her abject plight was the consequence of amiable readiness to serve
+him, Jeffreys pitied and consoled her. Most young men would have soothed
+their consciences and dried the running tears with a gift of money or a
+letter recommending the outcast to a new employer. As she was pretty, a
+libertine would have tried to seduce her. In Jeffreys, compassion roused
+a still finer sentiment: he loved the poor girl and married her. On May
+23, 1667, Sarah Neesham was married to George Jeffreys of the Inner
+Temple; and her father, in proof of his complete forgiveness of her
+_escapade_, gave her a fortune of £300--a sum which the poor clergyman
+could not well afford to bestow on the newly married couple.
+
+Having outlived Sarah Neesham, Jeffreys married again--taking for his
+second wife a widow whose father was Sir Thomas Bludworth, ex-Lord Mayor
+of London. Whether rumor treated her unjustly it is impossible to say at
+this distance of time; but if reliance may be put on many broad stories
+current about the lady, her conduct was by no means free from fault. She
+was reputed to entertain many lovers. Jeffreys would have created less
+scandal if, instead of taking her to his home, he had imitated the pious
+Sir Matthew Hale, who married his maid-servant, and on being twitted by
+the world with the lowliness of his choice, silenced his censors with a
+jest.
+
+Amongst the love affairs of seventeenth-century lawyers place must be
+made for mention of the second wife whom Chief Justice Bramston brought
+home from Ireland, where she had outlived two husbands (the Bishop of
+Clogher and Sir John Brereton), before she gave her hand to the judge
+who had loved her in his boyhood. "When I see her," says the Chief
+Justice's son, who describes the expedition to Dublin, and the return to
+London, "I confess I wondered at my father's love. She was low, fatt,
+red-faced; her dress, too, was a hat and ruff, which tho' she never
+changed to death. But my father, I believe, seeing me change
+countenance, told me it was not beautie, but virtue, he courted. I
+believe she had been handsome in her youth; she had a delicate, fine
+hand, white and plump, and indeed proved a good wife and mother-in-law,
+too." On her journey to Charles I.'s London, this elderly bride, in her
+antiquated attire, rode from Holyhead to Beaumaris on a pillion behind
+her step-son. "As she rode over the sandes," records her step-son,
+"behind mee, and pulling off her gloves, her wedding ringe fell off, and
+sunk instantly. She caused her man to alight; she sate still behind me,
+and kept her eye on the place, and directed her man, but he not guessing
+well, she leaped off, saying she would not stir without her ringe, it
+being the most unfortunate thinge that could befall any one to lose the
+wedding-ringe--made the man thrust his hand into the sands (the nature
+of which is not to bear any weight but passing), he pulled up sand, but
+not the ringe. She made him strip his arme and put it deeper into the
+sand, and pulled up the ringe; and this done, he and shee, and all that
+stood still, were sunk almost to the knees, but we were all pleased that
+the ringe was found."
+
+In the legal circle of Charles the Second's London, Lady King was
+notable as a virago whose shrill tongue disturbed her husband's peace of
+mind by day, and broke his rest at night. Earning a larger income than
+any other barrister of his time, he had little leisure for domestic
+society; but the few hours which he could have spent with his wife and
+children, he usually preferred to spend in a tavern, beyond the reach of
+his lady's sharp querulousness. "All his misfortune," says Roger North,
+"lay at home, in perverse consort, who always, after his day-labor done,
+entertained him with all the chagrin and peevishness imaginable; so that
+he went home as to his prison, or worse; and when the time came, rather
+than go home, he chose commonly to get a friend to go and sit in a free
+chat at the tavern, over a single bottle, till twelve or one at night,
+and then to work again at five in the morning. His fatigue in business,
+which, as I said, was more than ordinary to him, and his no comfort, or
+rather, discomfort at home, and taking his refreshment by excising his
+sleep, soon pulled him down; so that, after a short illness, he died."
+On his death-bed, however, he forgave the weeping woman, who, more
+through physical irritability than wicked design, had caused him so much
+undeserved discomfort; and by his last will and testament he made
+liberal provision for her wants. Having made his will, "he said, I am
+glad it is done," runs the memoir of Sir John King, written by his
+father, "and after took leave of his wife, who was full of tears; seeing
+it is the will of God, let us part quietly in friendship, with
+submissiveness to his will, as we came together in friendship by His
+will."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+"CICERO" UPON HIS TRIAL.
+
+
+A complete history of the loves of lawyers would notice many scandalous
+intrigues and disreputable alliances, and would comprise a good deal of
+literature for which the student would vainly look in the works of our
+best authors. From the days of Wolsey, whose amours were notorious, and
+whose illegitimate son became Dean of Wells, down to the present time of
+brighter though not unimpeachable morality, the domestic lives of our
+eminent judges and advocates have too frequently invited satire and
+justified regret. In the eighteenth century judges, without any loss of
+_caste_ or popular regard, openly maintained establishments that in
+these more decorous and actually better days would cover their keepers
+with obloquy. Attention could be directed to more than one legal family
+in which the descent must be traced through a succession of illegitimate
+births. Not only did eminent lawyers live openly with women who were not
+their wives, and with children whom the law declined to recognize as
+their offspring; but these women and children moved in good society,
+apparently indifferent to shame that brought upon them but few
+inconveniences. In Great Ormond Street, where a mistress and several
+illegitimate children formed his family circle, Lord Thurlow was visited
+by bishops and deans; and it is said that in 1806, when Sir James
+Mansfield, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, was invited to the
+woolsack and the peerage, he was induced to decline the offer more by
+consideration for his illegitimate children than by fears for the
+stability of the new administration.
+
+Speaking of Lord Thurlow's undisguised intercourse with Mrs. Hervey,
+Lord Campbell says, "When I first knew the profession, it would not
+have been endured that any one in a judicial situation should have had
+such a domestic establishment as Thurlow's; but a majority of judges had
+married their mistresses. The understanding then was that a man elevated
+to the bench, if he had a mistress, must either marry her or put her
+away. For many years there has been no necessity for such an
+alternative." Either Lord Campbell had not the keen appetite for
+professional gossip, with which he is ordinarily credited, or his
+conscience must have pricked him when he wrote, "For many years there
+has been no necessity for such an alternative." To show how far his
+lordship erred through want of information or defect of candor is not
+the duty of this page; but without making any statement that can wound
+private feeling, the present writer may observe that 'the
+understanding,' to which Lord Campbell draws attention, has affected the
+fortune of ladies within the present generation.
+
+That the bright and high-minded Somers was the debauchee that Mrs.
+Manley and Mr. Cooksey would have us believe him is incredible. It is
+doubtful if Mackey in his 'Sketch of Leading Characters at the English
+Court' had sufficient reasons for clouding his sunny picture of the
+statesman with the assertion that he was "something of a libertine." But
+there are occasions when prudence counsels us to pay attention to
+slander.
+
+Having raised himself to the office of Solicitor General, Somers, like
+Francis Bacon, found an alderman's daughter to his liking; and having
+formed a sincere attachment for her, he made his wishes known to her
+father. Miss Anne Bawdon's father was a wealthy merchant, styled Sir
+John Bawdon--a man proud of his civic station and riches, and thinking
+lightly of lawyers and law. When Somers stated his property and
+projects, the rental of his small landed estate and the buoyancy of his
+professional income, the opulent knight by no means approved the
+prospect offered to his child. The lawyer might die in the course of
+twelve months; in which case the Worcestershire estate would be still a
+small estate, and the professional income would cease. In twelve mouths
+Mr. Solicitor might be proved a scoundrel, for at heart all lawyers were
+arrant rogues; in which case matters would be still worse. Having
+regarded the question from these two points of view, Sir John Bawdon
+gave Somers his dismissal and married Miss Anne to a rich Turkey
+merchant. Three years later, when Somers had risen to the woolsack, and
+it was clear that the rich Turkey merchant would never be anything
+grander than a rich Turkey merchant, Sir John saw that he had made a
+serious blunder, for which his child certainly could not thank him. A
+goodly list might be made of cases where papas have erred and repented
+in Sir John Bawdon's fashion. Sir John Lawrence would have made his
+daughter a Lord Keeper's lady and a peeress, if he and his broker had
+dealt more liberally with Francis North. Had it not been for Sir Joseph
+Jekyll's counsel, Mr. Cocks, the Worcestershire squire, would have
+rejected Philip Yorke as an ineligible suitor, in which case _plain_
+Mrs. Lygon would never have been Lady Hardwicke, and worked her
+husband's twenty purses of state upon curtains and hangings of crimson
+velvet. And, if he were so inclined, this writer could point to a
+learned judge, who in his days of 'stuff' and 'guinea fees' was deemed
+an ineligible match for a country apothecary's pretty daughter. The
+country doctor being able to give his daughter £20,000, turned away
+disdainfully from the unknown 'junior,' who five years later was leading
+his circuit, and quickly rose to the high office which he still fills to
+the satisfaction of his country.
+
+Disappointed in his pursuit of Anne Bawdon, Somers never again made any
+woman an offer of marriage; but scandalous gossip accused him of immoral
+intercourse with his housekeeper. This woman's name was Blount; and
+while she resided with the Chancellor, fame whispered that her husband
+was still living. Not only was Somers charged with open adultery, but it
+was averred that for the sake of peace he had imprisoned in a madhouse
+his mistress's lawful husband, who was originally a Worcester tradesman.
+The chief authority for this startling imputation is Mrs. Manley, who
+was encouraged, if not actually paid, by Swift to lampoon his political
+adversaries. In her 'New Atalantis'--the 'Cicero' of which scandalous
+work was understood by its readers to signify 'Lord Somers,'--this
+shameless woman entertained quid-nuncs and women of fashion by putting
+this abominable story in written words, the coarseness of which accorded
+with the repulsiveness of the accusation.
+
+At a time when honest writers on current politics were punished with
+fine and imprisonment, the pillory and the whip, statesmen and
+ecclesiastics were not ashamed to keep such libellers as Mrs. Manley in
+their pay. That the reader may fully appreciate the change which time
+has wrought in the tone of political literature, let him contrast the
+virulence and malignity of this unpleasant passage from the New
+Atalantis, with the tone which recently characterized the public
+discussion of the case which is generally known by the name of 'The
+Edmunds Scandal.'
+
+Notwithstanding her notorious disregard of truth, it is scarcely
+credible that Mrs. Manley's scurrilous charge was in no way countenanced
+by facts. At the close of the seventeenth century to keep a mistress was
+scarcely regarded as an offence against good morals; and living in
+accordance with the fashion of the time, it is probable that Somers did
+that which Lord Thurlow, after an interval of a century, was able to do
+without rousing public disapproval. Had his private life been spotless,
+he would doubtless have taken legal steps to silence his traducer; and
+unsustained by a knowledge that he dared not court inquiry into his
+domestic arrangements, Mrs. Manley would have used her pen with greater
+caution. But all persons competent to form an opinion on the case have
+agreed that the more revolting charges of the indictment were the
+baseless fictions of a malicious and unclean mind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+BROTHERS IN TROUBLE.
+
+
+In the 'Philosophical Dictionary,' Voltaire, laboring under
+misapprehension or carried away by perverse humor, made the following
+strange announcement:--"Il est public en Angleterre, et on voudroit le
+nier en vain, que le Chancelier Cowper épousa deux femmes, qui vécurent
+ensemble dans sa maison avec une concorde singulière qui fit honneur à
+tous trois. Plusieurs curieux ont encore le petit livre que ce
+Chancelier composa en faveur de la Polygamie." Tickled by the
+extravagant credulity or grotesque malice of this declaration, an
+English wit, improving upon the published words, represented the
+Frenchman as maintaining that the custodian of the Great Seal of England
+was called the _Lord Keeper_, because, by English law, he was permitted
+to keep as many wives as he pleased.
+
+The reader's amusement will not be diminished by a brief statement of
+the facts to which we are indebted for Voltaire's assertions.
+
+William Cowper, the first earl of his line, began life with a reputation
+for dissipated tastes and habits, and by unpleasant experience he
+learned how difficult it is to get rid of a bad name. The son of a
+Hertfordshire baronet, he was still a law student when he formed a
+reprehensible connexion with an unmarried lady of that county--Miss (or,
+as she was called by the fashion of the day Mistress) Elizabeth Culling,
+of Hertingfordbury Park. But little is known of this woman. Her age is
+an affair of uncertainty, and all the minor circumstances of her
+intrigue with young William Cowper are open to doubt and conjecture; but
+the few known facts justify the inference that she neither merited nor
+found much pity in her disgrace, and that William erred through boyish
+indiscretion rather than from vicious propensity. She bore him two
+children, and he neither married her nor was required by public opinion
+to marry her. The respectability of their connexions gave the affair a
+peculiar interest, and afforded countenance to many groundless reports.
+By her friends it was intimated that the boy had not triumphed over the
+lady's virtue until he had made her a promise of marriage; and some
+persons even went so far as to assert that they were privately married.
+It is not unlikely that at one time the boy intended to make her his
+wife as soon as he should be independent of his father, and free to
+please himself. Beyond question, however, is it that they were never
+united in wedlock, and that Will Cowper joined the Home Circuit with the
+tenacious fame of a scapegrace and _roué_.
+
+That he was for any long period a man of dissolute morals is improbable;
+for he was only twenty-four years of age when he was called to the bar,
+and before his call he had married (after a year's wooing) a virtuous
+and exemplary young lady, with whom he lived happily for more than
+twenty years. A merchant's child, whose face was her fortune--Judith,
+the daughter of Sir Robert Booth, is extolled by biographers for
+reclaiming her young husband from a life of levity and culpable
+pleasure. That he loved her sincerely from the date of their imprudent
+marriage till the date of her death, which occurred just about six
+months before his elevation to the woolsack, there is abundant evidence.
+
+Judith died April 2, 1705, and in the September of the following year
+the Lord Keeper married Mary Clavering, the beautiful and virtuous lady
+of the bedchamber to Caroline Wilhelmina Dorothea, Princess of Wales.
+This lady was the Countess Cowper whose diary was published by Mr.
+Murray in the spring of 1864; and in every relation of life she was as
+good and noble a creature as her predecessor in William Cowper's
+affection. Of the loving terms on which she lived with her lord,
+conclusive testimony is found in their published letters and her diary.
+Frequently separated by his professional avocations and her duties of
+attendance upon the Princess of Wales, they maintained, during the
+periods of personal severance, a close and tender intercourse by written
+words; and at all other times, in sickness not less than in health, they
+were a fondly united couple. One pathetic entry in the countess's diary
+speaks eloquently of their nuptial tenderness and devotion:--"April 7th,
+1716. After dinner we went to Sir Godfrey Kneller's to see a picture of
+my lord, which he is drawing, and is the best that was ever done for
+him; it is for my drawing-room, and in the same posture that he watched
+me so many weeks in my great illness."
+
+Lord Cowper's second marriage was solemnized with a secrecy for which
+his biographers are unable to account. The event took place September,
+1706, about two months before his father's death, but it was not
+announced till the end of February, 1707, at which time Luttrell entered
+in his diary, "The Lord Keeper, who not long since was privately married
+to Mrs. Clavering of the bishoprick of Durham, brought her home this
+day." Mr. Foss, in his 'Judges of England,' suggests that the
+concealment of the union "may not improbably be explained by the Lord
+Keeper's desire not to disturb the last days of his father, who might
+perhaps have been disappointed that the selection had not fallen on some
+other lady to whom he had wished his son to be united." But this
+conjecture, notwithstanding its probability, is only a conjecture.
+Unless they had grave reasons for their conduct, the Lord Keeper and his
+lady had better have joined hands in the presence of the world, for the
+mystery of their private wedding nettled public curiosity, and gave new
+life to an old slander.
+
+Cowper's boyish _escapade_ was not forgotten by the malicious. No sooner
+had he become conspicuous in his profession and in politics, than the
+story of his intercourse with Miss Culling was told in coffee-rooms with
+all the exaggerations that prurient fancy could devise or enmity
+dictate. The old tale of a secret marriage--or, still worse, of a mock
+marriage--was caught from the lips of some Hertford scandal-monger, and
+conveyed to the taverns and drawing-rooms of London. In taking Sir
+Robert Booth's daughter to Church, he was said to have committed bigamy.
+Even while he was in the House of Commons he was known by the name of
+'Will Bigamy;' and that _sobriquet_ clung to him ever afterwards. Twenty
+years of wholesome domestic intercourse with his first wife did not free
+him from the abominable imputation, and his marriage with Miss Clavering
+revived the calumny in a new form. Fools were found to believe that he
+had married her during Judith Booth's life and that their union had been
+concealed for several years instead of a few months. The affair with
+Miss Culling was for a time forgotten, and the charge preferred against
+the keeper of the queen's conscience was bigamy of a much more recent
+date.
+
+In various forms this ridiculous accusation enlivens the squibs of the
+pamphleteers of Queen Anne's reign. In the 'New Atalantis' Mrs. Manley
+certified that the fair victim was first persuaded by his lordship's
+sophistries to regard polygamy as accordant with moral law. Having thus
+poisoned her understanding, he gratified her with a form of marriage, in
+which his brother Spencer, in clerical disguise, acted the part of a
+priest. It was even suggested that the bride in this mock marriage was
+the lawyer's ward. Never squeamish about the truth, when he could gain a
+point by falsehood, Swift endorsed the spiteful fabrication, and in the
+_Examiner_, pointing at Lord Cowper, wrote--"This gentleman, knowing
+that marriage fees were a considerable perquisite to the clergy, found
+out a way of improving them cent. per cent. for the benefit of the
+Church. His invention was to marry a second wife while the first was
+alive; convincing her of the lawfulness by such arguments as he did not
+doubt would make others follow the same example. _These he had drawn up
+in writing with intention to publish for the general good, and it is
+hoped he may now have leisure to finish them._" It is possible that the
+words in italics were the cause of Voltaire's astounding statement:
+"Plusieurs curieux ont encore le petit livre que ce Chancelier composa
+en faveur de la Polygamie." On this point Lord Campbell, confidently
+advancing an opinion which can scarcely command unanimous assent, says,
+"The fable of the '_Treatise_' is evidently taken from the panegyric on
+'a plurality of wives,' which Mrs. Manley puts into the mouth of Lord
+Cowper, in a speech supposed to be addressed by Hernando to Lousia." But
+whether Voltaire accepted the 'New Atalantis,' or the _Examiner_, as an
+authority for the statements of his very laughable passage, it is
+scarcely credible that he believed himself to be penning the truth. The
+most reasonable explanation of the matter appears to be, that tickled
+by Swift's venomous lines, the sarcastic Frenchman in malice and gaiety
+adopted them, and added to their piquancy by the assurance that the
+Chancellor's book was not only published, but was preserved by
+connoisseurs as a literary curiosity.
+
+Like his elder brother, the Chancellor, Spencer Cowper married at an
+early age, lived to wed a second wife, and was accused of immorality
+that was foreign to his nature. The offence with which the younger
+Cowper was charged, created so wide and profound a sensation, and gave
+rise to such a memorable trial, that the reader will like to glance at
+the facts of the case.
+
+Born in 1669, Spencer Cowper was scarcely of age when he was called to
+the bar, and made Comptroller of the Bridge House Estate. The office,
+which was in the gift of the corporation of London, provided him with a
+good income, together with a residence in the Bridge House, St. Olave's,
+Southwark, and brought him in contact with men who were able to bring
+him briefs or recommend him to attorneys. For several years the
+boy-barrister was thought a singularly lucky fellow. His hospitable
+house was brightened by a young and lovely wife (Pennington, the
+daughter of John Goodeve), and he was so much respected in his locality
+that he was made a justice of the peace. In his profession he was
+equally fortunate: his voice was often heard at Westminster and on the
+Home Circuit, the same circuit where his brother William practised and
+his family interest lay. He found many clients.
+
+Envy is the shadow of success; and the Cowpers were watched by men who
+longed to ruin them. From the day when they armed and rode forth to
+welcome the Prince of Orange, the lads had been notably fortunate.
+Notwithstanding his reputation for immorality William Cowper had sprung
+into lucrative practice, and in 1695 was returned to Parliament as
+representative for Hartford, the other seat for the borough being filled
+by his father, Sir William Cowper.
+
+In spite of their comeliness and complaisant manners, the lightness of
+their wit and the _prestige_ of their success, Hertford heard murmurs
+that the young Cowpers were _too_ lucky by half, and that the Cowper
+interest was dangerously powerful in the borough. It was averred that
+the Cowpers were making unfair capital out of liberal professions: and
+when the Hertford Whigs sent the father and son to the House of Commons,
+the vanquished party cursed in a breath the Dutch usurper and his
+obsequious followers.
+
+It was resolved to damage the Cowpers:--by fair means or foul, to render
+them odious in their native town.
+
+Ere long the malcontents found a good cry.
+
+Scarcely less odious to the Hertford Tories than the Cowpers themselves
+was an influential Quaker of the town, named Stout, who actively
+supported the Cowper interest. A man of wealth and good repute, this
+follower of George Fox exerted himself enthusiastically in the election
+contest of 1695: and in acknowledgment of his services the Cowpers
+honored him with their personal friendship. Sir William Cowper asked him
+to dine at Hertford Castle--the baronet's country residence; Sir
+William's sons made calls on his wife and daughter. Of course these
+attentions from Cowpers to 'the Shaker' were offensive to the Tory
+magnates of the place: and they vented their indignation in whispers,
+that the young men never entered Stout's house without kissing his
+pretty daughter.
+
+While these rumors were still young, Mr. Stout died leaving considerable
+property to his widow, and to his only child--the beauteous Sarah; and
+after his death the intercourse between the two families became yet more
+close and cordial. The lawyers advised the two ladies about the
+management of their property: and the baronet gave them invitations to
+his London House in Hatton Garden, as well as to Hertford Castle. The
+friendship had disastrous consequences. Both the brothers were very
+fascinating men--men, moreover, who not only excelled in the art of
+pleasing, but who also habitually exercised it. From custom,
+inclination, policy, they were very kind to the mother and daughter;
+probably paying the latter many compliments which they would never have
+uttered had they been single men. Coming from an unmarried man the
+speech is often significant of love, which on the lips of a husband is
+but the language of courtesy. But, unfortunately, Miss ('Mistress' is
+her style in the report of a famous trial) Sarah Stout fell madly in
+love with Spencer Cowper notwithstanding the impossibility of marriage.
+
+Not only did she conceive a dangerous fondness for him, but she openly
+expressed it--by speech and letters. She visited him in the Temple, and
+persecuted him with her embarrassing devotion whenever he came to
+Hertford. It was a trying position for a young man not thirty years of
+age, with a wife to whom he was devotedly attached, and a family whose
+political influence in his native town might be hurt by publication of
+the girl's folly. Taking his elder brother into his confidence, he asked
+what course he ought to pursue. To withdraw totally and abruptly from
+the two ladies, would be cruel to the daughter, insulting to the mother;
+moreover, it would give rise to unpleasant suspicions and prejudicial
+gossip in the borough. It was decided that Spencer must repress the
+girl's advances--must see her loss frequently--and, by a reserved and
+frigid manner, must compel her to assume an appearance of womanly
+discretion. But the plan failed.
+
+At the opening of the year 1699 she invited him to take up his quarters
+in her mother's house, when he came to Hertford at the next Spring
+Assizes. This invitation he declined, saying that he had arranged to
+take his brother's customary lodgings in the house of Mr. Barefoot, in
+the Market Place, but with manly consideration he promised to call upon
+her. "I am glad," Sarah wrote to him on March 5, 1699, "you have not
+quite forgot there is such a person as I in being: but I am willing to
+shut my eyes and not see anything that looks like unkindness in you, and
+rather content myself with what excuses you are pleased to make, than be
+inquisitive into what I must not know: I am sure the winter has been too
+unpleasant for me to desire the continuance of it: and I wish you were
+to endure the sharpness of it but for one short hour, as I have done for
+many long nights and days, and then I believe it would move that rocky
+heart of yours that can be so thoughtless of me as you are."
+
+On Monday, March 13, following the date of the words just quoted,
+Spencer Cowper rode into Hertford, alighted at Mrs. Stout's house, and
+dined with the ladies. Having left the house after dinner, in order that
+he might attend to some business, he returned in the evening and supped
+with the two women. Supper over, Mrs. Stout retired for the night,
+leaving her daughter and the young barrister together. No sooner had the
+mother left the room, than a distressing scene ensued.
+
+Unable to control or soothe her, Spencer gently divided the clasp of her
+hands, and having freed himself from her embrace, hastened from the room
+and abruptly left the house. He slept at his lodgings; and the next
+morning he was horror-struck on hearing that Sarah Stout's body had been
+found drowned in the mill-stream behind her old home. That catastrophe
+had actually occurred. Scarcely had the young barrister reached the
+Market Place, when the miserable girl threw herself into the stream from
+which her lifeless body was picked on the following morning. At the
+coroner's inquest which ensued, Spencer Cowper gave his evidence with
+extreme caution, withholding every fact that could be injurious to
+Sarah's reputation; and the jury returned a verdict that the deceased
+gentlewoman had killed herself whilst in a state of insanity.
+
+In deep dejection Spencer Cowper continued the journey of the circuit.
+
+But the excitement of the public was not allayed by the inquest and
+subsequent funeral. It was rumored that it was no case of self-murder,
+but a case of murder by the barrister, who had strangled his dishonored
+victim, and had then thrown her into the river. Anxious to save their
+sect from the stigma of suicide the Quakers concurred with the Tories in
+charging the young man with a hideous complication of crimes. The case
+against Spencer was laid before Chief Justice Holt, who at first
+dismissed the accusation as absurd, but was afterwards induced to commit
+the suspected man for trial; and in the July of 1699 the charge actually
+came before a jury at the Hertford Assizes. Four prisoners--Spencer
+Cowper, two attorneys, and a law-writer--were placed in the dock on the
+charge of murdering Sarah Stout.
+
+On the present occasion there is no need to recapitulate the ridiculous
+evidence and absurd misconduct of the prosecution in this trial; though
+criminal lawyers who wish to know what unfairness and irregularities
+were permitted in such inquiries in the seventeenth century cannot do
+better than to peruse the full report of the proceedings, which may be
+found in every comprehensive legal library. In this place it is enough
+to say that though the accusation was not sustained by a shadow of
+legal testimony, the prejudice against the prisoners, both on the part
+of a certain section of the Hertford residents and the presiding judge,
+Mr. Baron Hatsel, was such that the verdict for acquittal was a
+disappointment to many who heard it proclaimed by the foreman of the
+jury. Narcissus Luttrell, indeed, says that the verdict was "to the
+satisfaction of the auditors;" but in this statement the diarist was
+unquestionably wrong, so far as the promoters of the prosecution were
+concerned. Instead of accepting the decision without demur, they
+attempted to put the prisoners again on their trial by the obsolete
+process of "appeal of murder;" but this endeavor proving abortive, the
+case was disposed of, and the prisoners' minds set at rest.
+
+The barrister who was thus tried on a capital charge, and narrowly
+escaped a sentence that would have consigned him to an ignominious
+death, resumed his practice in the law courts, sat in the House of
+Commons and rose to be a judge in the Court of Common Pleas. It is said
+that he "presided on many trials for murder; ever cautious and
+mercifully inclined--remembering the great peril which he himself had
+undergone."
+
+The same writer who aspersed Somers with her unchaste thoughts, and
+reiterated the charge of bigamy against Lord Chancellor Cowper, did not
+omit to give a false and malicious version to the incidents which had
+acutely wounded the fine sensibilities of the younger Cowper. But enough
+notice has been taken of the 'New Atalantis' in this chapter. To that
+repulsive book we refer those readers who may wish to peruse Mrs.
+Manley's account of Sarah Stout's death.
+
+A distorted tradition of Sarah Stout's tragic end, and of Lord Cowper's
+imputed bigamy, was contributed to an early number of the 'European' by
+a clerical authority--the Rev. J. Hinton, Rector of Alderton, in
+Northamptonshire. "Mrs. Sarah Stout," says the writer, "whose death was
+charged upon Spencer Cowper, was strangled accidentally by drawing the
+steenkirk too tight upon her neck, as she, with four or five young
+persons, were at a game of romp upon the staircase; but it was not done
+by Mr. Cowper, though one of the company. Mrs. Clavering, Lord
+Chancellor Cowper's second wife, whom he married during the life of his
+first, was there too; they were so confounded with the accident, that
+they foolishly resolved to throw her into the water, thinking it would
+pass that she had drowned herself." This charming paragraph illustrates
+the vitality of scandal, and at the same time shows how ludicrously
+rumor and tradition mistell stories in the face of evidence.
+
+Spencer Cowper's second son, the Rev. John Cowper, D.D., was the father
+of William Cowper, the poet.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+EARLY MARRIAGES.
+
+
+Notwithstanding his illustrious descent, Simon Harcourt raised himself
+to the woolsack by his own exertions, and was in no degree indebted to
+powerful relatives for his elevation. The son of a knight, whose loyalty
+to the House of Stuart had impoverished his estate, he spent his
+student-days at Pembroke, Oxford, and the Inner Temple, in resolute
+labor, and with few indulgences. His father could make him but a slender
+allowance; and when he assumed the gown of a barrister, the future
+Chancellor, like Erskine in after years, was spurred to industry by the
+voices of his wife and children. Whilst he was still an undergraduate of
+the university, he fell in love with Rebecca Clark, daughter of a pious
+man, of whose vocation the modern peerages are ashamed. Sir Philip
+Harcourt (the Chancellor's father) in spite of his loyalty quarrelled
+with the Established Church, and joined the Presbyterians: and Thomas
+Clark was his Presbyterian chaplain, secretary, and confidential
+servant. Great was Sir Philip's wrath on learning that his boy had not
+only fallen in love with Rebecca Clark, but had married her privately.
+It is probable that the event lowered the worthy knight's esteem for the
+Presbyterian system; but as anger could not cut the nuptial bond, the
+father relented--gave the young people all the assistance he could, and
+hoped that they would live long without repenting their folly. The match
+turned out far better than the old knight feared. Taking his humble
+bride to modest chambers, young Harcourt applied sedulously to the study
+of the law; and his industry was rewarded by success, and by the
+gratitude of a dutiful wife. In unbroken happiness they lived together
+for a succession of years, and their union was fruitful of children.
+
+Harcourt fared better with his love-match than Sergeant Hill with his
+heiress, Miss Medlycott of Cottingham, Northamptonshire. On the morning
+of his wedding the eccentric sergeant, having altogether forgotten his
+most important engagement for the day, received his clients in chambers
+after his usual practice, and remained busy with professional cares
+until a band of devoted friends forcibly carried him to the church,
+where his bride had been waiting for him more than an hour. The ceremony
+having been duly performed, he hastened back to his chambers, to be
+present at a consultation. Notwithstanding her sincere affection for
+him, the lady proved but an indifferent wife to the black-letter lawyer.
+Empowered by Act of Parliament to retain her maiden-name after
+marriage, she showed her disesteem for her husband's patronymic by her
+mode of exercising the privilege secured to her by special law; and many
+a time the sergeant indignantly insisted that she should use his name in
+her signatures. "My name is Hill, madam; my father's name was Hill,
+madam; all the Hills have been named Hill, madam; Hill is a good
+name--and by ----, madam, you _shall_ use it." On other matters he was
+more compliant--humoring her old-maidish fancies in a most docile and
+conciliating manner. Curiously neat and orderly, Mrs. Medlycott took
+great pride in the faultlessness of her domestic arrangements, so far as
+cleanliness and precise order were concerned. To maintain the whiteness
+of the pipe-clayed steps before the front door of her Bedford Square
+mansion was a chief object of her existence; and to gratify her in this
+particular, Sergeant Hill use daily to leave his premises by the kitchen
+steps. Having outlived the lady, Hill observed to a friend who was
+condoling with him on his recent bereavement, "Ay, my poor wife is gone!
+She was a good sort of woman--in _her_ way a _very_ good sort of woman.
+I do honestly declare my belief that in _her_ way she had no equal.
+But--but--I'll tell you something in confidence. If ever I marry again,
+_I won't marry merely for money_." The learned sergeant died in his
+ninety-third year without having made a second marriage.
+
+Like Harcourt, John Scott married under circumstances that called forth
+many warm expressions of censure; and like Harcourt, he, in after life,
+reflected on his imprudent marriage as one of the most fortunate steps
+of his earlier career. The romance of the law contains few more pleasant
+episodes than the story of handsome Jack Scott's elopement with Bessie
+Surtees. There is no need to tell in detail how the comely Oxford
+scholar danced with the banker's daughter at the Newcastle assemblies;
+how his suit was at first recognised by the girl's parents, although the
+Scotts were but rich 'fitters,' whereas Aubone Surtees, Esquire, was a
+banker and gentleman of honorable descent; how, on the appearance of an
+aged and patrician suitor for Bessie's hand, papa and mamma told Jack
+Scott not to presume on their condescension, and counseled Bessie to
+throw her lover over and become the lady of Sir William Blackett; how
+Bessie was faithful, and Jack was urgent; how they had secret interviews
+on Tyne-side and in London, meeting clandestinely on horseback and on
+foot, corresponding privately by letters and confidential messengers;
+how, eventually, the lovers, to the consternation of 'good society' in
+Newcastle, were made husband and wife at Blackshiels, North Britain. Who
+is ignorant of the story? Does not every visitor to Newcastle pause
+before an old house in Sandhill, and look up at the blue pane which
+marks the window from which Bessie descended into her lover's arms?
+
+Jack and Bessie were not punished with even that brief period of
+suffering and uncertainty which conscientious novelists are accustomed,
+for the sake of social morals, to assign to run-away lovers before the
+merciful guardian or tender parent promises forgiveness and a liberal
+allowance, paid in quarterly installments. In his old age Eldon used to
+maintain that their plight was very pitiable on the third morning after
+their rash union. "Our funds were exhausted: we had not a home to go to,
+and we knew not whether our friends would ever speak to us again." In
+this strain ran the veteran's story, which, like all other anecdotes
+from the same source, must be received with caution. But even the old
+peer, ever ready to exaggerate his early difficulties, had not enough
+effrontery to represent that their dejection lasted more than three
+days. The fathers of the bride and bridegroom soon met and came to
+terms, and with the beginning of the new year Bessie Scott was living in
+New Inn Hall, Oxford, whilst her husband read Vinerian Lectures, and
+presided over that scholastic house. The position of Scott at this time
+was very singular. He was acting as substitute for Sir Robert Chambers,
+the principal of New Inn Hall and Vinerian Professor of Law, who
+contrived to hold his university preferments, whilst he discharged the
+duties of a judge in India. To give an honest color to this indefensible
+arrangement, it was provided that the lectures read from the Vinerian
+Chair should actually be written by the Professor, although they were
+delivered by deputy. Scott, therefore, as the Professor's mouth-piece,
+on a salary of £60 a year, with free quarters in the Principal's house,
+was merely required to read a series of treatises sent to him by the
+absent teacher. "The law-professor," the ex-Chancellor used to relate
+with true Eldonian humor and _fancy_--"sent me the first lecture, which
+I had to read immediately to the students, and which I began without
+knowing a single word that was in it. It was upon the statute (4 and 5
+P. and M. c. 8), 'of young men running away with maidens.' Fancy me
+reading, with about 140 boys and young men all giggling at the
+Professor! Such a tittering audience no one ever had." If this incident
+really occurred on the occasion of his 'first reading,' the laughter
+must have been inextinguishable; for, of course, Jack Scott's run-away
+marriage had made much gossip in Oxford Common Rooms, and the singular
+loveliness of his girlish wife (described by an eye-witness as being "so
+very young as to give the impression of childhood,") stirred the heart
+of every undergraduate who met her in High Street.
+
+There is no harm done by laughter at the old Chancellor's romantic
+fictions about the poverty which he and his Bessie encountered, hand in
+hand, at the outset of life; for the laughter blinds no one to the
+genuine affection and wholesome honesty of the young husband and wife.
+One has reason to wish that marriages such as theirs were more frequent
+amongst lawyers in these ostentatious days. At present the young
+barrister, who marries before he has a clear fifteen hundred a year, is
+charged with reckless imprudence; and unless his wife is a woman of
+fortune, or he is able to settle a heavy sum of money upon her, his
+anxious friends terrify him with pictures of want and sorrow stored up
+for him in the future. Society will not let him live after the fashion
+of 'juniors' eighty or a hundred years since. He must maintain two
+establishments--his chambers for business, his house in the west-end of
+town for his wife. Moreover, the lady must have a brougham and liberal
+pin money, or four or five domestic servants and a drawing-room well
+furnished with works of art and costly decorations. They must give state
+dinners and three or four routs every season; and in all other matters
+their mode of life must be, or seem to be, that of the upper ten
+thousand. Either they must live in this style, or be pushed aside and
+forgotten. The choice for them lies between very expensive society or
+none at all--that is to say, none at all amongst the rising members of
+the legal profession, and the sort of people with whom young barristers,
+from prudential motives, wish to form acquaintance. Doubtless many a
+fair reader of this page is already smiling at the writer's simplicity,
+and is saying to herself, "Here is one of the advocates of marriage on
+three hundred a year."
+
+But this writer is not going to advocate marriage on that or any other
+particular sum. From personal experience he knows what comfort a married
+man may have for an outlay of three or four hundred per annum; and from
+personal observation he knows what privations and ignominious poverty
+are endured by unmarried men who spend twice the larger of those sums
+on chamber-and-club life. He knows that there are men who shiver at the
+bare thought of losing caste by marriage with a portionless girl, whilst
+they are complacently leading the life which, in nine cases out of ten,
+terminates in the worst form of social degradation--matrimony where the
+husband blushes for his wife's early history, and dares not tell his own
+children the date of his marriage certificate. If it were his pleasure
+he could speak sad truths about the bachelor of modest income, who is
+rich enough to keep his name on the books of two fashionable clubs, to
+live in a good quarter of London, and to visit annually continental
+capitals, but far too poor to think of incurring the responsibilities of
+marriage. It could be demonstrated that in a great majority of instances
+this wary, prudent, selfish gentleman, instead of being the social
+success which many simple people believe him, is a signal and most
+miserable failure; that instead of pursuing a career of various
+enjoyments and keen excitements, he is a martyr to _ennui_, bored by the
+monotony of an objectless existence, utterly weary of the splendid
+clubs, in which he is presumed by unsophisticated admirers to find an
+ample compensation for want of household comfort and domestic affection:
+that as soon as he has numbered forty years, he finds the roll of his
+friends and cordial acquaintances diminish, and is compelled to retire
+before younger men, who snatch from his grasp the prizes of social
+rivalry; and that, as each succeeding lustre passes, he finds the chain
+of his secret disappointments and embarrassments more galling and heavy.
+
+It is not a question of marriage on three hundred a year without
+prospects, but a marriage on five or six hundred a year with good
+expectations. In the Inns of Court there are, at the present time,
+scores of clever, industrious fine-hearted gentlemen who have sure
+incomes of three or four hundred pounds per annum. In Tyburnia and
+Kensington there is an equal number of young gentlewomen with incomes
+varying between £150 and £300 a year. These men and women see each other
+at balls and dinners, in the parks and at theatres; the ladies would not
+dislike to be wives, the men are longing to be husbands. But that
+hideous tyrant, social opinion, bids them avoid marriage.
+
+In Lord Eldon's time the case was otherwise. Society saw nothing
+singular or reprehensible in his conduct when he brought Bessie to live
+in the little house in Cursitor Street. No one sneered at the young
+law-student, whose home was a little den in a dingy thoroughfare. At a
+later date, the rising junior, whose wife lived over his business
+chambers in Carey Street, was the object of no unkind criticism because
+his domestic arrangements were inexpensive, and almost frugal. Had his
+success been tardy instead of quick and decisive, and had circumstances
+compelled him to live under the shadow of Lincoln's Inn wall for thirty
+years on a narrow income, he would not on that account have suffered
+from a single disparaging criticism. Amongst his neighbors in adjacent
+streets, and within the boundaries of his Inn, he would have found
+society for himself and wife, and playmates for his children. Good
+fortune coming in full strong flood, he was not compelled to greatly
+change his plan of existence. Even in those days, when costly
+ostentation characterized aristocratic society--he was permitted to live
+modestly--and lay the foundation of that great property which he
+transmitted to his ennobled descendants.
+
+When satire has done its worst with the miserly propensities of the
+great lawyer and his wife, their long familiar intercourse exhibits a
+wealth of fine human affection and genuine poetry which sarcasm cannot
+touch. Often as he had occasion to regret Lady Eldon's peculiarities--the
+stinginess which made her grudge the money paid for a fish or a basket of
+fruit; the nervous repugnance to society, which greatly diminished his
+popularity; and the taste for solitude and silence which marked her
+painfully towards the close of her life--the Chancellor never even hinted
+to her his dissatisfaction. When their eldest daughter, following her
+mother's example, married without the permission of her parents, it was
+suggested to Lord Eldon that her ladyship ought to take better care of
+her younger daughter, Lady Frances, and entering society should play the
+part of a vigilant _chaperon_. The counsel was judicious; but the
+Chancellor declined to act upon it, saying,--"When she was young and
+beautiful, she gave up everything for me. What she is, I have made her;
+and I cannot now bring myself to compel her inclinations. Our marriage
+prevented her mixing in society when it afforded her pleasure; it
+appears to give pain now, and why should I interpose?" In his old age,
+when she was dead, he visited his estate in Durham, but could not
+find heart to cross the Tyne bridge and look at the old house from
+which he took her in the bloom and tenderness of her girlhood. An
+urgent invitation to visit Newcastle drew from him the reply--"I
+know my fellow-townsmen complain of my not coming to see them; but
+_how can I pass that bridge?_" After a pause, he added, "Poor Bessie!
+if ever there was an angel on earth she was one. The only reparation
+which one man can make to another for running away with his daughter,
+is to be exemplary in his conduct towards her."
+
+In pecuniary affairs not less prudent than his brother, Lord Stowell in
+matters of sentiment was capable of indiscretion. In the long list of
+legal loves there are not many episodes more truly ridiculous than the
+story of the older Scott's second marriage. On April 10, 1813, the
+decorous Sir William Scott, and Louisa Catharine, widow of John,
+Marquis of Sligo, and daughter of Admiral Lord Howe, were united in the
+bonds of holy wedlock, to the infinite amusement of the world of
+fashion, and to the speedy humiliation of the bridegroom. So incensed
+was Lord Eldon at his brother's folly, that he refused to appear at the
+wedding; and certainly the Chancellor's displeasure was not without
+reason, for the notorious absurdity of the affair brought ridicule on
+the whole of the Scott family connexion. The happy couple met for the
+first time in the Old Bailey, when Sir William Scott and Lord
+Ellenborough presided at the trial of the marchioness's son, the young
+Marquis of Sligo, who had incurred the anger of the law by luring into
+his yacht, in Mediterranean waters, two of the king's seamen. Throughout
+the hearing of that _cause célèbre_, the marchioness sat in the fetid
+court of the Old Bailey, in the hope that her presence might rouse
+amongst the jury or in the bench feelings favorable to her son. This
+hope was disappointed. The verdict having been given against the young
+peer, he was ordered to pay a fine of £5000, and undergo four months'
+incarceration in Newgate, and--worse than fine and imprisonment--was
+compelled to listen to a parental address from Sir William Scott on the
+duties and responsibilities of men of high station. Either under the
+influence of sincere admiration for the judge, or impelled by desire for
+vengeance on the man who had presumed to lecture her son in a court of
+justice, the marchioness wrote a few hasty words of thanks to Sir
+William Scott for his salutary exhortation to her boy. She even went so
+far as to say that she wished the erring marquis could always have so
+wise a counsellor at his side. This communication was made upon a slip
+of paper, which the writer sent to the judge by an usher of the court.
+Sir William read the note as he sat on the bench, and having looked
+towards the fair scribe, he received from her a glance and smile that
+were fruitful of much misery to him. Within four months the courteous
+Sir William Scott was tied fast to a beautiful, shrill, voluble
+termagant, who exercised marvellous ingenuity in rendering him wretched
+and contemptible. Reared in a stately school of old-world politeness,
+the unhappy man was a model of decorum and urbanity. He took reasonable
+pride in the perfection of his tone and manner; and the
+marchioness--whose malice did not lack cleverness--was never more happy
+than when she was gravely expostulating with him, in the presence of
+numerous auditors, on his lamentable want of style, tact, and
+gentlemanlike bearing. It is said that, like Coke and Holt under similar
+circumstances, Sir William preferred the quietude of his chambers to the
+society of an unruly wife, and that in the cellar of his Inn he sought
+compensation for the indignities and sufferings which he endured at
+home. Fifty years since the crusted port of the Middle Temple could
+soothe the heart at night, without paining the head in the morning.
+
+
+
+
+PART III.
+
+MONEY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+FEES TO COUNSEL.
+
+
+From time immemorial popular satire has been equally ready to fix the
+shame of avarice upon Divinity Physic, and Law; and it cannot be denied
+that in this matter the sarcasms of the multitude are often sustained by
+the indisputable evidence of history. The greed of the clergy for tithes
+and dues is not more widely proverbial than the doctor's thirst for
+fees, or the advocate's readiness to support injustice for the sake of
+gain. Of Guyllyam of Horseley, physician to Charles VI. of France,
+Froissart says, "All his dayes he was one of the greatest nygardes that
+ever was;" and the chronicler adds, "With this rodde lightly all
+physicians are beaten." In his address to the sergeants who were called
+soon after his elevation to the Marble Chair, the Lord Keeper Puckering,
+directing attention to the grasping habits which too frequently
+disgraced the leaders of the bar, observed: "I am to exhort you also not
+to embrace multitude of causes, or to undertake more places of hearing
+causes than you are well able to consider of or perform, lest thereby
+you either disappoint your clients when their causes be heard, or come
+unprovided, or depart when their causes be in hearing. For it is all
+one not to come, as either to come unprovided, or depart before it be
+ended." Notwithstanding Lingard's able defence of the Cardinal, scholars
+are still generally of opinion that Beaufort--the Chancellor who lent
+money on the king's crown, the bishop who sold the Pope's soldiers for a
+thousand marks--is a notable instance of the union of legal covetousness
+and ecclesiastical greed.
+
+The many causes which affect the value of money in different ages create
+infinite perplexity for the antiquarian who wishes to estimate the
+prosperity of the bar in past times; but the few disjointed data, that
+can be gathered from old records, create an impression that in the
+fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the ordinary fees of
+eminent counsel were by no means exorbitant, although fortunate
+practitioners could make large incomes.
+
+Dugdale's 'Baronage' describes with delightful quaintness William de
+Beauchamp's interview with his lawyers when that noble (on the death of
+John Hastings, Earl of Pembroke, _temp._ Richard II., without issue),
+claimed the earl's estates under an entail, in opposition to Edward
+Hastings, the earl's heir-male of the half-blood. "Beauchamp," says
+Dugdale, "invited his learned counsel to his house in Paternoster Row,
+in the City of London; amongst whom were Robert Charlton (then a judge),
+William Pinchbek, William Branchesley, and John Catesby (all learned
+lawyers); and after dinner, coming out of his chapel, in an angry mood,
+threw to each of them a piece of gold, and said, 'Sirs, I desire you
+forthwith to tell me whether I have any right or title to Hastings'
+lordship and lands.' Whereupon Pinchbek stood up (the rest being silent,
+fearing that he suspected them), and said, 'No man here nor in England
+dare say that you have any right in them, except Hastings do quit his
+claim therein; and should he do it, being now under age, it would be of
+no validitie.'" Had Charlton, the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas,
+taken gold for his opinion on a case put before him in his judicial
+character, he would have violated his judicial oath. But in the earl's
+house in Paternoster Row he was merely a counsellor learned in the law,
+not a judge. Manifest perils attend a system which permits a judge in
+his private character to give legal opinions concerning causes on which
+he may be required to give judgment from the bench; but notwithstanding
+those perils, there is no reason for thinking that Charlton on this
+occasion either broke law or etiquette. The fair inference from the
+matter is, that in the closing years of the fourteenth century judges
+were permitted to give opinions for money to their private clients,
+although they were forbidden to take gold or silver from any person
+having "plea or process hanging before them."
+
+In the year of our Lord 1500 the corporation of Canterbury paid for
+advice regarding their civic interests 3_s._ 4_d._ to each of three
+sergeants, and gave the Recorder of London 6_s._ 8_d._ as a
+retaining-fee. Five years later, Mr. Serjeant Wood received a fee of
+10_s._ from the Goldsmiths' Company; and it maybe fairly assumed, that
+so important and wealthy a body paid the sergeant on a liberal scale. In
+the sixteenth century it was, and for several generations had been,
+customary for clients to provide food and drink for their counsel. Mr.
+Foss gives his readers the following list of items, taken from a bill of
+costs, made in the reign of Edward IV.:--
+
+                                                      _s._  _d._
+For a breakfast at Westminster spent on our counsel     1    6
+
+To another time for boat-hire in and out, and a
+  breakfast for two days                                1    6
+
+In like manner the accountant of St. Margaret's, Westminster, entered in
+the parish books, "Also, paid to Roger Fylpott, learned in the law, for
+his counsel given, 3_s._ 8_d._, with 4_d._ for his dinner."
+
+A yet more remarkable custom was that which enabled clients to hire
+counsel to plead for them at certain places, for a given time, in
+whatever causes their eloquence might be required. There still exists
+the record of an agreement by which, in the reign of Henry VII.,
+Sergeant Yaxley bound himself to attend the assizes at York, Nottingham
+and Derby, and speak in court at each of those places, whenever his
+client, Sir Robert Plumpton--"that perpetual and always unfortunate
+litigant," as he is called by Sergeant Manning--required him to do so.
+This interesting document runs thus--"This bill, indented at London the
+18th day of July, the 16th yeare of the reigne of King Henry the 7th,
+witnesseth that John Yaxley, Sergeant-at-Law, shall be at the next
+assizes to be holden at York, Nottin., and Derb., if they be holden and
+kept, and there to be of council with Sir Robert Plumpton, knight, such
+assizes and actions as the said Sir Robert shall require the said John
+Yaxley, for the which premises, as well as for his costs and his
+labours, John Pulan, gentleman, bindeth him by thease presents to
+content and pay to the said John Yaxley 40 marks sterling at the feast
+of the Nativetie of our Lady next coming, or within eight days next
+following, with 5 li paid aforehand, parcell of paiment of the said 40
+marks. Provided alway that if the said John Yaxley have knowledg and
+warning only to cum to Nottin. and Derby, then the said John Yaxley is
+agread by these presents to take only xv li besides the 5 li aforesaid.
+Provided alwaies that if the said John Yaxley have knowledg and warning
+to take no labour in this matter, then he to reteine and hold the said 5
+li resaived for his good will and labour. In witness hereof, the said
+John Yaxley, serjeant, to the part of this indenture remaining with the
+said John Pulan have put his seale the day and yeare above-written.
+Provided also that the said Robert Plumpton shall beare the charges of
+the said John Yaxley, as well at York as at Nottingham and Derby, and
+also to content and pay the said money to the said John Yaxley comed to
+the said assizes att Nott., Derb., and York. JOHN YAXLEY."
+
+This remarkable agreement--made after Richard III. had vainly endeavored
+to compose by arbitration the differences between Sir Robert and Sir
+Robert's heir-general--certifies that Sir Robert Plumpton engaged to
+provide the sergeant with suitable entertainment at the assize towns,
+and also throws light upon the origin of retaining-fees. It appears from
+the agreement that in olden time a retaining fee was merely part
+(surrendered in advance) of a certain sum stipulated to be paid for
+certain services. In principle it was identical with the payment of the
+shilling, still given in rural districts, to domestic servants on an
+agreement for service, and with the transfer of the queen's shilling
+given to every soldier on enlistment. There is no need to mention the
+classic origin of this ancient mode of giving force to a contract.
+
+From the 'Household and Privy Purse Expenses of the Le Stranges of
+Hunstanton,' published in the Archæologia, may be gleamed some
+interesting particulars relating to the payment of counsel in the reign
+of Henry VIII. In 1520, Mr. Cristofer Jenney received from the Le
+Stranges a half-yearly fee of ten shillings; and this general retainer
+was continued on the same terms till 1527, when the fee was raised from
+£1 per annum to a yearly payment of £2 13_s._ 4_d._ To Mr. Knightley was
+paid the sum of 8_s._ 11_d._ "for his fee, and that money yt he layde
+oute for suying of Simon Holden;" and the same lawyer also received at
+another time 14_s._ 3_d._ "for his fee and cost of sute for iii termes."
+A fee of 6_s._ 8_d._ was paid to "Mr. Spelman, s'jeant, for his counsell
+in makyng my answer in ye Duchy Cham.;" and the same serjeant received
+a fee of 3_s._ 4_d._ "for his counsell in putting in of the answer."
+Fees of 3_s._ 4_d._ were in like manner given "for counsell" to Mr.
+Knightley and Mr. Whyte; and in 1534, Mr. Yelverton was remunerated "for
+his counsell" with the unusually liberal honorarium of twenty shillings.
+From the household book of the Earl of Northumberland, it appears that
+order was made, in this same reign, for "every oone of my lordes
+counsaill to have c's. fees, if he have it in household and not by
+patent." After the earl's establishment was reduced to forty-two
+persons, it still retained "one of my lordes counsaill for annswering
+and riddying of causes, whenne sutors cometh to my lord." At a time when
+every lord was required to administer justice to his tenants and the
+inferior people of his territory, a counsellor learned in the law, was
+an important and most necessary officer in a grand seigneur's retinue.
+
+Whilst Sir Thomas More lived in Bucklersbury, he "gained, without grief,
+not so little as £400 by the year." This income doubtless accrued from
+the emoluments of his judicial appointment in the City, as well as from
+his practice at Westminster and elsewhere. In Henry VIII.'s time it was
+a very considerable income, such as was equalled by few leaders of the
+bar not holding high office under the Crown.
+
+In Elizabeth's reign, and during the time of her successor, barristers'
+fees show a tendency toward increase; and the lawyers who were employed
+as advocates for the Crown, or held judicial appointments, acquired
+princely incomes, and in some cases amassed large fortunes. Fees of
+20_s._ were more generally paid to counsel under the virgin queen, than
+in the days of her father; but still half that fee was not thought too
+small a sum for an opinion given by Her Majesty's Solicitor General.
+Indeed, the ten-shilling fee was a very usual fee in Elizabeth's reign;
+and it long continued an ordinary payment for one opinion on a case, or
+for one speech in a cause of no great importance and of few
+difficulties. 'A barrister is like Balaam's ass, only speaking when he
+sees the angel,' was a familiar saying in the seventeenth century. In
+Chancery, however, by an ordinance of the Lords Commissioners passed in
+1654, to regulate the conduct of suits and the payments to masters,
+counsel, and solicitors, it was arranged that on the hearing of a cause,
+utter-barristers should receive £1 fees, whilst the Lord Protector's
+counsel and sergeants-at-law should receive £2 fees, _i.e._, 'double
+fees.'
+
+The archives of Lyme Regis show that under Elizabeth the usage was
+maintained of supplying counsel with delicacies of the table, and also
+of providing them with means of locomotion. Here are some items in an
+old record of disbursements made by the corporation of Lyme
+Regis:--"A.D. Paid for Wine carried with us to Mr. Poulett--£0 3_s._
+6_d._; Wine and sugar given to Mr. Poulett, £0 3_s._ 4_d._; Horse-hire,
+and for the Sergeant to ride to Mr. Walrond, of Bovey, and for a loaf of
+sugar, and for conserves given there to Mr. Poppel, £1 1_s._ 0_d._; Wine
+and sugar given to Judge Anderson, £0 3_s._ 4_d._ A bottle and sugar
+given to Mr. Gibbs (a lawyer)."
+
+Under Elizabeth, the allowance made to Queen's Sergeants was £26 6_s._
+8_d._ for fee, reward, and robes; and £20. for his services whenever a
+Queen's Sergeant travelled circuit as Justice of Assize. The fee for her
+Solicitor General was £50. When Francis Bacon was created King's Counsel
+to James I., an annual salary of forty pounds was assigned to him from
+the royal purse; and down to William IV.'s time, King's Counsel received
+a stipend of £40 a year, and an allowance for stationery. Under the last
+mentioned monarch, however, the stipend and allowance were both
+withdrawn; and at present the status of a Q.C. is purely an affair of
+professional precedence, to which no fixed emolument is attached.
+
+But a list of the fees, paid from the royal purse to each judge or crown
+lawyer under James I., would afford no indication as to the incomes
+enjoyed by the leading members of the bench and bar at that period. The
+salaries paid to those officers were merely retaining fees, and their
+chief remuneration consisted of a large number of smaller fees. Like the
+judges of prior reigns, King James's judges were forbidden to accept
+_presents_ from actual suitors; but no suitor could obtain a hearing
+from any one of them, until he had paid into court certain fees, of
+which the fattest was a sum of money for the judge's personal use. At
+one time many persons labored under an erroneous impression, that as
+judges were forbidden to accept presents from actual suitors, the honest
+judge of past times had no revenue besides his specified salary and
+allowance. Like the king's judges, the king's counsellors frequently
+made great incomes by fees, though their nominal salaries were
+invariably insignificant. At a time when Francis Bacon was James's
+Attorney General, and received no more than £81 6_s._ 8_d._ for his
+yearly salary, he made £6000 per annum in his profession; and of that
+income--a royal income in those days--the greater portion consisted of
+fees paid to him for attending to the king's business. "I shall now,"
+Bacon wrote to the king, "again make oblation to your Majesty,--first of
+my heart, then of my service; thirdly, of my place of Attorney, which I
+think is honestly worth £6000 per annum; and fourthly, of my place in
+the Star Chamber, which is worth £1600 per annum, and with the favor and
+countenance of a Chancellor, much more." Coke had made a still larger
+income during his tenure of the Attorney's place, the fees from his
+private official practice amounting to no loss a sum than seven
+thousand pounds in a single year.
+
+At later periods of the seventeenth century barristers made large
+incomes, but the fees seem to have been by no means exorbitant. Junior
+barristers received very modest payments, and it would appear that
+juniors received fees from eminent counsel for opinions and other
+professional services. Whilst he acted as treasurer of the Middle
+Temple, at an early period of his career, Whitelock received a fee from
+Attorney General Noy. "Upon my carrying the bill," writes Whitelock, "to
+Mr. Attorney General Noy for his signature, with that of the other
+benchers, he was pleased to advise with me about a patent the king had
+commanded him to draw, upon which he gave me a fee for it out of his
+little purse, saying, 'Here, take those single pence,' which amounted to
+eleven groats, 'and I give you more than an attorney's fee, because you
+will be a better man than the Attorney General. This you will find to be
+true.' After much other drollery, wherein he delighted and excelled, we
+parted, abundance of company attending to speak to him all this time."
+Of course the payment itself was no part of the drollery to which
+Whitelock alludes, for as a gentleman he could not have taken money
+proffered to him in jest, unless etiquette encouraged him to look for
+it, and allowed him to accept it. The incident justifies the inference
+that the services of junior counsel to senior barristers--services at
+the present time termed 'devilling'--were formerly remunerated with cash
+payments.
+
+Toward the close of Charles I.'s reign--at a time when political
+distractions were injuriously affecting the legal profession, especially
+the staunch royalists of the long robe--Maynard, the Parliamentary
+lawyer, received on one round of the Western Circuit, £700, "which,"
+observes Whitelock, to whom Maynard communicated the fact, "I believe
+was more than any one of our profession got before."
+
+Concerning the incomes made by eminent counsel in Charles II.'s time,
+many _data_ are preserved in diaries and memoirs. That a thousand a year
+was looked upon as a good income for a flourishing practitioner of the
+'merry monarch's' Chancery bar, may be gathered from a passage in
+'Pepys's Diary,' where the writer records the compliments paid to him
+regarding his courageous and eloquent defence of the Admiralty, before
+the House of Commons, in March, 1668. Under the influence of half-a-pint
+of mulled sack and a dram of brandy, the Admiralty clerk made such a
+spirited and successful speech in behalf of his department, that he was
+thought to have effectually silenced all grumblers against the
+management of his Majesty's navy. Compliments flowed in upon the orator
+from all directions. Sir William Coventry pledged his judgment that the
+fame of the oration would last for ever in the Commons; silver-tongued
+Sir Heneage Finch, in the blandest tones, averred that no other living
+man could have made so excellent a speech; the placemen of the Admiralty
+vied with each other in expressions of delight and admiration; and one
+flatterer, whose name is not recorded, caused Mr. Pepys infinite
+pleasure by saying that the speaker who had routed the accusers of a
+government office, might easily earn a thousand a year at the Chancery
+bar.
+
+That sum, however, is insignificant when it is compared with the incomes
+made by the most fortunate advocates of that period. Eminent speakers of
+the Common Law Bar made between £2000 and £3500 per annum on circuit and
+at Westminster, without the aid of king's business; and still larger
+receipts were recorded in the fee-books of his Majesty's attorneys and
+solicitors. At the Chancery bar of the second Charles, there was at
+least one lawyer, who in one year made considerably more than four times
+the income that was suggested to Pepys's vanity and self-complacence. At
+Stanford Court, Worcestershire, is preserved a fee-book kept by Sir
+Francis Winnington, Solicitor-General to the 'merry monarch,' from
+December 1674 to January 13, 1679, from the entries of which record the
+reader may form a tolerably correct estimate of the professional
+revenues of successful lawyers at that time. In Easter Term, 1671, Sir
+Francis pocketed £459; in Trinity Term £449 10s.; in Michaelmas Term
+£521; and in Hilary Term 1672, £361 10s.; the income for the year being
+£1791, without his earnings on the Oxford Circuit and during vacation.
+In 1673, Sir Francis received £3371; in 1674, he earned £3560;[8] and in
+1675--_i.e._, the first year of his tenure of the Solicitor's
+office--his professional income wars £4066, of which sum £429 were
+office fees. Concerning the Attorney-General's receipts about this time,
+we have sufficient information from Roger North, who records that his
+brother, whilst Attorney General, made nearly seven thousand pounds in
+one year, from private and official business. It is noteworthy that
+North, as Attorney General, made the same income which Coke realized in
+the same office at the commencement of the century. But under the
+Stuarts this large income of £7000--in those days a princely
+revenue--was earned by work so perilous and fruitful of obloquy, that
+even Sir Francis, who loved money and cared little for public esteem,
+was glad to resign the post of Attorney and retire to the Pleas with
+£4000 a year. That the fees of the Chancery lawyers under Charles II.
+were regulated upon a liberal scale we know from Roger North, and the
+record of Sir John King's success. Speaking of his brother Francis, the
+biographer says: "After he, as king's counsel, came within the bar, he
+began to have calls into the Court of Chancery; which he liked very
+well, because the quantity of the business, _as well as the fees_, was
+greater; but his home was the King's Bench, where he sat and reported
+like as other practitioners." And in Sir John King's memoirs it is
+recorded that in 1676 he made £4700, and that he received from £40 to
+£50 a day during the last four days of his appearance in court. Dying in
+1677,[9] whilst his supremacy in his own court was at its height, Sir
+John King was long spoken of as a singularly successful Chancery
+barrister.
+
+Of Francis North's mode of taking and storing his fees, the 'Life of
+Lord Keeper Guildford' gives the following picture: "His business
+increased, even while he was Solicitor, to be so much as to have
+overwhelmed one less dexterous; but when he was made Attorney General,
+though his gains by his office were great, they were much greater by his
+practice; for that flowed in upon him like an orage, enough to overset
+one that had not an extraordinary readiness in business. His skull-caps,
+which he wore when he had leisure to observe his constitution, as I
+touched before, were now destined to lie in a drawer to receive the
+money that came in by fees. One had the gold, another the crowns and
+half-crowns, and another the smaller money. When these vessels were
+full, they were committed to his friend (the Hon. Roger North), who was
+constantly near him, to tell out the cash, and put it into the bags
+according to the contents; and so they went to his treasurers, Blanchard
+and Child, goldsmiths, Temple Bar."[10] In the days of wigs, skull-caps
+like those which Francis North used as receptacles for money, were very
+generally worn by men of all classes and employments. On returning to
+the privacy of his home, a careful citizen usually laid aside his costly
+wig, and replaced it with a cheap and durable skull-cap, before he sat
+down in his parlor. So also, men careful of their health often wore
+skull-caps _under_ their wigs, on occasions when they were required to
+endure a raw atmosphere without the protection of their beavers. In days
+when the law-courts were held in the open hall of Westminster, and
+lawyers practising therein, were compelled to sit or speak for hours
+together, exposed to sharp currents of cold air, it was customary for
+wearers of the long robe to place between their wigs and natural hair
+closely-fitting caps, made of stout silk or soft leather. But more
+interesting than the money-caps, are the fees which they contained. The
+ringing of the gold pieces, the clink of the crowns with the
+half-crowns, and the rattle of the smaller money, led back the barrister
+to those happier and remote times, when the 'inferior order' of the
+profession paid the superior order with 'money down;' when, the advocate
+never opened his mouth till his fingers had closed upon the gold of his
+trustful client; when 'credit' was unknown in transactions between
+counsel and attorney;--that truly _golden_ age of the bar, when the
+barrister was less suspicious of the attorney, and the attorney held
+less power over the barrister.
+
+Having profited by the liberal payments of Chancery whilst he was an
+advocate, Lord Keeper Guildford destroyed one source of profit to
+counsel from which Francis North, the barrister, had drawn many a capful
+of money. Saith Roger, "He began to rescind all motions for speeding and
+delaying the hearing of causes besides the ordinary rule of court; and
+this lopped off a limb of the motion practice. I have heard Sir John
+Churchill, a famous Chancery practitioner, say, that in his walk from
+Lincoln's Inn down to the Temple Hall, where, in the Lord Keeper
+Bridgman's time, causes and motions out of term were heard, he had taken
+£28. with breviates only for motions and defences for hastening and
+retarding hearings. His lordship said, that the rule of the court
+allowed time enough for any one to proceed or defend; and if, for
+special reasons, he should give way to orders for timing matters, it
+would let in a deluge of vexatious pretenses, which, true or false,
+being asserted by the counsel with equal assurance, distracted the
+court and confounded the suitors."
+
+Let due honor be rendered to one Caroline, lawyer, who was remarkable
+for his liberality to clients, and carelessness of his own pecuniary
+interests. From his various biographers, many pleasant stories may be
+gleaned concerning Hale's freedom from base love of money. In his days,
+and long afterward, professional etiquette permitted clients and counsel
+to hold intercourse without the intervention of an attorney. Suitors,
+therefore, frequently addressed him personally and paid for his advice
+with their own hands, just as patients are still accustomed to fee their
+doctors. To these personal applicants, and also to clients who
+approached him by their agents, he was very liberal. "When those who
+came to ask his counsel gave him a piece, he used to give back the half,
+and to make ten shillings his fee in ordinary matters that did not
+require much time or study." From this it may be inferred that whilst
+Hale was an eminent member of the bar, twenty shillings was the usual
+fee to a leading counsel, and an angel the customary honorarium to an
+ordinary practitioner. As readers have already been told, the angel[11]
+was a common fee in the seventeenth century; but the story of Hale's
+generous usage implies that his more distinguished contemporaries were
+wont to look for and accept a double fee. Moreover, the anecdote would
+not be told in Hale's honor, if etiquette had fixed the double fee as
+the minimum of remuneration for a superior barrister's opinion. He was
+frequently employed in arbitration cases, and as an arbitrator he
+steadily refused payment for his services to legal disputants, saying,
+in explanation of his moderation, "In these cases I am made a judge, and
+a judge ought to take no money." The misapprehension as to the nature of
+an arbitrator's functions, displayed in these words, gives an
+instructive insight into the mental constitution of the judge who wrote
+on natural science, and at the same time exerted himself to secure the
+conviction of witches. A more pleasant and commendable illustration of
+his conscientiousness in pecuniary matters, is found in the steadiness
+with which he refused to throw upon society the spurious coin which he
+had taken from his clients. In a tone of surprise that raises a smile at
+the average morality of our forefathers, Bishop Burnet tells of Hale:
+"Another remarkable instance of his justice and goodness was, that when
+he found ill money had been put into his hands, he would never suffer it
+to be vented again; for he thought it was no excuse for him to put false
+money in other people's hands, because some had put it into his. A great
+heap of this he had gathered together, for many had so abused his
+goodness as to mix base money among the fees that were given him." In
+this particular case, the judge's virtue was its own reward. His house
+being entered by burglars, this accumulation of bad money attracted the
+notice of the robbers, who selected it from a variety of goods and
+chattels, and carried it off under the impression that it was the
+lawyer's hoarded treasure. Besides large sums expended on unusual acts
+of charity, this good man habitually distributed amongst the poor a
+tithe of his professional earnings.
+
+In the seventeenth century, General Retainers were very common, and the
+counsel learned in the law, were ready to accept them from persons of
+low extraction and questionable repute. Indeed, no upstart deemed
+himself properly equipped for a campaign at court, until he had recorded
+a fictitious pedigree at the Herald's College, taken a barrister as well
+as a doctor into regular employment, and hired a curate to say grace
+daily at his table. In the summer of his vile triumph, Titus Oates was
+attended, on public occasions, by a robed counsel and a physician.
+
+[8] In his 'Survey of the State of England in 1685,' Macauley--giving
+one of those misleading references with which his history abounds--says:
+"A thousand a year was thought a large income for a barrister. Two
+thousand a year was hardly to be made in the Court of King's Bench,
+except by crown lawyers." Whilst making the first statement, he
+doubtless remembered the passage in 'Pepys's Diary.' For the second
+statement, he refers to 'Layton's Conversation with Chief Justice Hale.'
+It is fair to assume that Lord Macauley had never seen Sir Francis
+Winnington's fee-book.
+
+[9] In the fourth day of his fever, he being att the Chancery Bar, he
+fell so ill of the fever, that he was forced to leave the Court and come
+to his chambers in the Temple, with one of his clerks, which constantly
+wayted on him and carried his bags of writings for his pleadings, and
+there told him that he should return to every clyent his breviat and his
+fee, for he could serve them no longer, for he had done with this world,
+and thence came home to his house in Salisbury Court, and took his
+bed.... And there he sequestered himself to meditation between God and
+his own soul, without the least regret, and quietly and patiently
+contented himself with the will of God.--_Vide Memoir of Sir John King,
+Knt., written by his Father._
+
+[10] The lawyers of the seventeenth century were accustomed to make a
+show of their fees to the clients who called upon them. Hudibras's
+lawyer (Hud., Part iii. cant. 3) is described as sitting in state with
+his books and money before him:
+
+"To this brave man the knight repairs For counsel in his law affairs,
+And found him mounted in his pew, With books and money placed for shew,
+Like nest-eggs, to make clients lay, And for his false, opinion pay: To
+whom the knight, with comely grace, Put off his hat to put his case,
+Which he as proudly entertain'd As the other courteously strain'd; And
+to assure him 'twas not that He looked for, bid him put on's hat."
+
+Under Victoria, the needy junior is compelled, for the sake of
+appearances, to furnish his shelves with law books, and cover his table
+with counterfeit briefs. Under the Stuarts, he placed a bowl of spurious
+money amongst the sham papers that lay upon his table.
+
+[11] In the 'Serviens ad Legem,' Mr. Sergeant Manning raises question
+concerning the antiquity of _guineas_ and half-guineas, with the
+following remarks:--"Should any cavil be raised against this jocular
+allusion, on the ground that guineas and half-guineas were unknown to
+sergeants who flourished in the sixteenth century, the objector might be
+reminded, that in antique records, instances occur in which the
+'guianois d'or,' issued from the ducal mint at Bordeaux, by the
+authority of the Plantagenet sovereigns of Guienne, were by the same
+authority, made current among their English subjects; and it might be
+suggested that those who have gone to the coast of Africa for the origin
+of the modern guinea, need not have carried their researches beyond the
+Bay of Biscay. _Quære_, whether the Guinea Coast itself may not owe its
+name to the 'guianois d'or' for which it furnished the raw material."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+RETAINERS GENERAL AND SPECIAL.
+
+
+Pemberton's fees for his services in behalf of the Seven Bishops show
+that the most eminent counsel of his time were content with very modest
+remuneration for advice and eloquence. From the bill of an attorney
+employed in that famous trial, it appears that the ex-Chief Justice was
+paid a retaining-fee of five guineas, and received twenty guineas with
+his brief. He also pocketed three guineas for a consultation. At the
+present date, thirty times the sum of these paltry payments would be
+thought an inadequate compensation for such zeal, judgment, and ability
+as Francis Pemberton displayed in the defence of his reverend clients.
+
+But, though lawyers were paid thus moderately in the seventeenth
+century, the complaints concerning their avarice and extortions were
+loud and universal. This public discontent was due to the inordinate
+exactions of judges and place-holders rather than to the conduct of
+barristers and attorneys; but popular displeasure seldom cares to
+discriminate between the blameless and the culpable members of an
+obnoxious system, or to distinguish between the errors of ancient custom
+and the qualities of those persons who are required to carry out old
+rules. Hence the really honest and useful practitioners of the law
+endured a full share of the obloquy caused by the misconduct of venal
+justices and corrupt officials. Counsel, attorneys, and even scriveners
+came in for abuse. It was averred that they conspired to pick the public
+pocket; that eminent conveyancers not less than copying clerks, swelled
+their emoluments by knavish tricks. They would talk for the mere purpose
+of protracting litigation, injure their clients by vexations and
+bootless delays, and do their work so that they might be fed for doing
+it again. Draughtsmen find their clerks wrote loosely and wordily,
+because they were paid by the folio. "A term," writes the quaint author
+of 'Saint Hillaries Teares,' in 1642, "so like a vacation; the prime
+court, the Chancery (wherein the clerks had wont to dash their clients
+out of countenance with long dashes); the examiners to take the
+depositions in hyperboles, and roundabout _Robinhood_ circumstances with
+_saids_ and _aforesaids_, to enlarge the number of sheets." 'Hudibras'
+contains, amongst other pungent satires against the usages of lawyers,
+an allusion to this characteristic custom of legal draughtsmen, who
+being paid by the sheet, were wont
+
+   "To make 'twixt words and lines large gaps,
+   Wide as meridians in maps;
+   To squander paper and spare ink,
+   Or cheat men of their words some think."
+
+In the following century the abuses consequent on the objectionable
+system of folio-payment were noticed in a parliamentary report (bearing
+date November 8, 1740), which was the most important result of an
+ineffectual attempt to reform the superior courts of law and to lessen
+the expenses of litigation.
+
+More is known about the professional receipts of lawyers since the
+Revolution of 1688 than can be discovered concerning the incomes of
+their precursors in Westminster Hall. For six years, commencing with
+Michaelmas Term, 1719, Sir John Cheshire, King's Sergeant, made an
+average annual income of 3241_l._ Being then sixty-three years of age,
+he limited his practice to the Common Pleas, and during the next six
+years made in that one court 1320_l._ per annum. Mr. Foss, to whom the
+present writer is indebted for these particulars with regard to Sir John
+Cheshire's receipts, adds: "The fees of counsel's clerks form a great
+contrast with those that are now demanded, being only threepence on a
+fee of half-a-guinea, sixpence for a guinea, and one shilling for two
+guineas." Of course the increase of clerk's fees tells more in favor of
+the master than the servant. At the present time the clerk of a
+barrister in fairly lucrative practice costs his master nothing.
+Bountifully paid by his employer's clients, he receives no salary from
+the counsellor whom he serves; whereas, in old times, when his fees were
+fixed at the low rate just mentioned, the clerk could not live and
+maintain a family upon them, unless his master belonged to the most
+successful grade of his order.
+
+Horace Walpole tells his readers that Charles Yorke "was reported to
+have received 100,000 guineas in fees;" but his fee-book shows that his
+professional rise was by no means so rapid as those who knew him in his
+sunniest days generally supposed. The story of his growing fortunes is
+indicated in the following statement of successive incomes:--1st year of
+practice at the bar, 121_l._ 2nd, 201_l._; 3rd and 4th, between 300_l._
+and 400_l._ per annum; 5th, 700_l._; 6th, 800_l._; 7th, 1000_l._; 9th,
+1600_l._; 10th, 2500_l._ Whilst Solicitor General he made 3400_l._ in
+1757; and in the following year he earned 5000_l._ His receipts during
+the last year of his tenure of the Attorney Generalship amounted to
+7322_l._ The reader should observe that as Attorney General he made but
+little more than Coke had realized in the same office,--a fact serving
+to show how much better paid were Crown lawyers in times when they held
+office like judges during the Sovereign's pleasure, than in these latter
+days when they retire from place together with their political parties.
+
+The difference between the incomes of Scotch advocates and English
+barristers was far greater in the eighteenth century than at the present
+time, although in our own day the receipts of several second-rate
+lawyers of the Temple and Lincoln's Inn far surpass the revenues of the
+most successful advocates of the Edinburgh faculty. A hundred and thirty
+years since a Scotch barrister who earned 500_l._ per annum by his
+profession was esteemed notably successful.
+
+Just as Charles Yorke's fee-book shows us the pecuniary position of an
+eminent English barrister in the middle of the last century, John
+Scott's list of receipts displays the prosperity of a very fortunate
+Crown lawyer in the next generation. Without imputing motives the
+present writer, may venture to say that Lord Eldon's assertions with
+regard to his earnings at the bar, and his judicial incomes, were not in
+strict accordance with the evidence of his private accounts. He used to
+say that his first year's earnings in his profession amounted to
+half-a-guinea, but there is conclusive proof that he had a considerable
+quantity of lucrative business in the same year. "When I was called to
+the bar," it was his humor to say, "Bessie and I thought all our
+troubles were over, business was to pour in, and we were to be rich
+almost immediately. So I made a bargain with her that during the
+following year all the money I should receive in the first eleven
+months should be mine, and whatever I should get in the twelfth month
+should be hers. That was our agreement, and how do you think it turned
+out? In the twelfth month I received half-a-guinea--eighteenpence went
+for charity, and Bessy got nine shillings. In the other eleven months I
+got one shilling." John Scott, be it remembered, was called to the bar
+on February 9, 1776, and on October 2, of the same year, William Scott
+wrote to his brother Henry--"My brother Jack seems highly pleased with
+his circuit business. I hope it is only the beginning of future
+triumphs. All appearances speak strongly in his favor." There is no need
+to call evidence to show that Eldon's success was more than respectable
+from the outset of his career, and that he had not been called many
+years before he was in the foremost rank of his profession. His fee-book
+gives the following account of his receipts in thirteen successive
+years:--1786, 6833_l._ 7_s._; 1787, 7600_l._ 7_s._; 1788, 8419_l._
+14_s._; 1789, 9559_l._ 10_s._; 1790, 9684_l._ 15_s._; 1791, 10,213_l._
+13_s._ 6_d._; 1792, 9080_l._ 9_s._; 1793, 10,330_l._ 1_s._ 4_d._; 1794,
+11,592_l._; 1795, 11,149_l._ 15_s._ 4_d._; 1796, 12,140_l._ 15_s._
+8_d._; 1797, 10,861_l._ 5_s._ 8_d_; 1798, 10,557_l._ 17_s._ During the
+last six of the above-mentioned years he was Attorney General, and
+during the preceding four years Solicitor General.
+
+Although General Retainers are much less general than formerly, they are
+by no means obsolete. Noblemen could be mentioned who at the present
+time engage counsel with periodical payments, special fees of course
+being also paid for each professional service. But the custom is dying
+out, and it is probable that after the lapse of another hundred years it
+will not survive save amongst the usages of ancient corporations. Notice
+has already been taken of Murray's conduct when he returned nine hundred
+and ninety-five out of a thousand guineas to the Duchess of
+Marlborough, informing her that the professional fee with the general
+retainer was neither more nor less than five guineas. The annual salary
+of a Queen's Counsel in past times was in fact a fee with a general
+retainer; but this periodic payment is no longer made to wearers of
+silk.
+
+In his learned work on 'The Judges of England,' Mr. Foss observes: "The
+custom of retaining counsel in fee lingered in form, at least in one
+ducal establishment. By a formal deed-poll between the proud Duke of
+Somerset and Sir Thomas Parker, dated July 19, 1707, the duke retains
+him as his 'standing counsell in ffee,' and gives and allows him 'the
+yearly ffee of four markes, to be paid by my solicitor' at Michaelmas,
+'to continue during my will and pleasure.'" Doubtless Mr. Foss is aware
+that this custom still 'lingers in form;' but the tone of his words
+justifies the opinion that he underrates the frequency with which
+general retainers are still given. The 'standing counsel' of civic and
+commercial companies are counsel with general retainers, and usually
+their general retainers have fees attached to them.
+
+The payments of English barristers have varied much more than the
+remunerations of English physicians. Whereas medical practitioners in
+every age have received a certain definite sum for each consultation,
+and have been forbidden by etiquette to charge more or less than the
+fixed rate, lawyers have been allowed much freedom in estimating the
+worth of their labor. This difference between the usages of the two
+professions is mainly due to the fact, that the amount of time and
+mental effort demanded by patients at each visit or consultation is very
+nearly the same in all cases, whereas the requirements of clients are
+much more various. To get up the facts of a law-case may be the work of
+minutes, or hours, or days, or even weeks; to observe the symptoms of a
+patient, and to write a prescription, can be always accomplished within
+the limits of a short morning call. In all times, however, the legal
+profession has adopted certain scales of payment--that fixed the
+_minimum_ of remuneration, but left the advocate free to get more, as
+circumstances might encourage him to raise his demands. Of the many good
+stories told of artifices by which barristers have delicately intimated
+their desire for higher payment, none is better than an anecdote
+recorded of Sergeant Hill. A troublesome case being laid before this
+most erudite of George III.'s sergeants, he returned it with a brief
+note, that he "saw more difficulty in the case than, _under all the
+circumstances_, he could well solve." As the fee marked upon the case
+was only a guinea, the attorney readily inferred that its smallness was
+one of the circumstances which occasioned the counsel's difficulty. The
+case, therefore, was returned, with a fee of two guineas. Still
+dissatisfied, Sergeant Hill wrote that "he saw no reason to change his
+opinion."
+
+By the etiquette of the bar no barrister is permitted to take a brief on
+any circuit, save that on which he habitually practises, unless he has
+received a special retainer; and no wearer of silk can be specially
+retained with a less fee than three hundred guineas. Erskine's first
+special retainer was in the Dean of St. Asaph's case, his first speech
+in which memorable cause was delivered when he had been called to the
+bar but little more than five years. From that time till his elevation
+to the bench he received on an average twelve special retainers a year,
+by which at the minimum of payment he made £3600 per annum. Besides
+being lucrative and honorable, this special employment greatly augmented
+his practice in Westminster Hall, as it brought him in personal contact
+with attorneys in every part of the country, and heightened his
+popularity amongst all classes of his fellow-countrymen. In 1786 he
+entirely withdrew from ordinary circuit practice, and confined his
+exertions in provincial courts to the causes for which he was specially
+retained. No advocate since his time has received an equal number of
+special retainers; and if he did not originate the custom of special
+retainers,[12] he was the first English barrister who ventured to reject
+all other briefs.
+
+There is no need to recapitulate all the circumstances of Erskine's
+rapid rise in his profession--a rise due to his effective brilliance and
+fervor in political trial: but this chapter on lawyers' fees would be
+culpably incomplete, if it failed to notice some of its pecuniary
+consequences. In the eighth month after his call to the bar he thanked
+Admiral Keppel for a splendid fee of one thousand pounds. A few years
+later a legal gossip wrote: "Everybody says that Erskine will be
+Solicitor General, and if he is, and indeed whether he is or not, he
+will have had the most rapid rise that has been known at the bar. It is
+four years and a half since he was called, and in that time he has
+cleared £8000 or £9000, besides paying his debts--got a silk gown, and
+business of at least £3000 a year--a seat in Parliament--and, over and
+above, has made his brother Lord Advocate."
+
+Merely to mention large fees without specifying the work by which they
+were earned would mislead the reader. During the railway mania of 1845,
+the few leaders of the parliamentary bar received prodigious fees; and
+in some cases the sums were paid for very little exertion. Frequently it
+happened that a lawyer took heavy fees in causes, at no stage of which
+he either made a speech or read a paper in the service of his too
+liberal employers. During that period of mad speculation the
+committee-rooms of the two Houses were an El Dorado to certain favored
+lawyers, who were alternately paid for speech and _silence_ with
+reckless profusion. But the time was so exceptional, that the fees
+received and the fortunes made in it by a score of lucky advocates and
+solicitors cannot be fairly cited as facts illustrating the social
+condition of legal practitioners. As a general rule, it may be stated
+that large fortunes are not made at the bar by large fees. Our richest
+lawyers have made the bulk of their wealth by accumulating sufficient
+but not exorbitant payments. In most cases the large fee has not been a
+very liberal remuneration for the work done. Edward Law's retainer for
+the defence of Warren Hastings brought with it £500--a sum which caused
+our grandfathers to raise their hands in astonishment at the nabob's
+munificence; but the sum was in reality the reverse of liberal. In all,
+Warren Hastings paid his leading advocate considerably less than four
+thousand pounds; and if Law had not contrived to win the respect of
+solicitors by his management of the defence, the case could not be said
+to have paid him for his trouble. So also the eminent advocate, who in
+the great case of Small _v._ Attwood received a fee of £6000, was
+actually underpaid. When he made up the account of the special outlay
+necessitated by that cause, and the value of business which the
+burdensome case compelled him to decline, he had small reason to
+congratulate himself on his remuneration.
+
+A statement of the incomes made by chamber-barristers, and of the sums
+realized by counsel in departments of the profession that do not invite
+the attention of the general public, would astonish those uninformed
+persons who estimate the success of a barrister by the frequency with
+which his name appears in the newspaper reports of trials and suits. The
+talkers of the bar enjoy more _éclat_ than the barristers who confine
+themselves to chamber practice, and their labors lead to the honors of
+the bench; but a young lawyer, bent only on the acquisition of wealth,
+is more likely to achieve his ambition by conveyancing or
+arbitration-business than by court-work. Kenyon was never a popular or
+successful advocate, but he made £3000 a year by answering cases.
+Charles Abbott at no time of his life could speak better than a
+vestryman of average ability; but by drawing informations and
+indictments, by writing opinions on cases, he made the greater part of
+the eight thousand pounds which he returned as the amount of his
+professional receipts in 1807. In our own time, when that popular common
+law advocate, Mr. Edwin James, was omnipotent with juries, his income
+never equalled the incomes of certain chamber-practitioners whose names
+are utterly unknown to the general body of English society.
+
+[12] Lord Campbell observes: "Some say that special retainers began with
+Erskine; but I doubt the fact." It is strange that there should be
+uncertainty as to the time when special retainers--unquestionably a
+comparatively recent innovation in legal practice--came into vogue.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+JUDICIAL CORRUPTION.
+
+
+To a young student making his first researches beneath the surface of
+English history, few facts are more painful and perplexing than the
+judicial corruption which prevailed in every period of our country's
+growth until quiet recent times--darkening the brightest pages of our
+annals, and disfiguring some of the greatest chieftains of our race.
+
+Where he narrates the fall and punishment of De Weyland towards the
+close of the thirteenth century, Speed observes: "While the Jews by
+their cruel usuries had in one way eaten up the people, the justiciars,
+like another kind of Jews, had ruined them with delay in their suits,
+and enriched themselves with wicked convictions." Of judicial corruption
+in the reigns of Edward I. and Edward II. a vivid picture is given in a
+political ballad, composed in the time of one or the other of those
+monarchs. Of this poem Mr. Wright, in his 'Political Songs,' gives a
+free version, a part of which runs thus:--
+
+   "Judges there are whom gifts and favorites control,
+   Content to serve the devil alone and take from him a toll;
+   If nature's law forbids the judge from selling his decree,
+   How dread to those who finger bribes the punishment shall be.
+
+   "Such judges have accomplices whom frequently they send
+   To get at those who claim some land, and whisper as a friend,
+   ''Tis I can help you with the judge, if you would wish to plead,
+   Give me but half, I'll undertake before him you'll succeed.'
+
+   "The clerks who sit beneath the judge are open-mouthed as he,
+   As if they were half-famished and gaping for a fee;
+   Of those who give no money they soon pronounce the state,
+   However early they attend, they shall have long to wait.
+
+   "If comes some noble lady, in beauty and in pride,
+   With golden horns upon her head, her suit he'll soon decide;
+   But she who has no charms, nor friends, and is for gifts too poor,
+   Her business all neglected, she's weeping shown the door.
+
+   "But worse than all, within the court we some relators meet,
+   Who take from either side at once, and both their clients cheat;
+   The ushers, too, to poor men say, 'You labor here in vain,
+   Unless you tip us all around, you may go back again.'
+
+   "The sheriff's hard upon the poor who cannot pay for rest,
+   Drags them about to every town, on all assizes press'd
+   Compell'd to take the oath prescrib'd without objection made,
+   For if they murmur and can't pay, upon their backs they're laid.
+
+   "They enter any private house, or abbey that they choose,
+   Where meat and drink and all things else are given as their dues;
+   And after dinner jewels too, or this were all in vain,
+   Bedels and garçons must receive, and all that form the train.
+
+   "And next must gallant robes be sent as presents to their wives,
+   Or from the manor of the host some one his cattle drives;
+   While he, poor man, is sent to gaol upon some false pretence,
+   And pays at last at double cost, ere he gets free from thence.
+
+   "I can't but laugh to see their clerks, whom once I knew in need,
+   When to obtain a bailiwick they may at last succeed;
+   With pride in gait and countenance and with their necks erect
+   They lands and houses quickly buy and pleasant rents collect.
+
+   "Grown rich they soon the poor despise, and new-made laws display,
+   Oppress their neighbors and become the wise men of their day;
+   Unsparing of the least offence, when they can have their will,
+   The hapless country all around with discontent they fill."
+
+In the fourteenth century judicial corruption was so general and
+flagrant, that cries came from every quarter for the punishment of
+offenders. The Knights Hospitallers' Survey, made in the year 1338,
+gives us revelations that confound the indiscreet admirers of feudal
+manners. From that source of information it appears that regular
+stipends were paid to persons "tam in curia domini regis quam
+justiciariis, clericis, officiariis et aliis ministris, in diversis
+curiis suis, ac etiam aliis familaribus magnatum tam pro terris
+tenementis redditbus et libertatibus Hospitalis, quam Templariorum, et
+maxime pro terris Templariorum manutenendis." Of pensions to the amount
+of £440 mentioned in the account, £60 were paid to judges, clerks, and
+minor officers of courts. Robert de Sadington, the Chief Baron, received
+40 marks annually; twice a year the Knights Hospitallers presented caps
+to one hundred and forty officers of the Exchequer; and they expended
+200 marks _per annum_ on gifts that were distributed in law courts,
+"_pro favore habendo_, et pro placitis habendis, et expensis
+parliamentorum." In that age, and for centuries later, it was customary
+for wealthy men and great corporations to make valuable presents to the
+judges and chief servants the king's courts; but it was always presumed
+that the offerings were simple expressions of respect--not tribute
+rendered, "pro favore habendo."
+
+Bent on purifying the moral atmosphere of his courts, Edward III. raised
+the salaries of his judges, and imposed upon them such oaths that none
+of their order could pervert justice, or even encourage venal practices,
+without breaking his solemn vow[13] to the king's majesty.
+
+From the amounts of the _royal_ fees or stipends paid to Edward III.'s
+judges, it may be vaguely estimated how far they were dependent on gifts
+and _court_ fees for the means of living with appropriate state. John
+Knyvet, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, has £40 and 100 marks per
+annum. The annual fee of Thomas de Ingleby, the solitary puisne judge
+of the King's Bench at that time, was at first 40 marks; but he obtained
+an additional £40 when the 'fees' were raised, and he received moreover
+£20 a year as a judge of assize. The Chief of the Common Pleas, Robert
+de Thrope, received £40 per annum, payable during his tenure of office,
+and another annual sum of £40 payable during his life. John de Mowbray,
+William de Wychingham, and William de Fyncheden, the other judges of the
+Common Pleas, received 40 marks each as official salary, and £20 per
+annum for their services at assizes. Mowbray's stipend was subsequently
+increased by 40 marks, whilst Wychingham and Fyncheden received an
+additional £40 par annum. To the Chief Baron and the other two Barons of
+the Exchequer annual fees of 40 marks each were paid, the Chief Baron
+receiving £20 per annum as Justice of Assize, and one of the puisne
+Barons, Almaric de Shirland, getting an additional 40 marks for certain
+special services. The 'Issue Roll of 44 Edward III., 1370,' also shows
+that certain sergeants-at-law acted as Justices of Assize, receiving for
+their service £20 per annum.
+
+Throughout his reign Edward III. strenuously exerted himself to purge
+his law courts of abuses, and to secure his subjects from evils wrought
+by judicial dishonesty; and though there is reason to think that he
+prosecuted his reforms, and punished offending judges with more
+impulsiveness than consistency--with petulance rather than
+firmness[14]--his action must have produced many beneficial results. But
+it does not seem to have occurred to him that the system adopted by his
+predecessors, and encouraged by the usages of his own time, was the
+real source of the mischief, and that so long as judges received the
+greater part of their remuneration from suitors, fees and the donations
+of the public, enactments and proclamations would be comparatively
+powerless to preserve the streams of justice from pollution. The
+fee-system poisoned the morality of the law-courts. From the highest
+judge to the lowest usher, every person connected with a court of
+justice was educated to receive small sums of money for trifling
+services, to be always looking out for paltry dues or gratuities, to
+multiply occasions for demanding, and reasons for pocketing petty coins,
+to invent devices for legitimate peculation. In time the system produced
+such complications of custom, right, privilege, claim, that no one could
+say definitely how much a suitor was actually bound to pay at each stage
+of a suit. The fees had an equally bad influence on the public. Trained
+to approach the king's judges with costly presents, to receive them on
+their visits with lavish hospitality, to send them offerings at the
+opening of each year, the rich and the poor learnt to look on judicial
+decisions as things that were bought and sold. In many cases this
+impression was not erroneous. Judges were forbidden to accept gifts from
+actual suitors, or to take payments _for_ judgments after their
+delivery; but on the judgment-seat they were often influenced by
+recollections of the conduct of suitors who _had been_ munificent before
+the commencement of proceedings, and most probably would be equally
+munificent six months after delivery of a judgment favorable to their
+claims. Humorous anecdotes heightened the significance of patent facts.
+Throughout a shire it would be told how this suitor won a judgment by a
+sumptuous feast; how that suitor bought the justice's favor with a flask
+of rare wine, a horse of excellent breed, a hound of superior sagacity.
+
+In the fifteenth century the judge whose probity did not succumb to an
+excellent dinner was deemed a miracle of virtue. "A lady," writes Fuller
+of Chief Justice Markham, who was dismissed from his place in 1470,
+"would traverse a suit of law against the will of her husband, who was
+contented to buy his quiet by giving her her will therein, though
+otherwise persuaded in his judgment the cause would go against her. This
+lady, dwelling in the shire town, invited the judge to dinner, and
+(though thrifty enough herself) treated him with sumptuous
+entertainment. Dinner being done, and the cause being called, the judge
+gave it against her. And when, in passion, she vowed never to invite the
+judge again, 'Nay, wife,' said he, 'vow never to invite a _just judge_
+any more.'" It may be safely affirmed that no English lady of our time
+ever tried to bribe Sir Alexander Cockburn or Sir Frederick Pollock with
+a dinner _à la Russe_.
+
+By his eulogy of Chief Justice Dyer, who died March 24, 1582, Whetstone
+gives proof that in Elizabethan England purity was the exception rather
+than the rule with judges:--
+
+   "And when he spake he was in speeche reposde;
+     His eyes did search the simple suitor's harte;
+   To put by bribes his hands were ever closde,
+     His processe juste, he tooke the poore man's parte.
+     He ruld by lawe and listened not to arte,
+   Those foes to truthe--loove, hate, and private gain,
+   Which most corrupt, his conscience could not staine."
+
+There is no reason to suppose that the custom of giving and receiving
+presents was more general or extravagant in the time of Elizabeth than
+in previous ages; but the fuller records of her splendid reign give
+greater prominence to the usage than it obtained in the chronicles of
+any earlier period of English history. On each New Year's day her
+courtiers gave her costly presents--jewels, ornaments of gold or silver
+workmanship, hundreds of ounces of silver-gilt plate, tapestry, laces,
+satin dresses, embroidered petticoats. Not only did she accept such
+costly presents from men of rank and wealth, but she graciously received
+the donations of tradesmen and menials. Francis Bacon made her majesty
+"a poor oblation of a garment;" Charles Smith, the dustman, threw upon
+the pile of treasure "two bottes of cambric." The fashion thus
+countenanced by the queen was followed in all ranks of society; all men,
+from high to low, receiving presents, as expressions of affection when
+they came from their equals, as declarations of respect when they came
+from their social inferiors. Each of her great officers of state drew a
+handsome revenue from such yearly offerings. But though the burdens and
+abuses of this system were excessive under Elizabeth, they increased in
+enormity and number during the reigns of the Stuarts.
+
+That the salaries of the Elizabethan judges were small in comparison
+with the sums which they received in presents and fees may be seen from
+the following Table of stipends and allowances annually paid, towards
+the close of the sixteenth century:--
+
+                                                      £  _s._  _d._
+
+The Lord Cheefe Justice of England:--
+  Fee, Reward and Robes                              208   6     8
+  Wyne, 2 tunnes at £5 the tunne                      10   0     0
+  Allowance for being Justice of Assize               20   0     0
+
+The Lord Cheefe Justice of the Common Pleas:--
+  Fee, Reward, and Robes                             141  13     4
+  Wyne, two tunnes                                     8   0     0
+  Allowance as Justice of Assize                      20   0     0
+  Fee for keeping the Assize in the Augmentation
+  Court                                               12  10     8
+
+Each of the three Justices in these two Courts:--
+  Fee, Reward and Robes                             £123   6_s._ 8_d._
+  Allowance as Justice of Assize                      20   0     0
+
+The Lord Cheefe Baron of the Exchequer:--
+  Fee                                                100   0     0
+  Lyvery                                              12  17     8
+  Allowance as Justice of the Assize                  20   0     0
+
+Each of the three Barons:--
+  Fee                                                 46  12     4
+  Lyvery a peece                                      12  17     4
+  Allowance as Justice of Assize                      20   0     0
+
+Prior to and in the earlier part of Elizabeth's reign, the sheriffs had
+been required to provide diet and lodging for judges travelling on
+circuit, each sheriff being responsible for the proper entertainment of
+judges within the limits of his jurisdiction. This arrangement was very
+burdensome upon the class from which the sheriffs were elected, as the
+official host had not only to furnish suitable lodging and cheer for the
+justices themselves, but also to supply the wants of their attendants
+and servants. The ostentatious and costly hospitality which law and
+public opinion thus compelled or encouraged them to exercise towards
+circuiteers of all ranks had seriously embarrassed a great number of
+country gentlemen; and the queen was assailed with entreaties for a
+reform that should free a sheriff of small estate from the necessity of
+either ruining himself, or incurring a reputation for stinginess. In
+consequence of these urgent representations, an order of council,
+bearing date February 21, 1574, decided "the justices shall have of her
+majesty several sums of money out of her coffers for their daily diet."
+Hence rose the usage of 'circuit allowances.' The sheriffs, however,
+were still bound to attend upon the judges, and make suitable provision
+for the safe conduct of the legal functionaries from assize town to
+assize town;--the sheriff of each county being required to furnish a
+body-guard for the protection of the sovereign's representatives. This
+responsibility lasted till the other day, when an innovation (of which
+Mr. Arcedeckne, of Glevering Hall, Suffolk, was the most notorious,
+though not the first champion), substituted guards of policemen, paid by
+county-rates, for bands of javelin-men equipped and rewarded by the
+sheriffs. In some counties the javelin-men--remote descendants of the
+mail-clad knights and stalwart men-at-arms who formerly mustered at the
+summons of sheriffs--still do duty with long wands and fresh rosettes;
+but they are fast giving way to the wielders of short staves.
+
+Amongst the bad consequences of the system of gratuities was the color
+which it gave to idle rumors and malicious slander against the purity of
+upright judges.
+
+When Sir Thomas More fell, charges of bribery were preferred against him
+before the Privy Council. A disappointed suitor, named Parnell, declared
+that the Chancellor had been bribed with a gift-cup to decide in favor
+of his (Parnell's) adversary. Mistress Vaughan, the successful suitor's
+wife, had given Sir Thomas the cup with her own hands. The fallen
+Chancellor admitting that "he had received the cup as a New Year's
+Gift," Lord Wiltshire cried, with unseemly exultation, "Lo! did I not
+tell you, my lords, that you would find this matter true?" It seemed
+that More had pleaded guilty, for his oath did not permit him to receive
+a New Year's Gift from an actual suitor. "But, my lords," continued the
+accused man, with one of his characteristic smiles, "hear the other part
+of my tale. After having drunk to her of wine, with which my butler had
+filled the cup, and when she had pledged me, I restored it to her, and
+would listen to no refusal." It is possible that Mistress Vaughan did
+not act with corrupt intention, but merely in ignorance of the rule
+which forbade the Chancellor to accept her present. As much cannot be
+said in behalf of Mrs. Croker, who, being opposed in a suit to Lord
+Arundel, sought to win Sir Thomas More's favor by presenting him with a
+pair of gloves containing forty angels. With a courteous smile he
+accepted the gloves, but constrained her to take back the gold. The
+gentleness of this rebuff is charming; but the story does not tell more
+in favor of Sir Thomas than to the disgrace of the lady and the moral
+tone of the society in which she lived.
+
+Readers should bear in mind the part which New Year's Gifts and other
+customary gratuities played in the trumpery charges against Lord Bacon.
+Adopting an old method of calumny, the conspirators against his fair
+fame represented that the gifts made to him, in accordance with ancient
+usage, were bribes. For instance Reynel's ring, presented on New Year's
+day, was so construed by the accusers; and in his comment upon the
+charge, Bacon, who had inadvertently accepted the gift during the
+progress of a suit, observes, "This ring was received certainly
+_pendente lite_, and though it were at New Year's tide, yet it was too
+great a value for a New Year's Gift, though, as I take it, nothing near
+the value mentioned in the articles." So also Trevor's gift was a New
+Year's present, of which Bacon says, "I confess and declare that I
+received at New Year's tide an hundred pounds from Sir John Trevor, and
+because it came as a New Year's Gift, I neglected to inquire whether the
+cause was ended or depending; but since I find that though the cause was
+then dismissed to a trial at law, yet the equity is reserved, so as it
+was in that kind _pendente lite_." Bacon knew that this explanation
+would be read by men familiar with the history of New Year's Gifts, and
+all the circumstances of the ancient usage; and it is needless to say
+that no man of honor thought the less highly of Bacon at that time,
+because his pure and guiltless acceptance of customary presents was by
+ingenious and unscrupulous adversaries made to assume an appearance of
+corrupt compliance.
+
+How far the Chancellors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
+depended upon customary gratuities for their revenues may be seen from
+the facts which show the degree of state which they were required to
+maintain, and the inadequacy of the ancient fees for the maintenance of
+that pomp. When Elizabeth pressed Hatton for payment of the sums which
+he owed her, the Chancellor lamented his inability to liquidate her just
+claims, and urged in excuse that the _ancient fees_ were very inadequate
+to the expenses of the Chancellor's office. But though Elizabethan
+Chancellors could not live upon their ancient fees, they kept up palaces
+in town and country, fed regiments of lackeys, and surpassed the ancient
+nobility in the grandeur of their equipages. Egerton--the needy and
+illegitimate son of a rural knight, a lawyer who fought up from the
+ranks--not only sustained the costly dignities of office, but left to
+his descendants a landed estate worth £8000 per annum. Bacon's successor
+in the 'marble chair,' Lord Keeper Williams, assured Buckingham that in
+Egerton's time the Chancellor's lawful income was less than three
+thousand per annum. "The lawful revenue of the office stands thus,"
+wrote Williams, speaking from his intimate knowledge of Ellesmere's
+affairs, "or not much above it at anytime:--in fines certain, £1300 per
+annum, or thereabouts; in fines casual, £1250 or thereabouts; in greater
+writs, £140; for impost of wine, £100--in all, £2790; and these are all
+the true means of that great office." It is probable that Williams
+under-stated the revenue, but it is certain that the income, apart from
+gratuities, was insufficient.
+
+The Chancellor was not more dependent on customary gratuities than the
+chief of the three Common Law courts. At Westminster and on circuit,
+whenever he was required to discharge his official functions, the
+English judge extended his hand for the contributions of the
+well-disposed. No one thought of blaming judges for their readiness to
+take customary benevolences. To take gifts was a usage of the
+profession, and had its parallel in the customs of every calling and
+rank of life. The clergy took dues in like manner: from the earliest
+days of feudal life the territorial lords had supplied their wants in
+the same way; amongst merchants and yeomen, petty traders and servants,
+the system existed in full force. These presents were made without any
+secrecy. The aldermen of borough towns openly voted presents to the
+judges; and the judges received their offerings--not as benefactions,
+but as legitimate perquisites. In 1620--just a year before Lord Bacon's
+fall--the municipal council of Lyme Regis left it to the "mayor's
+discretion" to decide "what gratuity he will give to the Lord Chief
+Baron and his men" at the next assizes. The system, it is needless to
+say, had disastrous results. Empowering the chief judge of every court
+to receive presents not only from the public, but from subordinate
+judges, inferior officers, and the bar; and moreover empowering each
+place-holder to take gratuities from persons officially or by profession
+concerned in the business of the courts, it produced a complicated
+machinery for extortion. By presents the chief justices bought their
+places from the crown or a royal favorite; by presents the puisne
+justices, registrars, counsel bought place or favor from the chief; by
+presents the attorneys, sub-registrars, and outside public sought to
+gain their ends with the humbler place-holders. The meanest ushers of
+Westminster Hall took coins from ragged scriveners. Hence every place
+was actually bought and sold, the sum being in most cases very high.
+Sir James Ley offered the Duke of Buckingham £10,000 for the Attorney's
+place. At the same period the Solicitor General's office was sold for
+£4000. Under Charles I. matters grew still worse than they had been
+under his father. When Sir Charles Cæsar consulted Laud about the worth
+of the vacant Mastership of the Rolls, the archbishop frankly said,
+"that as things then stood, the place was not likely to go without more
+money than he thought any wise man would give for it." Disregarding this
+intimation, Sir Charles paid the king £15,000 for the place, and added a
+loan of £2000. Sir Thomas Richardson, at the opening of the reign, gave
+£17,000 for the Chiefship of the Common Pleas. If judges needed gifts
+before the days when vacant seats were put up to auction, of course they
+stood all the more in need of them when they bought their promotions
+with such large sums. It is not wonderful that the wearers of ermine
+repaid themselves by venal practices. The sale of judicial offices was
+naturally followed by the sale of judicial decisions. The judges having
+submitted to the extortions of the king, the public had to endure the
+extortions of the judges. Corruption on the bench produced corruption at
+the bar. Counsel bought the attention and compliance of 'the court,' and
+in some cases sold their influence with shameless rascality. They would
+take fees to speak from one side in a cause and fees to be silent from
+the other side--selling their own clients as coolly as judges sold the
+suitors of their courts. Sympathizing with the public, and stung by
+personal experience of legal dishonesty, the clergy sometimes denounced
+from the pulpit the extortions of corrupt judges and unprincipled
+barristers. The assize sermons of Charles I.'s reign were frequently
+seasoned with such animadversions. At Thetford Assizes, March, 1630,
+the Rev. Mr. Ramsay, in the assize-sermon, spoke indignantly of judges
+who "favored causes," and of "counsellors who took fees to be silent."
+In the summer of 1631, at the Bury Assizes, "one Mr. Scott made a sore
+sermon in discovery of corruption in judges and others." At Norwich, the
+same authority, viz., 'Sir John Rous's Diary,' informs us--"Mr. Greene
+was more plaine, insomuch that Judge Harvey, in his charge, broke out
+thus: 'It seems by the sermon that we are corrupt, but we know that we
+can use conscience in our places as well as the best clergieman of
+all.'"
+
+In his 'Life and Death of Sir Matthew Hale,' Bishop Burnet tells a good
+story of the Chief's conduct with regard to a customary gift. "It is
+also a custom," says the biographer, "for the Marshall of the King's
+Bench to present the judges of that court with a piece of plate for a
+New Year's Gift, that for the Chief Justice being larger than the rest.
+This he intended to have refused, but the other judges told him it
+belonged to his office, and the refusing it would be a prejudice to his
+successors; so he was persuaded to take it, but he sent word to the
+marshall, that instead of plate he should bring him the value of it in
+money, and when he received it, he immediately sent it to the prisons
+for the relief and discharge of the poor there."
+
+[13] A portion of the oath prescribed for judges in the 'Ordinances for
+Justices,' 20 Edward III., will show the reader the evils which called
+for correction and the care taken to effect their cure. "Ye shall
+swear," ran the injunction to which each judge was required to vow
+obedience, "that well and lawfully ye shall serve our lord the king and
+his people in the office of justice; ... and that ye take not by
+yourself or by other, privily or apertly, gift or reward of gold or
+silver, nor any other thing which may turn to your profit, unless it be
+meat nor drink, and that of small value, _of any man that shall have
+plea or process before you, as long as the same process shall be so
+hanging, nor after for the same cause: and that ye shall take no fee as
+long as ye shall be justice, nor robes of any man, great or small_, but
+of the king himself: and that ye give none advice or counsel to no man,
+great or small, in any case where the king is party; &c. &c. &c." The
+clause forbidding the judge to receive gifts of actual suitors was a
+positive recognition of his right to customary gifts rendered by persons
+who had no process hanging before him. It should, moreover, be observed
+that in the passage, "ye shall take no fee as long as ye shall be
+justice, nor robes of any man," the word "fee" signifies "salary," and
+not a single payment or gratuity. The Judge was forbidden to receive
+from any man a fixed stipend (by the acceptance of which he would become
+the donor's servant), or robes (the assumption of which would be open
+declaration of service); but he was at liberty to accept the offerings
+which the public were wont to make to men of his condition, as well as
+the sums (or 'fees,' as they would be termed at the present day) due on
+different processes of his court. That the word 'fee' is thus used in
+the ordinance may be seen from the words "for this cause we have
+increased the fees (les feez) of the same our justices, in such manner
+as it ought reasonably to suffice them," by which language attention is
+drawn to the increase of judicial salaries.
+
+[14] Mr. Foss observes: "In 1350, William de Thrope, Chief Justice of
+the King's Bench, was convicted on his own confession of receiving
+bribes to stay justice; but though his property was forfeited to the
+Crown on his condemnation, the king appears to have relented, and to
+have made him second Baron of the Exchequer in May, 1352, unless I am
+mistaken in supposing the latter to have been the same person."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+GIFTS AND SALES.
+
+
+By degrees the public ceased to make presents to the principal judges of
+the kingdom; but long after the Chancellor and the three Chiefs had
+taken the last offerings of general society, they continued to receive
+yearly presents from the subordinate judges, placemen, and barristers
+of their respective courts. Lord Cowper deserves honor for being the
+holder of the seals who, by refusing to pocket these customary
+donations, put an end to a very objectionable system, so far as the
+Court of Chancery was concerned.
+
+On being made Lord Keeper, he resolved to depart from the custom of his
+predecessors for many generations, who on the first day of each new year
+had invariably entertained at breakfast the persons from whom tribute
+was looked for. Very droll were these receptions in the old time. The
+repast at an end, the guests forthwith disburdened themselves of their
+gold--the payers approaching the holder of the seals in order of rank,
+and laying on his table purses of money, which the noble payee accepted
+with his own hands. Sometimes his lordship was embarrassed by a ceremony
+that required him to pick gold from the fingers of men, several of whom
+he knew to be in indigent circumstances. In Charles II.'s time it was
+observed that the silver-tongued Lord Nottingham on such occasions
+always endeavored to hide his confusion under a succession of nervous
+smiles and exclamations--"Oh, Tyrant Cuthtom!--Oh, Tyrant Cuthtom!"
+
+It is noteworthy that in relinquishing the benefit of these exactions,
+the Lord Keeper feared unfriendly criticism much more than he
+anticipated public commendation. In his diary, under date December 30,
+Cowper wrote:--"I acquainted my Lord Treasurer with my design to refuse
+New Year's Gifts, if he had no objection against it, as spoiling, in
+some measure, a place of which he had the conferring. He answered it was
+not expected of me, but that I might do as my predecessors had done; but
+if I refused, he thought nobody could blame me for it." Anxious about
+the consequences of his innovation, the new Lord Keeper gave notice that
+on January 1, 1705-6, he would receive no gifts; but notwithstanding
+this proclamation, several officers of Chancery and counsellors came to
+his house with tribute, and were refused admittance. "New Year's Gifts
+turned back," he wrote in his diary at the close of the eventful day,
+"and pray God it doth me more credit and good than hurt, by making
+secret enemies _in fæce Romuli_." His fears were in a slight degree
+fulfilled. The Chiefs of the three Common Law Courts were greatly
+displeased with an innovation which they had no wish to adopt; and their
+warm expressions of dissatisfaction induced the Lord Keeper to cover his
+disinterestedness with a harmless fiction. To pacify the indignant
+Chiefs and the many persons who sympathized with them, he pretended that
+though he had declined intentionally the gifts of the Chancery
+barristers, he had not designed to exercise the same self-denial with
+regard to the gifts of Chancery officers.[15]
+
+The common law chiefs were slow to follow in the Lord Keeper's steps,
+and many years passed before the reform, effected in Chancery by
+accident or design, or by a lucky combination of both, was adopted in
+the other great courts. In his memoir of Lord Cowper, Campbell observes:
+"His example with respect to New Year's Gifts was not speedily followed;
+and it is said that till very recently the Chief Justice of the Common
+Pleas invited the officers of his court to a dinner at the beginning of
+the year, when each of them deposited under his plate a present in the
+shape of a Bank of England note, instead of a gift of oxen roaring at
+his levee, as in ruder times." There is no need to remind the reader in
+this place of the many veracious and the many apocryphal stories
+concerning the basket justices of Fielding's time--stories showing that
+in law courts of the lowest sort applicants for justice were accustomed
+to fee the judges with victuals and drink until a comparatively recent
+date.
+
+Lucky would it have been for the first Earl of Macclesfield if the
+custom of selling places in Chancery had been put an end to forever by
+the Lord Keeper who abolished the custom of New Year's Gifts; but the
+judge who at the sacrifice of one-fourth of his official income swept
+away the pernicious usage which had from time immemorial marked the
+opening of each year, saw no reason why he should purge Chancery of
+another scarcely less objectionable practice. Following the steps of
+their predecessors, the Chancellors Cowper, Harcourt, and Macclesfield
+sold subordinate offices in their court; and whereas all previous
+Chancellors had been held blameless for so doing, Lord Macclesfield was
+punished with official degradation, fine, imprisonment, and obloquy.
+
+By birth as humble[16] as any layman who before or since his time has
+held the seals, Thomas Parker raised himself to the woolsack by great
+talents and honorable industry. As an advocate he won the respect of
+society and his profession; as a judge he ranks with the first
+expositors of English law. Although for imputed corruption he was hurled
+with ignominy from his high place, no one has ventured to charge him
+with venality on the bench. That he was a spotless character, or that
+his career was marked by grandeur of purpose, it would be difficult to
+establish; but few Englishmen could at the present time be found to deny
+that he was in the main an upright peer, who was not wittingly
+neglectful of his duty to the country which had loaded him with wealth
+and honors.
+
+Amongst the many persons ruined by the bursting of the South Sea Bubble
+were certain Masters of Chancery, who had thrown away on that wild
+speculation large sums of which they were the official guardians. Lord
+Macclesfield was one of the victims on whom the nation wreaked its wrath
+at a crisis when universal folly had produced universal disaster. To
+punish the masters for their delinquencies was not enough; greater
+sacrifices than a few comparatively obscure placemen were demanded by
+the suitors and wards whose money had been squandered by the fraudulent
+trustees. The Lord Chancellor should be made responsible for the
+Chancery defalcations. That was the will of the country. No one
+pretended that Lord Macclesfield had originated the practice which
+permitted Masters in Chancery to speculate with funds placed under their
+care; attorneys and merchants were well aware that in the days of
+Harcourt, Cowper, Wright, and Somers, it had been usual for masters to
+pocket interest accruing from suitors' money; notorious also was it
+that, though the Chancellor was theoretically the trustee of the money
+confided to his court, the masters were its actual custodians. Had the
+Chancellor known that the masters were trafficking in dangerous
+investments to the probable loss of the public, duty would have required
+him to examine their accounts and place all trust-moneys beyond their
+reach; but until the crash came, Lord Macclesfield knew neither the
+actual worthlessness of the South Sea Stock, nor the embarrassed
+circumstances of the defaulting masters, nor the peril of the persons
+committed to his care. The system which permitted the masters to
+speculate with money not their own was execrable, but the Lord
+Chancellor was not the parent of that system.
+
+Infuriated by the national calamity, in which they were themselves great
+sufferers, the Commons impeached the Chancellor, charging him with high
+crimes and misdemeanors, of which the peers unanimously declared him
+guilty. In this famous trial the great fact established against his
+lordship was that he had sold masterships to the defaulters. It appeared
+that he had not only sold the places, but had stood out for very high
+prices; the inference being, that in consideration of these large sums
+he had left the purchasers without the supervision usually exercised by
+Chancellors over such officers, and had connived at the practices which
+had been followed by ruinous results. To this it was replied, that if
+the Chancellor had sold the places at higher prices than his
+predecessors, he had done so because the places had become much more
+valuable; that at the worst he had but sold them to the highest bidder,
+after the example of his precursors; that the inference was not
+supported by any direct testimony.
+
+Very humorous was some of the evidence by which the sale of the
+masterships was proved. Master Elde deposed that he bought his office
+for 5000 guineas, the bargain being finally settled and fulfilled after
+a personal interview with the accused lord. Master Thurston, another
+purchaser at the high rate of 5000 guineas, paid his money to Lady
+Macclesfield. It must be owned that these sums were very large, but
+their magnitude does not fix fraudulent purpose upon the Chancellor.
+That he believed himself fairly entitled to a moderate present on
+appointing to a mastership is certain; that he regarded £2000 as the
+gratuity which he might accept, without blushing at its publication, may
+be inferred from the restitution of £3250 which he made to one of the
+purchasers for £5250 at a time when he anticipated an inquiry into his
+conduct; that he felt himself acting indiscreetly if not wrongfully in
+pressing for such large sums is testified by the caution with which he
+conferred with the purchasers and the secrecy with which he accepted
+their money.
+
+His defence before the peers admitted the sales of the places, but
+maintained that the transactions were legitimate.
+
+The defence was of no avail. When the question of guilty or not guilty
+was put to the peers, each of the noble lords present answered, "Guilty,
+upon my honor." Sentenced to pay a fine of £30,000, and undergo
+imprisonment until the mulct was paid, the unfortunate statesman
+bitterly repented the imprudence which had exposed him to the vengeance
+of political adversaries and to the enmity of the vulgar. Whilst the
+passions roused by the prosecution were at their height, the fallen
+Chancellor was treated with much harshness by Parliament, and with
+actual brutality by the mob. Ever ready to vilify lawyers, the rabble
+seized on so favorable an occasion for giving expression to one of their
+strongest prejudices. Amongst the crowds who followed the Earl to the
+Tower with curses, voices were heard to exclaim that "Staffordshire had
+produced the three greatest scoundrels of England--Jack Sheppard,
+Jonathan Wilde, and Tom Parker." Jonathan Wilde was executed in
+1725--the year of Lord Macclesfield's impeachment; and Jack Sheppard
+died on the gallows at Tyburn, November 16, 1724.
+
+Throughout the inquiry, and after the adverse verdict, George I.
+persisted in showing favor to the disgraced Chancellor; and when the
+violent emotions of the crisis had passed away it was generally admitted
+by enlightened critics of public events that Lord Macclesfield had been
+unfairly treated. The scape-goat of popular wrath, he suffered less for
+his own faults, than for the evil results of a bad system; and at the
+present time--when the silence of more than a hundred and thirty years
+rests upon his tomb--Englishmen, with one voice, acknowledge the
+valuable qualities that raised him to eminence, and regret the
+proceedings which consigned him in his old age to humiliation and gloom.
+
+[15] It should be observed that many persons are of opinion that the
+Lord Keeper's assertion on this point was not an artifice, but a simple
+statement of fact. To those who take this view, his lordship's position
+seems alike ridiculous and respectable--respectable because he actually
+intended to forbear from taking the barrister's money; ridiculous
+because, through clumsy and inadequate arrangements, he missed the other
+and not less precious gifts which he did not mean to decline. Anyhow,
+the critics admit that credit is due to him for persisting in a
+change--wrought in the first instance partly by honorable design and
+partly by accident.
+
+[16] The cases of John Scott, Philip Yorke, and Edward Sugden are before
+the mind of the present writer, when he pens the sentence to which this
+note refers. The social extraction of the English bar will be considered
+in a later chapter of this work.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+A ROD PICKLED BY WILLIAM COLE.
+
+
+"A proneness to take bribes may be generated from the habit of taking
+fees," said Lord Keeper Williams in his Inaugural Address, making an
+ungenerous allusion to Francis Bacon, whilst he uttered a statement
+which was no calumny upon King James's Bench and Bar, though it is
+signally inapplicable to lawyers of the present day.
+
+Of Williams, tradition preserves a story that illustrates the prevalence
+of judicial corruption in the seventeenth century, and the jealousy with
+which that Right Reverend Lord Keeper watched for attempts to tamper
+with his honesty. Whilst he was taking exercise in the Great Park of
+Nonsuch House, his attention was caught by a church recently erected at
+the cost of a rich Chancery suitor. Having expressed satisfaction with
+the church, Williams inquired of George Minors, "Has he not a suit
+depending in Chancery?" and on receiving an answer in the affirmative,
+observed, "he shall not fare the worse for building of churches." These
+words being reported to the pious suitor, he not illogically argued that
+the Keeper was a judge likely to be influenced in making his decisions
+by matters distinct from the legal merits of the case put before him.
+Acting on this impression, the good man forthwith sent messengers to
+Nonsuch House, bearing gifts of fruits and poultry to the holder of the
+seals. "Nay, carry them back," cried the judge, looking with a grim
+smile from the presents to George Minors; "nay, carry them back, George,
+and tell your friend that he shall not fare the better for sending of
+presents."
+
+Rich in satire directed against law and its professors, the literature
+of the Commonwealth affords conclusive testimony of the low esteem in
+which lawyers were held in the seventeenth century by the populace, and
+shows how universal was the belief that wearers of ermine and gentlemen
+of the long robe would practice any sort of fraud or extortion for the
+sake of personal advantage. In the pamphlets and broadsides, in the
+squibs and ballads of the period, may be found a wealth of quaint
+narrative and broad invective, setting forth the rascality of judges and
+attorneys, barristers and scriveners. Any literary effort to throw
+contempt upon the law was sure of success. The light jesters, who made
+merry with the phraseology and costumes of Westminster Hall, were only a
+few degrees less welcome than the stronger and more indignant scribes
+who cried aloud against the sins and sinners of the courts. When simple
+folk had expended their rage in denunciations of venal eloquence and
+unjust judgments, they amused themselves with laughing at the antiquated
+verbiage of the rascals who sought to conceal their bad morality under
+worse Latin. 'A New Modell, or the Conversion of the Infidell Terms of
+the Law: For the Better promoting of misunderstanding according to
+Common Sense,' is a publication consisting of a cover or fly-leaf and
+two leaves, that appeared about a year before the Restoration. The wit
+is not brilliant; its humor is not free from uncleanness; but its comic
+renderings[17] of a hundred law terms illustrate the humor of the
+times.
+
+More serious in aim, but not less comical in result, is William Cole's
+'A Rod for the Lawyers. London, Printed in the year 1659.' The preface
+of this mad treatise ends thus--"I do not altogether despair but that
+before I dye I may see the Inns of Courts, or dens of Thieves, converted
+into Hospitals, which were a rare piece of justice; that as they
+formerly have immured those that robbed the poor of houses, so they may
+at last preserve the poor themselves."
+
+Another book touching on the same subject and belonging to the same
+period, is, 'Sagrir, or Doomsday drawing nigh; With Thunder and
+Lightning to Lawyers, (1653) by John Rogers.'
+
+Violent, even for a man holding Fifth-Monarchy views, John Rogers
+prefers a lengthy indictment against lawyers, for whose delinquencies
+and heinous offence he admits neither apology nor palliation. In his
+opinion all judges deserve the death of Arnold and Hall, whose last
+moments were provided for by the hangman. The wearers of the long robe
+are perjurers, thieves, enemies of mankind; their institutions are
+hateful, and their usages abominable. In olden time they were less
+powerful and rapacious. But prosperity soon exaggerated all their evil
+qualities. Sketching the rise of the profession, the author
+observes--"These men would get sometimes Parents, Friends, Brothers,
+Neighbors, sometimes _others_ to be (in their absence) Agents, Factors,
+or Solicitors for them at Westminster, and as yet they had no stately
+houses or mansions to live in, as they have now (called Inns of Court),
+but they lodged like countrymen or strangers in ordinary Inns. But
+afterwards, when the interests of lawyers began to look big (as in
+Edward III.'s days), they got mansions or colleges, which they called
+Inns, and by the king's favor had an addition of honor, whence they were
+called Inns of Court."[18]
+
+The familiar anecdotes which are told as illustrations of Chief Justice
+Hale's integrity are very ridiculous, but they serve to show that the
+judges of his time were believed to be very accessible to corrupt
+influences. During his tenure of the Chiefship of the Exchequer, Hale
+rode the Western Circuit, and met with the loyal reception usually
+accorded to judges on circuit in his day. Amongst other attentions
+offered to the judges on this occasion was a present of venison from a
+wealthy gentleman who was concerned in a cause that was in due course
+called for hearing. No sooner was the call made than Chief Baron Hale
+resolved to place his reputation for judicial honesty above suspicion,
+and the following scene occurred:--
+
+"_Lord Chief Baron._--'Is this plaintiff the gentleman of the same name
+who hath sent me the venison?' _Judge's servant._--'Yes, please you, my
+lord.' _Lord Chief Baron._--'Stop a bit, then. Do not yet swear the
+jury. I cannot allow the trial to go on till I have paid him for his
+buck!' _Plaintiff._--'I would have your lordship to know that neither
+myself nor my forefathers have ever sold venison, and I have done
+nothing to your lordship which we have not done to every judge that has
+come this circuit for centuries bygone.' _Magistrate of the
+County._--'My lord, I can confirm what the gentleman says for truth, for
+twenty years back.' _Other Magistrates._--'And we, my lord, know the
+same.' _Lord Chief Baron._--'That is nothing to me. The Holy Scripture
+says, 'A gift perverteth the ways of judgment.' I will not suffer the
+trial to go on till the venison is paid for. Let my butler count down
+the full value thereof.' _Plaintiff._--'I will not disgrace myself and
+my ancestors by becoming a venison butcher. From the needless dread of
+_selling_ justice, your lordship _delays_ it. I withdraw my record.'"
+
+As far as good taste and dignity were concerned, the gentleman of the
+West Country was the victor in this absurd contest: on the other hand,
+Hale had the venison for nothing, and was relieved of the trouble of
+hearing the cause.
+
+In the same manner Hale insisted on paying for six loaves of sugar which
+the Dean and Chapter of Salisbury sent to his lodgings, in accordance
+with ancient usage. Similar cases of the judge's readiness to construe
+courtesies as bribes may be found in notices of trials and books of
+_ana_.
+
+_A propos_ of these stories of Hale's squeamishness, Lord Campbell tells
+the following good anecdote of Baron Graham: "The late Baron Graham
+related to me the following anecdote to show that he had more firmness
+than Judge Hale:--'There was a baronet of ancient family with whom the
+judges going the Western Circuit had always been accustomed to dine.
+When I went that circuit I heard that a cause, in which he was
+plaintiff, was coming on for trial: but the usual invitation was
+received, and lest the people might suppose that judges could be
+influenced by a dinner; I accepted it. The defendant, a neighboring
+squire, being dreadfully alarmed by this intelligence, said to himself,
+'Well, if Sir John entertains the judge hospitably, I do not see why I
+should not do the same by the jury.' So he invited to dinner the whole
+of the special jury summoned to try the cause. Thereupon the baronet's
+courage failed him, and he withdrew the record, so that the cause was
+not tried; and although I had my dinner, I escaped all suspicion of
+partiality."
+
+This story puts the present writer in mind of another story which he has
+heard told in various ways, the wit of it being attributed by different
+narrators to two judges who have left the bench for another world, and a
+Master of Chancery who is still alive. On the present occasion the
+Master of Chancery shall figure as the humorist of the anecdote.
+
+Less than twenty years since, in one of England's southern counties, two
+neighboring landed proprietors differed concerning their respective
+rights over some unenclosed land, and also about certain rights of
+fishing in an adjacent stream. The one proprietor was the richest
+baronet, the other the poorest squire of the county; and they agreed to
+settle their dispute by arbitration. Our Master in Chancery, slightly
+known to both gentlemen, was invited to act as arbitrator after
+inspecting the localities in dispute. The invitation was accepted and
+the master visited the scene of disagreement, on the understanding that
+he should give up two days to the matter. It was arranged that on the
+first day he should walk over the squire's estate, and hear the squire's
+uncontradicted version of the case, dining at the close of the day with
+both contendents at the squire's table; and that on the second day,
+having walked over the baronet's estate, and heard without interruption
+the other side of the story, he should give his award, sitting over wine
+after dinner at the rich man's table. At the close of the first day the
+squire entertained his wealthy neighbor and the arbitrator at dinner.
+In accordance with the host's means, the dinner was modest but
+sufficient. It consisted of three fried soles, a roast leg of mutton,
+and vegetables; three pancakes, three pieces of cheese, three small
+loaves of bread, ale, and a bottle of sherry. On the removal of the
+viands, three magnificent apples, together with a magnum of port, were
+placed on the table by way of dessert. At the close of the second day
+the trio dined at the baronet's table, when it appeared that, struck by
+the simplicity of the previous day's dinner, and rightly attributing the
+absence of luxuries to the narrowness of the host's purse, the wealthy
+disputant had resolved not to attempt to influence the umpire by giving
+him a superior repast. Sitting at another table the trio dined on
+exactly the same fare,--three fried soles, a roast leg of mutton, and
+vegetables; three pancakes, three pieces of cheese, three small loaves
+of bread, ale, and a bottle of sherry; and for dessert three magnificent
+apples, together with a magnum of port. The dinner being over, the
+apples devoured, and the last glass of port drunk, the arbitrator (his
+eyes twinkling brightly as he spoke) introduced his award with the
+following exordium:--"Gentlemen, I have with all proper attention
+considered your _sole_ reasons: I have taken due notice of your _joint_
+reasons, and I have come to the conclusion that your _des(s)erts_ are
+about equal."
+
+[17] Of these renderings the subjoined may be taken as favorable
+specimens:--"Breve originale, original sinne; capias, a catch to a sad
+tune; alias capias, another to the same (sad tune); habeas corpus, a
+trooper; capias ad satisfaciend., a hangman: latitat, bo-peep; nisi
+prius, first come first served; demurrer, hum and haw; scandal. magnat.,
+down with the Lords."
+
+[18] Even vacations stink in the nostrils of Mr. Rogers; for he
+maintains that they are not so much periods when lawyers cease from
+their odious practices, as times of repose and recreation wherein they
+gain fresh vigor and daring for the commission of further outrages, and
+allow their unhappy victims to acquire just enough wealth to render them
+worth the trouble of despoiling.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+CHIEF JUSTICE POPHAM.
+
+
+One of the strangest cases of corruption amongst English Judges still
+remains to be told on the slender authority which is the sole foundation
+of the weighty accusation. In comparatively recent times there have not
+been many eminent Englishmen to whom 'tradition's simple tongue' has
+been more hostile than Queen Elizabeth's Lord Chief Justice, Popham. The
+younger son of a gentle family, John Popham passed from Oxford to the
+Middle Temple, raised himself to the honors of the ermine, secured the
+admiration of illustrious contemporaries, in his latter years gained
+abundant praise for wholesome severity towards footpads, and at his
+death left behind him a name--which, tradition informs us, belonged to a
+man who in his reckless youth, and even after his call to the bar, was a
+cut-purse and highwayman. In mitigation of his conduct it is urged by
+those who credit the charge, that young gentlemen of his date were so
+much addicted to the lawless excitement of the road, that when he was
+still a beardless stripling, an act (1 Ed. VI. c. 12, s. 14) was passed,
+whereby any peer of the realm or lord of parliament, on a first
+conviction for robbery, was entitled to benefit of clergy, though he
+could not read. But bearing in mind the liberties which rumor is wont to
+take with the names of eminent persons, the readiness the multitude
+always display to attribute light morals to grave men, and the
+infrequency of the cases where a dissolute youth is the prelude to a
+manhood of strenuous industry and an old age of honor--the cautious
+reader will require conclusive testimony before he accepts Popham's
+connection with 'the road' as one of the unassailable facts of history.
+
+The authority for this grave charge against a famous judge is John
+Aubrey, the antiquary, who was born in 1627, just twenty years after
+Popham's death. "For severall yeares," this collector says of the Chief
+Justice, "he addicted himself but little to the studie of the lawes, but
+profligate company, and was wont to take a purse with them. His wife
+considered her and his condition, and at last prevailed with him to
+lead another life and to stick to the studie of the lawe, which, upon
+her importunity, he did, being then about thirtie yours old." As Popham
+was born in 1531, he withdrew, according to this account, from the
+company of gentle highwaymen about the year 1561--more than sixty years
+before Aubrey's birth, and more than a hundred years before the
+collector committed the scandalous story to writing. The worth of such
+testimony is not great. Good stories are often fixed upon eminent men
+who had no part in the transactions thereby attributed to them. If this
+writer were to put into a private note-book a pleasant but unauthorized
+anecdote imputing _kleptomania_ to Chief Justice Wiles (who died in
+1761), and fifty years hence the note-book should be discovered in a
+dirty corner of a forgotten closet and published to the world--would
+readers in the twentieth century be justified in holding that Sir John
+Willes was an eccentric thief?
+
+But Aubrey tells a still stranger story concerning Popham, when he sets
+forth the means by which the judge made himself lord of Littlecote Hall
+in Wiltshire. The case must be given in the narrator's own words.
+
+"Sir Richard Dayrell of Littlecot in com. Wilts. having got his lady's
+waiting-woman with child, when her travell came sent a servant with a
+horse for a midwife, whom he was to bring hoodwinked. She was brought,
+and layd the woman; but as soon as the child was born, she saw the
+knight take the child and murther it, and burn it in the fire in the
+chamber. She having done her business was extraordinarily rewarded for
+her paines, and went blindfold away. This horrid action did much run in
+her mind, and she had a desire to discover it, but knew not where 'twas.
+She considered with herself the time she was riding, and how many miles
+she might have rode at that rate in that time, and that it must be some
+great person's house, for the roome was twelve foot high: and she
+should know the chamber if she sawe it. She went to a justice of peace,
+and search was made. The very chamber found. The knight was brought to
+his tryall; and, to be short, this judge had this noble house, park, and
+manor, and (I think) more, for a bribe to save his life. Sir John Popham
+gave sentence according to lawe, but being a great person and a
+favorite, he procured a _nolle prosequi_."
+
+This ghastly tale of crime following upon crime has been reproduced by
+later writers with various exaggerations and modifications. Dramas and
+novels have been founded upon it; and a volume might be made of the
+ballads and songs to which it has given birth. In some versions the
+corrupt judge does not even go through the form of passing sentence, but
+secures an acquittal from the jury; according to one account, the
+mother, instead of the infant, was put to death; according to another,
+the erring woman was the murderer's daughter, instead of his wife's
+waiting-woman; another writer, assuming credit as a conscientious
+narrator of facts, places the crime in the eighteenth instead of the
+sixteenth century, and transforms the venal judge into a clever
+barrister.
+
+In a highly seasoned statement of the repulsive tradition communicated
+by Lord Webb Seymour to Walter Scott, the murder is described with
+hideous minuteness.
+
+Changing the midwife into 'a Friar of orders grey,' and murdering the
+mother instead of the baby, Sir Walter Scott revived the story in one of
+his most popular ballads. But of all the versions of the tradition that
+have come under this writer's notice, the one that departs most widely
+from Aubrey's statement is given in Mr. G.L. Rede's 'Anecdotes and
+Biography,' (1799).
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+JUDICIAL SALARIES.
+
+
+For the last three hundred years the law has been a lucrative
+profession, our great judges during that period having in many instances
+left behind them large fortunes, earned at the bar or acquired from
+official emoluments. The rental of Egerton's landed estates was £8,000
+per annum--a royal income in the days of Elizabeth and James. Maynard
+left great wealth to his grand-daughters, Lady Hobart and Mary Countess
+of Stamford. Lord Mansfield's favorite investment was mortgage; and
+towards the close of his life the income which he derived for moneys
+lent on sound mortgages was £30,000 per annum. When Lord Kenyon had lost
+his eldest son, he observed to Mr. Justice Allan Park--"How delighted
+George would be to take his poor brother from the earth and restore him
+to life, although he receives £250,000 by his decease." Lord Eldon is
+said to have left to his descendants £500,000; and his brother, Lord
+Stowell, to whom we are indebted for the phrase 'the elegant simplicity
+of the Three per Cents.,' also acquired property that at the time of his
+death yielded £12,000 per annum.
+
+Lord Stowell's personalty was sworn under £230,000, and he had invested
+considerable sums in land. It is noteworthy that this rich lawyer did
+not learn to be contented with the moderate interest of the Three per
+Cents. until he had sustained losses from bad speculations. Notable also
+is it that this rich lawyer--whose notorious satisfaction with three per
+cent. interest has gained for him a reputation of noble indifference to
+gain--was inordinately fond of money.
+
+These great fortunes were raised from fees taken in practice at the
+bar, from judicial salaries or pensions, and from other official
+gains--such as court dues, perquisites, sinecures, and allowances. Since
+the Revolution of 1688 these last named irregular or fluctuating sources
+of judicial income have steadily diminished, and in the present day have
+come to an end. Eldon's receipts during his tenure of the seals cannot
+be definitely stated, but more is known about them and his earnings at
+the bar than he intended the world to discover, when he declared in
+Parliament "that in no one year, since he had been made Lord Chancellor,
+had he received the same amount of profit which he enjoyed while at the
+bar." Whilst he was Attorney General he earned something more than
+£10,000 a year; and in returns which he himself made to the House of
+Commons, he admits that in 1810 he received, as Lord Chancellor, a gross
+income of £22,730, from which sum, after deduction of all expenses,
+there remained a net income of £17,000 per annum. He was enabled also to
+enrich the members of his family with presentations to offices, and
+reversions of places.
+
+Until comparatively recent times, judges were dangerously dependent on
+the king's favor; for they not only held their offices during the
+pleasure of the crown, but on dismissal they could not claim a retiring
+pension. In the seventeenth century, an aged judge, worn out by toil and
+length of days, was deemed a notable instance of royal generosity, if he
+obtained a small allowance on relinquishing his place in court. Chief
+Justice Hale, on his retirement, was signally favored when Charles II.
+graciously promised to continue his salary till the end of his
+life--which was manifestly near its close. Under the Stuarts, the judges
+who lost their places for courageous fidelity to law, were wont to
+resume practice at the bar. To provide against the consequences of
+ejection from office, great lawyers, before they consented to exchange
+the gains of advocacy for the uncertain advantages of the woolsack, used
+to stipulate for special allowance--over and above the ancient
+emoluments of place. Lord Nottingham had an allowance of £4000 per
+annum; and Lord Guildford, after a struggle for better times, was
+constrained, at a cost of mental serenity, to accept the seals, with a
+special salary of half that sum.[19]
+
+From 1688 down to the present time, the chronicler of changes in the
+legal profession, has to notice a succession of alterations in the
+system and scale of judicial payments--all of the innovations having a
+tendency to raise the dignity of the bench. Under William and Mary, an
+allowance (still continued), was made to holders of the seal on their
+appointment, for the cost of outfit and equipages. The amount of this
+special aid was £2000, but fees reduced it to £1843 13_s._ Mr. Foss
+observes--"The earliest existing record of this allowance, is dated June
+4, 1700, when Sir Nathan Wright was made Lord Keeper, which states it to
+be the same sum as had been allowed to his predecessor."
+
+At the same period, the salary of a puisne judge was but £1000 a year--a
+sum that would have been altogether insufficient for his expenses. A
+considerable part of a puisne's remuneration consisted of fees,
+perquisites, and presents. Amongst the customary presents to judges at
+this time, may be mentioned the _white gloves_, which men convicted of
+manslaughter, presented to the judges when they pleaded the king's
+pardon; the _sugar loaves_, which the Warden of the Fleet annually sent
+to the judges of the Common Pleas; and the almanacs yearly distributed
+amongst the occupants of the bench by the Stationers' Company. From one
+of these almanacs, in which Judge Rokeby kept his accounts, it appears
+that in the year 1694, the casual profits of his place amounted to £694,
+4_s._ 6_d._ Here is the list of his official incomes, (net) for ten
+years:--in 1689, £1378, 10_s._; in 1690, £1475, 10_s._ 10_d._; in 1691,
+£2063, 18_s._ 4_d._; in 1692, £1570, 1_s._ 4_d._; in 1693, £1569, 13_s._
+1_d._; in 1694, £1629, 4_s._ 6_d._; in 1695, £1443, 7_s._ 6_d._; in
+1696, £1478, 2_s._ 6_d._; in 1697, £1498, 11_s._ 11_d._; in 1698, £1631,
+10_s._ 11_d._ The fluctuation of the amounts in this list, is worthy of
+observation; as it points to one bad consequence of the system of paying
+judges by fees, gratuities, and uncertain perquisites. A needy judge,
+whose income in lucky years was over two thousand pounds, must have been
+sadly pinched in years when he did not receive fifteen hundred.
+
+Under the heading, "The charges of my coming into my judge's place, and
+the taxes upon it the first yeare and halfe," Judge Rokeby gives the
+following particulars:
+
+"1689, May 11. To Mr. Milton, Deputy Clerk of the Crown, as per note,
+for the patent and swearing privately, £21, 6_s._ 4_d._ May 30. To Mr.
+English, charges of the patent at the Secretary of State's Office, as
+per note, said to be a new fee, £6, 10_s._ Inrolling the patent in
+Exchequer and Treasury, £2, 3_s._ 4_d._ Ju. 27. Wine given as a judge,
+as per vintner's note, £23, 19_s._ Ju. 24. Cakes, given as a judge, as
+per vintner's note, £5, 14_s._ 6_d._ Second-hand judge's robes, with
+some new lining, £31. Charges for my part of the patent for our salarys,
+to Aaron Smith, £7, 15_s._, and the dormant warrant £3.--£10,
+15_s._--£101, 8_s._ 2_d._
+
+"Taxes, £420.
+
+"The charges of my being made a serjeant-at-law, and of removing myselfe
+and family to London, and a new coach and paire of horses, and of my
+knighthood (all which were within the first halfe year of my coming from
+York), upon the best calculation I can make of them, were att least
+£600."
+
+Concerning the expenses attendant on his removal from the Common Pleas
+to the King's Bench in 1695--a removal which had an injurious result
+upon his income--the judge records: Nov. 1. To Mr. Partridge, the Crier
+of King's Bench, claimed by him as a fee due to the 2 criers, £2. Nov.
+12. To Mr. Ralph Hall, in full of the Clerk of the Crown's bill for my
+patent, and swearing at the Lord Keeper's, and passing it through the
+offices, £28, 14_s._ 2_d._ Dec. 6. To Mr. Carpenter, the Vintner, for
+wine and bottles, £22, 10_s._ 6_d._ To Gwin, the Confectioner, for
+cakes, £5, 3_s._ 6_d._ To Mr. Mand (his clerk), which he paid att the
+Treasury, and att the pell for my patent, allowed there, £1, 15_s._ Tot.
+£60, 2_s._ 8_d._ The charges for wine and cakes were consequences of a
+custom which required a new judge to send biscuits and macaroons, sack
+and claret, to his brethren of the bench.
+
+In the reign of George I. the salaries of the common law judges were
+raised--the pensions of the chiefs being doubled, and the _puisnes_
+receiving fifteen hundred instead of a thousand pounds.
+
+Cowper's incomes during his tenure of the seals varied between something
+over seven and something under nine thousand per annum: but there is
+some reason to believe that on accepting office, he stipulated for a
+handsome yearly salary, in case he should be called upon to relinquish
+the place. Evelyn, not a very reliable authority, but still a chronicler
+worthy of notice even on questions of fact, says:--"Oct. 1705. Mr.
+Cowper made Lord Keeper. Observing how uncertain greate officers are of
+continuing long in their places, he would not accept it unless £2,000 a
+yeare were given him in reversion when he was put out, in consideration
+of his loss of practice. His predecessors, how little time soever they
+had the seal, usually got £100,000, and made themselves barons." It is
+doubtful whether this bargain was actually made; but long after
+Cowper's time, lawyers about to mount the woolsack, insisted on having
+terms that should compensate them for loss of practice. Lord
+Macclesfield had a special salary of £4000 per annum, during his
+occupancy of the marble chair, and obtained a grant of £12,000 from the
+king;--a tellership in the Exchequer being also bestowed upon his eldest
+son. Lord King obtained even better terms--a salary of £6000 per annum
+from the Post Office, and £1200 from the Hanaper Office; this large
+income being granted to him in consideration of the injury done to the
+Chancellor's emoluments by the proceedings against Lord
+Macclesfield--whereby it was declared illegal for chancellors to sell
+the subordinate offices in the Court of Chancery. This arrangement--giving
+the Chancellor an increased salary in _lieu_ of the sums which he could
+no longer raise by sales of offices--is conclusive testimony that in
+the opinion of the crown Lord Macclesfield had a right to sell the
+masterships. The terms made by Lord Northington, in 1766, on
+resigning the Seals and becoming President of the Council, illustrate
+this custom. On quitting the marble chair, he obtained an immediate
+pension of £2000 per annum; and an agreement that the annual payment
+should be made £4000 per annum, as soon as he retired from the
+Presidency: he also obtained a reversionary grant for two lives of the
+lucrative office of Clerk of the Hanaper in Chancery.
+
+In Lord Chancellor King's time, amongst the fees and perquisites which
+he wished to regulate and reform were the supplies of stationery,
+provided by the country for the great law-officers. It may be supposed
+that the sum thus expended on paper, pens, and wax was an insignificant
+item in the national expenditure; but such was not the case--for the
+chief of the courts were accustomed to place their personal friends on
+the free-list for articles of stationery. The Archbishop of Dublin, a
+dignitary well able to pay for his own writing materials, wrote to Lord
+King, April 10, 1733: "MY LORD,--Ever since I had the honor of being
+acquainted with Lord Chancellors, I have lived in England and Ireland
+upon Chancery paper, pens, and wax. I am not willing to lose an old
+advantageous custom. If your Lordship hath any to spare me by my
+servant, you will oblige your very humble servant,
+
+"JOHN DUBLIN."
+
+So long as judges or subordinate officers were paid by casual
+perquisites and fees, paid directly to them by suitors, a taint of
+corruption lingered in the practice of our courts. Long after judges
+ceased to sell injustice, they delayed justice from interested motives,
+and when questions concerning their perquisites were raised, they would
+sometimes strain a point, for the sake of their own private advantage.
+Even Lord Ellenborough, whose fame is bright amongst the reputations of
+honorable men, could not always exercise self-control when attempts were
+made to lessen his customary profits, "I never," writes Lord Campbell,
+"saw this feeling at all manifest itself in Lord Ellenborough except
+once, when a question arose whether money paid into court was liable to
+poundage. I was counsel in the case, and threw him into a furious
+passion, by strenuously resisting the demand; the poundage was to go
+into his own pocket--being payable to the chief clerk--an office held in
+trust for him. If he was in any degree influenced by this consideration,
+I make no doubt that he was wholly unconscious of it."
+
+George III.'s reign witnessed the introduction of changes long required,
+and frequently demanded in the mode and amounts of judicial payments. In
+1779, puisne judges and barons received an additional £400 per annum,
+and the Chief Baron an increase of £500 a year. Twenty years later,
+Stat. 39, Geo. III., c. 110, gave the Master of the Rolls, £4000 a
+year, the Lord Chief Baron £4000 a year, and each of the puisne judges
+and barons, £3000 per annum. By the same act also, life-pensions of
+£4000 per annum were secured to retiring holders of the seal, and it was
+provided that after fifteen years of service, or in case of incurable
+infirmity, the Chief Justice of the King's Bench could claim, on
+retirement, £3000 per annum, the Master of the Rolls, Chief of Common
+Pleas, and Chief Baron £2500 per annum, and each minor judge of those
+courts or Baron of the coif, £2000 a year. In 1809, (49 Geo. III., c.
+127) the Lord Chief Baron's annual salary was raised to £5000; whilst a
+yearly stipend of £4000 was assigned to each puisne judge or baron. By
+53 Geo. III., c. 153, the Chiefs and Master of the Rolls, received on
+retirement an additional yearly £800, and the puisnes an additional
+yearly £600. A still more important reform of George III.'s reign was
+the creation of the first Vice Chancellor in March, 1813. Rank was
+assigned to the new functionary next after the Master of the Rolls, and
+his salary was fixed at £5000 per annum.
+
+Until the reign of George IV. judges continued to take fees and
+perquisites; but by 6 Geo. IV. c. 82, 83, 84, it was arranged that the
+fees should be paid into the Exchequer, and that the undernamed great
+officers of justice should receive the following salaries and pensions
+on retirement:--
+
+                                                         An. Pension
+                                           An. Sal.    on retirement.
+
+Lord Chief Justice of King's Bench        £10,000             £4000
+Lord Chief Justice of Common Pleas           8000              3750
+The Master of the Rolls                      7000              3750
+The Vice Chancellor of England               6000              3750
+The Chief Baron of the Exchequer             7000              3750
+Each Puisne Baron or Judge                   5500              3500
+
+Moreover by this Act, the second judge of the King's Bench was
+entitled, as in the preceding reign, to £40 for giving charge to the
+grand jury in each term, and pronouncing judgment on malefactors.
+
+The changes with regard to judicial salaries under William IV. were
+comparatively unimportant. By 2 and 3 Will. IV. c. 116, the salaries of
+puisne judges and barons were reduced to £5000 a year; and by 2 and 3
+Will. IV. c. 111, the Chancellor's pension, on retirement, was raised to
+£5000, the additional £1000 per annum being assigned to him in
+compensation of loss of patronage occasioned by the abolition of certain
+offices. These were the most noticeable of William's provisions with
+regard to the payment of his judges.
+
+The present reign, which has generously given the country two new
+judges, called Lord Justices, two additional Vice Chancellors, and a
+swarm of paid justices, in the shape of county court judges and
+stipendiary magistrates, has exercised economy with regard to judicial
+salaries. The annual stipends of the two Chief Justices, fixed in 1825
+at £10,000 for the Chief of the King's Bench, and £8000 for the Chief of
+the Common Pleas, have been reduced, in the former case to £8000 per
+annum, in the latter to £7000 per annum. The Chancellor's salary for his
+services as Speaker of the House of Lords, has been made part of the
+£10,000 assigned to his legal office; so that his income is no more than
+ten thousand a year. The salary of the Master of the Rolls has been
+reduced from £7000 to £6000 a year; the same stipend, together with a
+pension on retirement of £3750, being assigned to each of the Lords
+Justices. The salary of a Vice Chancellor is £5000 per annum; and after
+fifteen years' service, or in case of incurable sickness, rendering him
+unable to discharge the functions of his office, he can retire with a
+pension of £3500.
+
+Thurlow had no pension on retirement; but with much justice Lord
+Campbell observes: "Although there was no parliamentary retired
+allowance for ex-Chancellors, they were better off than at present.
+Thurlow was a Teller of the Exchequer, and had given sinecures to all
+his relations, for one of which his nephew now receives a commutation of
+£9000 a year." Lord Loughborough was the first ex-Chancellor who
+enjoyed, on retirement, a pension of £4000 per annum, under Stat. 39
+Geo. III. c. 110. The next claimant for an ex-Chancellor's pension was
+Eldon, on his ejection from office in 1806; and the third claimant was
+Erskine, whom the possession of the pension did not preserve from the
+humiliation of indigence.
+
+Eldon's obstinate tenacity of office, was attended with one good result.
+It saved the nation much money by keeping down the number of
+ex-Chancellors entitled to £4000 per annum. The frequency with which
+Governments have been changed during the last forty years has had a
+contrary effect, producing such a strong bevy of lawyers--who are
+pensioners as well as peers--that financial reformers are loudly asking
+if some scheme cannot be devised for lessening the number of these
+costly and comparatively useless personages. At the time when this page
+is written, there are four ex-Chancellors in receipt of pensions--Lords
+Brougham, St. Leonards, Cranworth, and Westbury; but death has recently
+diminished the roll of Chancellors by removing Lords Truro and
+Lyndhurst. Not long since the present writer read a very able, but
+one-sided article in a liberal newspaper that gave the sum total spent
+by the country since Lord Eldon's death in ex-Chancellors' pensions; and
+in simple truth it must be admitted that the bill was a fearful subject
+for contemplation.
+
+[19] During the Commonwealth, the people, unwilling to pay their judges
+liberally, decided that a thousand a year was a sufficient income for a
+Lord Commissioner of the Great Seal.
+
+
+
+
+PART IV.
+
+COSTUME AND TOILET.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+BRIGHT AND SAD.
+
+
+From the days of the Conqueror's Chancellor, Baldrick, who is reputed to
+have invented and christened the sword-belt that bears his name, lawyers
+have been conspicuous amongst the best dressed men of their times. For
+many generations clerical discipline restrained the members of the bar
+from garments of lavish costliness and various colors, unless high rank
+and personal influence placed them above the fear of censure and
+punishment; but as soon as the law became a lay-profession, its
+members--especially those who were still young--eagerly seized the
+newest fashions of costume, and expended so much time and money on
+personal decoration, that the governors of the Inns deemed it expedient
+to make rules, with a view to check the inordinate love of gay apparel.
+
+By these enactments, foppish modes of dressing the hair was
+discountenanced or forbidden, not less than the use of gaudy clothes and
+bright arms. Some of these regulations have a quaint air to readers of
+this generation; and as indications of manners in past times, they
+deserve attention.
+
+From Dugdale's 'Origines Juridiciales,' it appears that in the earlier
+part of Henry VIII.'s reign, the students and barristers of the Inns
+were allowed great licence in settling for themselves minor points of
+costume; but before that paternal monarch died, this freedom was
+lessened. Accepting the statements of a previous chronicler, Dugdale
+observes of the members of the Middle Temple under Henry--"They have no
+order for their apparell; but every man may go as him listeth, so that
+his apparell pretend no lightness or wantonness in the wearer; for, even
+as his apparell doth shew him to be, even so he shall be esteemed among
+them." But at the period when this licence was permitted in respect of
+costume, the general discipline of the Inn was scandalously lax; the
+very next paragraph of the 'Origines' showing that the templars forbore
+to shut their gates at night, whereby "their chambers were oftentimes
+robbed, and many other misdemeanors used."
+
+But measures were taken to rectify the abuses and evil manners of the
+schools. In the thirty-eighth year of Henry VIII. an order was made
+"that the gentlemen of this company" (_i.e._, the Inner Temple) "should
+reform themselves in their cut or disguised apparel, and not to have
+long beards. And that the Treasurer of this society should confer with
+the other Treasurers of Court for an uniform reformation." The
+authorities of Lincoln's Inn had already bestirred themselves to reduce
+the extravagances of dress and toilet which marked their younger and
+more frivolous fellow-members. "And for decency in Apparel," writes
+Dugdale, concerning Lincoln's Inn, "at a council held on the day of the
+Nativity of St. John the Baptist, 23 Hen. VIII. it was ordered that for
+a continual rule, to be thenceforth kept in this house, no gentleman,
+being a fellow of this house, should wear any cut or pansid hose, or
+bryches; or pansid doublet, upon pain of putting out of the house."
+
+Ten years later the authorities of Lincoln's Inn (33 Hen. VIII.) ordered
+that no member of the society "being in commons, or at his repast,
+should wear a beard; and whoso did, to pay double commons or repasts in
+this house during such time as he should have any beard."
+
+By an order of 5 Maii, 1 and 2 Philip and Mary, the gentlemen of the
+Inner Temple were forbidden to wear long beards, no member of the
+society being permitted to wear a beard of more than three weeks'
+growth. Every breach of this law was punished by the heavy fine of
+twenty shillings. In 4 and 5 of Philip and Mary it was ordered that no
+member of the Middle Temple "should thenceforth wear any great bryches
+in their hoses, made after the Dutch, Spanish, or Almon fashion; or
+lawnde upon their capps; or cut doublets, upon pain of iiis iiiid
+forfaiture for the first default, and the second time to be expelled the
+house." At Lincoln's Inn, "in 1 and 2 Philip and Mary, one Mr Wyde, of
+this house, was (by special order made upon Ascension day) fined at five
+groats, for going in his study gown in Cheapside, on a Sunday, about ten
+o'clock before noon; and in Westminister Hall, in the Term time, in the
+forenoon." Mr. Wyde's offence was one of remissness rather than of
+excessive care for his personal appearance. With regard to beards in the
+same reign Lincoln's Inn exacted that such members "as had beards should
+pay 12_d._ for every meal they continued them; and every man" was
+required "to be shaven upon pain of putting out of commons."
+
+The orders made under Elizabeth with regard to the same or similar
+matters are even more humorous and diverse. At the Inner Temple "it was
+ordered in 36 Elizabeth (16 Junii), that if any fellow in commons, or
+lying in the Louse, did wear either hat or cloak in the Temple Church,
+hall, buttry, kitchen, or at the buttry-barr, dresser, or in the garden,
+he should forfeit for every such offence vis viiid. And in 42 Eliz. (8
+Febr.) that they go not in cloaks, hatts, bootes, and spurs into the
+city, but when they ride out of the town." This order was most
+displeasing to the young men of the legal academies, who were given to
+swaggering amongst the brave gallants of city ordinaries, and delighted
+in showing their rich attire at Paul's. The Templar of the Inner Temple
+who ventured to wear arms (except his dagger) in hall committed a grave
+offence, and was fined five pounds. "No fellow of this house should come
+into the hall" it was enacted at the Inner Temple, 38 Eliz. (20 Dec.)
+"with any weapons, except his dagger, or his knife, upon pain of
+forfeiting the sum of five pounds." In old time the lawyers often
+quarrelled and drew swords in hall; and the object of this regulation
+doubtless was to diminish the number of scandalous affrays. The Middle
+Temple, in 26 Eliz., made six prohibitory rules with regard to apparel,
+enacting, "1. That no ruff should be worn. 2. Nor any White color in
+doublets or hoses. 3. Nor any facing of velvet in gownes, but by such as
+were of the bench. 4. That no gentleman should walk in the streets in
+their cloaks, but in gownes. 5. That no hat, or long, or curled hair be
+worn. 6. Nor any gown, but such as were of a sad color." Of similar
+orders made at Gray's Inn, during Elizabeth's reign, the following edict
+of 42 Eliz. (Feb. 11) may be taken as a specimen:--"That no gentleman of
+this society do come into the hall, to any meal, with their hats, boots,
+or spurs; but with their caps, decently and orderly, according to the
+ancient order of this house: upon pain, for every offence, to forfeit
+iiis 4d, and for the third offence expulsion. Likewise, that no
+gentleman of this society do go into the city, or suburbs, or to walk in
+the Fields, otherwise than in his gown, according to the ancient usage
+of the gentlemen of the Inns of Court, upon penalty of iiis iiiid for
+every offence; and for the third, expulsion and loss of his chamber."
+
+At Lincoln's Inn it was enacted, "in 38 Eliz., that if any Fellow of
+this House, being a commoner or repaster, should within the precinct of
+this house wear any cloak, boots and spurs, or long hair, he should pay
+for every offence five shillings for a fine, and also to be put out of
+commons." The attempt to put down beards at Lincoln's Inn failed.
+Dugdale says, in his notes on that Inn, "And in 1 Eliz. it was further
+ordered, that no fellow of this house should wear any beard above a
+fortnight's growth; and that whoso transgresses therein should for the
+first offence forfeit 3_s._ 4d., to be paid and cast with his commons;
+and for the second time 6_s_ 8d., in like manner to be paid and cast with
+his commons; and the third time to be banished the house. But the
+fashion at that time of wearing beards grew then so predominant, as that
+the very next year following, at a council held at this house, upon the
+27th of November, it was agreed and ordered, that all orders before that
+time touching beards should be void and repealed." In the same year in
+which the authorities of Lincoln's Inn forbade the wearing of beards,
+they ordered that no fellow of their society "should wear any sword or
+buckler; or cause any to be born after him into the town." This was the
+first of the seven orders made in 1 Eliz. for _all_ the Inns of Court;
+of which orders the sixth runs thus:--"That none should wear any velvet
+upper cap, neither in the house nor city. And that none after the first
+day of January then ensuing, should wear any furs, nor any manner of
+silk in their apparel, otherwise than he could justifie by the stature
+of apparel, made _an._ 24 H. 8, under the penalty aforesaid." In the
+eighth year of the following reign it was ordained at Lincoln's Inn
+"that no rapier should be worn in this house by any of the society."
+
+Other orders made in the reign of James I., and similar enactments
+passed by the Inns in still more recent periods, can be readily found on
+reference to Dugdale and later writers upon the usages of lawyers.
+
+On such matters, however, fashion is all-powerful; and however grandly
+the benchers of an Inn might talk in their council-chamber, they could
+not prevail on their youngsters to eschew beards when beards were the
+mode, or to crop the hair of their heads when long tresses were worn by
+gallants at court. Even in the time of Elizabeth--when authority was
+most anxious that utter-barristers should in matters of costume maintain
+that reputation for 'sadness' which is the proverbial characteristic of
+apprentices of the law--counsellors of various degrees were conspicuous
+throughout the town for brave attire. If we had no other evidence
+bearing on the point, knowledge of human nature would make us certain
+that the bar imitated Lord Chancellor Hatton's costume. At Gray's Inn,
+Francis Bacon was not singular in loving rich clothes, and running into
+debt for satin and velvet, jewels and brocade, lace and feathers. Even
+of that contemner of frivolous men and vain pursuits, Edward Coke,
+biography assures us, "The jewel of his mind was put into a fair case, a
+beautiful body with comely countenance; a case which he did wipe and
+keep clean, delighting in good clothes, well worn; being wont to say
+that the outward neatness of our bodies might be a monitor of purity to
+our souls."
+
+The courts of James I. and his son drew some of their most splendid fops
+from the multitude of young men who were enjoined by the elders of their
+profession to adhere to a costume that was a compromise between the garb
+of an Oxford scholar and the guise of a London 'prentice. The same was
+the case with Charles II.'s London. Students and barristers outshone the
+brightest idlers at Whitehall, whilst within the walls of their Inns
+benchers still made a faint show of enforcing old restrictions upon
+costume. At a time when every Templar in society wore hair--either
+natural or artificial--long and elaborately dressed, Sir William Dugdale
+wrote, "To the office of the chief butler" (_i.e._, of the Middle
+Temple) "it likewise appertaineth to take the names of those that be
+absent at the said solemn revells, and to present them to the bench, as
+also inform the bench of such as wear hats, bootes, _long hair_, or the
+like (for the which he is commonly out of the young gentlemen's favor)."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+MILLINERY.
+
+
+Saith Sir William Dugdale, in his chapter concerning the personal attire
+of judges--"That peculiar and decent vestments have, from great
+antiquity, been used in religious services, we have the authority of
+God's sacred precept to Moses, '_Thou shall make holy rayments for Aaron
+and his sons, that are to minister unto me, that they may be for glory
+and beauty_.'" In this light and flippant age there are men irreverent
+enough to smile at the habiliments which our judges wear in court, for
+the glory of God and the seemly embellishment of their own natural
+beauty.
+
+Like the stuff-gown of the utter-barrister, the robes of English judges
+are of considerable antiquity; but antiquaries labor in vain to discover
+all the facts relating to their origin and history. Mr. Foss says that
+at the Stuart Restoration English judges resumed the robes worn by their
+predecessors since the time of Edward I.; but though the judicial robes
+of the present day bear a close resemblance to the vestments worn by
+that king's judges, the costume of the bench has undergone many
+variations since the twentieth year of his reign.
+
+In the eleventh year of Richard II. a distinction was made between the
+costumes of the chiefs of the King's Bench and Common Pleas and their
+assistant justices; and at the same time the Chief Baron's inferiority
+to the Chief Justices was marked by costume.
+
+Henry VI.'s Chief Justice of the King's Bench, Sir John Fortescue, in
+his delightful treatise 'De Laudibus Legum Angliæ,' describes the
+ceremony attending the creation of a justice, and minutely sets forth
+the chief items of judicial costume in the Bench and Common Pleas during
+his time. "Howbeit," runs Robert Mulcaster's rendering of the 'De
+Laudibus,' "the habite of his rayment, hee shall from time to time
+forwarde, in some pointes change, but not in all the ensignments
+thereof. For beeing serjeaunt at lawe, hee was clothed in a long robe
+priestlyke, with a furred cape about his shoulders, and thereupon a
+hoode with two labels such as Doctours of the Lawes use to weare in
+certayne universityes, with the above described quoyfe. But being once
+made a justice, in steede of his hoode, hee shall weare a cloake cloased
+upon his righte shoulder, all the other ornaments of a serjeant still
+remayning; sauing that a justyce shall weare no partye coloured vesture
+as a serjeant may. And his cape is furred with none other than menever,
+whereas the serjeant's cape is ever furred with whyte lambe."
+
+Judicial costume varied with the fashion of the day or the whim of the
+sovereign in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Subsequent
+generations saw the introduction of other changes; and in the time of
+Charles I. questions relating to the attire of the common law judges
+were involved in so much doubt, and surrounded with so many
+contradictory precedents and traditions, that the judges resolved to
+simplify matters by conference and unanimous action. The result of their
+deliberation was a decree, dated June 6, 1635, to which Sir John
+Bramston, Chief of the King's Bench, Sir John Finch, Chief of the Common
+Pleas, Sir Humphrey Davenport, Chief of the Exchequer, and all the minor
+judges of the three courts, gave subscription.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+WIGS.
+
+
+The changes effected in judicial costume during the Commonwealth, like
+the reformation introduced at the same period into the language of the
+law, were all reversed in 1660, when Charles II.'s judges resumed the
+attire and usages of their predecessors in the first Charles's reign.
+When he had satisfied himself that monarchical principles were sure of
+an enduring triumph, and that their victory would conduce to his own
+advantage, great was young Samuel Pepys's delight at seeing the ancient
+customs of the lawyers restored, one after another. In October, 1660, he
+had the pleasure of seeing "the Lord Chancellor and all the judges
+riding on horseback, and going to Westminster Hall, it being the first
+day of term." In the February of 1663-4 his eyes were gladdened by the
+revival of another old practice. "28th (Lord's Day). Up and walked to
+St. Paul's," he writes, "and, by chance, it was an extraordinary day for
+the Readers of Inns of the Court and all the Students to come to church,
+it being an old ceremony not used these twenty-five years, upon the
+first Sunday in Lent. Abundance there was of students, more than there
+was room to seat but upon forms, and the church mighty full. One Hawkins
+preached, an Oxford man, a good sermon upon these words, 'But the wisdom
+from above is first pure, then peaceable.'" Hawkins was no doubt a
+humorist, and smiled in the sleeve of his Oxford gown as he told the
+law-students that _peace_ characterized the highest sort of _wisdom_.
+
+But, notwithstanding their zeal in reviving old customs, the lawyers of
+the Restoration introduced certain novelties into legal life. From Paris
+they imported the wig which still remains one of the distinctive
+adornments of the English barrister; and from the same centre of
+civilization they introduced certain refinements of cookery, which had
+been hitherto unknown in the taverns of Fleet Street and the Strand. In
+the earlier part of the 'merry monarch's' reign, the eating-house most
+popular with young barristers and law-students was kept by a French cook
+named Chattelin, who, besides entertaining his customers with delicate
+fare and choice wine, enriched our language with the word 'cutlet'--in
+his day spelt costelet.
+
+In the seventeenth century, until wigs were generally adopted, the
+common law judges, like their precursors for several past generations,
+wore in court velvet caps, coifs, and cornered caps. Pictures preserve
+to us the appearance of justices, with their heads covered by one or two
+of these articles of dress, the moustache in many instances adorning the
+lip, and a well-trimmed beard giving point to the judicial chin. The
+more common head-dress was the coif and coif-cap, of which it is
+necessary to say a few words.
+
+The coif was a covering for the head, made of white lawn or silk, and
+common law judges wore it as a sign that they were members of the
+learned brotherhood of sergeants. Speaking of the sergeants, Fortescue,
+in his 'De Laudibus,' says--"Wherefore to this state and degree hath no
+man beene hitherto admitted, except he hath first continued by the space
+of sixteene years in the said generall studio of the law, and in token
+or signe, that all justices are thus graduat, every one of them alwaies,
+while he sitteth in the Kinge's Courts, weareth a white quoyfe of silke;
+which is the principal and chiefe insignment of habite, wherewith
+serjeants-at-lawe in their creation are decked. And neither the justice,
+nor yet the serjeaunt, shall ever put off the quoyfe, no not in the
+kinge's presence, though he bee in talke with his majestie's highnesse."
+At times it was no easy matter to take the coif from the head; for the
+white drapery was fixed to its place with strings, which in the case of
+one notorious rascal were not untied without difficulty. In Henry III.'s
+reign, when William de Bossy was charged in open court with corruption
+and dishonesty, he claimed the benefit of clerical orders, and
+endeavored to remove his coif in order that he might display his
+tonsure; but before he could effect his purpose, an officer of the court
+seized him by the throat and dragged him off to prison. "Voluit," says
+Matthew Paris, "ligamenta coifæ suæ solvere, ut, palam monstraret se
+tonsuram habere clericalem; sed non est permissus. Satelles vero eum
+arripiens, non per coifæ ligamina sed per guttur eum apprehendens,
+traxit ad carcerem." From which occurrence Spelman drew the untenable,
+and indeed, ridiculous inference, that the coif was introduced as a
+veil, beneath which ecclesiastics who wished to practice as judges or
+counsel in the secular courts, might conceal the personal mark of their
+order.
+
+The coif-cap is still worn in undiminished proportions by judges when
+they pass sentence of death, and is generally known as the 'black cap.'
+In old time the justice, on making ready to pronounce the awful words
+which consigned a fellow-creature to a horrible death, was wont to draw
+up the flat, square, dark cap, that sometimes hung at the nape of his
+neck or the upper part of his shoulder. Having covered the whiteness of
+his coif, and partially concealed his forehead and brows with the sable
+cloth, he proceeded to utter the dread sentence with solemn composure
+and firmness. At present the black cap is assumed to strike terror into
+the hearts of the vulgar; formerly it was pulled over the eyes, to hide
+the emotion of the judge.
+
+Shorn of their original size, the coif and the coif-cap may still be
+seen in the wigs worn by sergeants at the present day. The black blot
+which marks the crown of a sergeant's wig is generally spoken of as his
+coif, but this designation is erroneous. The black blot is the coif-cap;
+and those who wish to see the veritable coif must take a near view of
+the wig, when they will see that between the black silk and the
+horsehair there lies a circular piece of white lawn, which is the
+vestige of that pure raiment so reverentially mentioned by Fortescue. On
+the general adoption of wigs, the sergeants, like the rest of the bar,
+followed in the wake of fashion: but at first they wore their old coifs
+and caps over their false hair. Finding this plan cumbersome, they
+gradually diminished the size of the ancient covering, until the coif
+and cap became the absurd thing which resembles a bald place covered
+with court-plaster quite as much as the rest of the wig resembles human
+hair.
+
+Whilst the common law judges of the seventeenth century, before the
+introduction of wigs, wore the undiminished coif and coif-cap, the Lord
+Chancellor, like the Speaker of the House of Commons, wore a hat. Lord
+Keeper Williams, the last clerical holder of the seals, used to wear in
+the Court of Chancery a round, conical hat. Bradshaw, sitting as
+president of the commissioners who tried Charles I., wore a hat instead
+of the coif and cap which he donned at other times as a serjeant of law.
+Kennett tells us that "Mr. Sergeant Bradshaw, the President, was afraid
+of some tumult upon such new and unprecedented insolence as that of
+sitting judge upon his king; and therefore, beside other defence, he had
+a thick big-crowned beaver hat, lined with plated steel, to ward off
+blows." It is scarcely credible that Bradshaw resorted to such means for
+securing his own safety, for in the case of a tumult, a hat, however
+strong, would have been an insignificant protection against popular
+fury. If conspirators had resolved to take his life, they would have
+tried to effect their purpose by shooting or stabbing him, not by
+knocking him on the head. A steel-plated hat would have been but a poor
+guard against a bludgeon, and a still poorer defence against poignard or
+pistol. It is far more probable that in laying aside the ordinary
+head-dress of an English common law judge, and in assuming a
+high-crowned hat, the usual covering of a Speaker, Bradshaw endeavored
+to mark the exceptional character of the proceeding, and to remind the
+public that he acted under parliamentary sanction. Whatever the wearer's
+object, England was satisfied that he had a notable purpose, and
+persisted in regarding the act as significant of cowardice or of
+insolence, of anxiety to keep within the lines of parliamentary
+privilege or of readiness to set all law at defiance. At the time and
+long after Bradshaw's death, that hat caused an abundance of discussion;
+it was a problem which men tried in vain to solve, an enigma that
+puzzled clever heads, a riddle that was interpreted as an insult, a
+caution, a protest, a menace, a doubt. Oxford honored it with a Latin
+inscription, and a place amongst the curiosities of the university, and
+its memory is preserved to Englishmen of the present day in the familiar
+lines--
+
+   "Where England's monarch once uncovered sat,
+   And Bradshaw bullied in a broad-brimmed hat."
+
+Judges were by no means unanimous with regard to the adoption of wigs,
+some of them obstinately refusing to disfigure themselves with false
+tresses, and others displaying a foppish delight in the new decoration.
+Sir Matthew Hale, who died in 1676, to the last steadily refused to
+decorate himself with artificial locks. The likeness of the Chief
+Justice that forms the frontispiece to Burnet's memoir of the lawyer,
+represents him in his judicial robes, wearing his SS collar, and having
+on his head a cap--not the coif-cap, but one of the close-fitting
+skull-caps worn by judges in the seventeenth century. Such skull-caps,
+it has been observed in a prior page of this work, were worn by
+barristers under their wigs, and country gentlemen at home, during the
+last century. Into such caps readers have seen Sir Francis North put his
+fees. The portrait of Sir Cresswell Levinz (who returned to the bar on
+dismissal from the bench in 1686) shows that he wore a full-bottomed wig
+whilst he was a judge; whereas Sir Thomas Street, who remained a judge
+till the close of James II.'s reign, wore his own hair and a coif-cap.
+
+When Shaftesbury sat in court as Lord High Chancellor of England he wore
+a hat, which Roger North is charitable enough to think might have been a
+black hat. "His lordship," says the 'Examen,' "regarded censure so
+little, that he did not concern himself to use a decent habit as became
+a judge of his station; for he sat upon the bench in an ash-colored gown
+silver-laced, and full-ribboned pantaloons displayed, without any black
+at all in his garb, unless it were his hat, which, now, I cannot
+positively say, though I saw him, was so."
+
+Even so late as Queen Anne's reign, which witnessed the introduction of
+three-cornered hats, a Lord Keeper wore his own hair in court instead
+of a wig, until he received the sovereign's order to adopt the venerable
+disguise of a full-bottomed wig. Lady Sarah Cowper recorded of her
+father, 1705:--"The queen after this was persuaded to trust a Whigg
+ministry, and in the year 1705, Octr., she made my father Ld. Keeper of
+the Great Seal, in the 41st year of his age--'tis said the youngest Lord
+Keeper that ever had been. He looked very young, and wearing his own
+hair made him appear yet more so, which the queen observing, obliged him
+to cut it off, telling him the world would say she had given the seals
+to a boy."
+
+The young Lord Keeper of course obeyed; and when he appeared for the
+first time at court in a wig, his aspect was so grave and reverend that
+the queen had to look at him twice before she recognized him. More than
+half a century later, George II. experienced a similar difficulty, when
+Lord Hardwicke, after the close of his long period of official service,
+showed himself at court in a plain suit of black velvet, with a bag and
+sword. Familiar with the appearance of the Chancellor dressed in
+full-bottomed wig and robes, the king failed to detect his old friend
+and servant in the elderly gentleman who, in the garb of a private
+person of quality, advanced and rendered due obeisance. "Sir, it is Lord
+Hardwicke," whispered a lord in waiting who stood near His Majesty's
+person, and saw the cause of the cold reception given to the
+ex-Chancellor. But unfortunately the king was not more familiar with the
+ex-Chancellor's title than his appearance, and in a disastrous endeavor
+to be affable inquired, with an affectation of interest, "How long has
+your lordship been in town?" The peer's surprise and chagrin were great
+until the monarch, having received further instruction from the courtly
+prompter at his elbow, frankly apologized in bad English and with noisy
+laughter. "Had Lord Hardwicke," says Campbell, "worn such a uniform as
+that invented by George IV. for ex-Chancellors (very much like a Field
+Marshal's), he could not have been mistaken for a common man."
+
+The judges who at the first introduction of wigs refused to adopt them
+were prone to express their dissatisfaction with those coxcombical
+contrivances when exhibited upon the heads of counsel; and for some
+years prudent juniors, anxious to win the favorable opinion of anti-wig
+justices, declined to obey the growing fashion. Chief Justice Hale, a
+notable sloven, conspicuous amongst common law judges for the meanness
+of his attire, just as Shaftesbury was conspicuous in the Court of
+Chancery for foppishness, cherished lively animosity for two sorts of
+legal practitioners--attorneys who wore swords, and young Templars who
+adorned themselves with periwigs. Bishop Burnet says of Hale: "He was a
+great encourager of all young persons that he saw followed their books
+diligently, to whom he used to give directions concerning the method of
+their study, with a humanity and sweetness that wrought much on all that
+came near him; and in a smiling, pleasant way he would admonish them, if
+he saw anything amiss in them; particularly if they went too fine in
+their clothes, he would tell them it did not become their profession. He
+was not pleased to see students wear long periwigs, or attorneys go with
+swords, so that such men as would not be persuaded to part with those
+vanities, when they went to him laid them aside and went as plain as
+they could, to avoid the reproof which they knew they might otherwise
+expect." In England, however, barristers almost universally wore wigs at
+the close of the seventeenth century; but north of the Tweed advocates
+wore cocked hats and powdered hair so late as the middle of the
+eighteenth century. When Alexander Wedderburn joined the Scotch bar in
+1754, wigs had not come into vogue with the members of his profession.
+
+Many are the good stories told of judicial wigs, and amongst the best of
+them, is the anecdote which that malicious talker Samuel Rogers
+delighted to tell at Edward Law's expense. "Lord Ellenborough," says the
+'Table-Talk,' "was once about to go on circuit, when Lady Ellenborough
+said that she should like to accompany him. He replied that he had no
+objection provided she did not encumber the carriage with bandboxes,
+which were his utter abhorrence. During the first day's journey Lord
+Ellenborough, happening to stretch his legs, struck his foot against
+something below the seat; he discovered that it was a bandbox. Up went
+the window, and out went the bandbox. The coachman stopped, and the
+footman, thinking that the bandbox had tumbled out of the window by some
+extraordinary chance, was going to pick it up, when Lord Ellenborough
+furiously called out, 'Drive on!' The bandbox, accordingly, was left by
+the ditch-side. Having reached the county town where he was to officiate
+as judge, Lord Ellenborough proceeded to array himself for his
+appearance in the court-house. 'Now,' said he, 'where's my wig?--where
+_is_ my wig?' 'My lord,' replied his attendant, 'it was thrown out of
+the carriage window!'"
+
+Changing together with fashion, barristers ceased to wear their wigs in
+society as soon as the gallants and bucks of the West End began to
+appear with their natural tresses in theatres and ball rooms; but the
+conservative genius of the law has hitherto triumphed over the attempts
+of eminent advocates to throw the wig out of Westminster Hall. When Lord
+Campbell argued the great Privilege case, he obtained permission to
+appear without a wig; but this concession to a counsel--who, on that
+occasion, spoke for sixteen hours--was accompanied with an intimation
+that "it was not to be drawn into precedent."
+
+Less wise or less fortunate than the bar, the judges of England wore
+their wigs in society after advocates of all ranks and degrees had
+agreed to lay aside the professional head-gear during hours of
+relaxation. Lady Eldon's good taste and care for her husband's comfort,
+induced Lord Eldon, soon after his elevation to the pillow of the Common
+Pleas, to beg the king's permission that he might put off his judicial
+wig on leaving the courts, in which as Chief Justice he would be
+required to preside. The petition did not meet with a favorable
+reception. For a minute George III. hesitated; whereupon Eldon supported
+his prayer by observing, with the fervor of an old-fashioned Tory, that
+the lawyer's wig was a detestable innovation--unknown in the days of
+James I. and Charles the Martyr, the judges of which two monarchs would
+have rejected as an insult any proposal that they should assume a
+head-dress fit only for madmen at masquerades or mummers at country
+wakes. "What! what!" cried the king, sharply; and then, smiling
+mischievously, as he suddenly saw a good answer to the plausible
+argument, he added--"True, my lord, Charles the First's judges wore no
+wigs, but they wore beards. You may do the same, if you like. You may
+please yourself about wearing or not wearing your wig; but mind, if you
+please yourself by imitating the old judges, as to the head--you must
+please me by imitating them as to the chin. You may lay aside your wig;
+but if you do--you must wear a beard." Had he lived in these days, when
+barristers occasionally wear beards in court, and judges are not less
+conspicuous than the junior bar for magnitude of nose and whisker, Eldon
+would have accepted the condition. But the last year of the last
+century, was the very centre and core of that time which may be called
+the period of close shavers; and John Scott, the decorous and
+respectable, would have endured martyrdom rather than have grown a
+beard, or have allowed his whiskers to exceed the limits of mutton-chop
+whiskers.
+
+As Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and subsequently as Chancellor,
+Eldon wore his wig whenever he appeared in general society; but in the
+privacy of his own house he gratified Lady Eldon by laying aside the
+official head-gear. That this was his usage, the gossips of the
+law-courts knew well; and at Carlton House, when the Prince of Wales was
+most indignant with the Chancellor, who subsequently became his familiar
+friend, courtiers were wont to soothe the royal rage with diverting
+anecdotes of the attention which the odious lawyer lavished on the
+natural hair that gave his Bessie so much delight. On one occasion, when
+Eldon was firmly supporting the cause of the Princess of Wales, 'the
+first gentleman of Europe' forgot common decency so far, that he made a
+jeering allusion to this instance of the Chancellor's domestic
+amiability. "I am not the sort of person," growled the prince with an
+outbreak of peevishness, "to let my hair grow under my wig to please my
+wife." With becoming dignity Eldon answered--"Your Royal Highness
+condescends to be personal. I beg leave to withdraw;" and suiting his
+action to his words, the Chancellor made a low bow to the angry prince,
+and retired. The prince sneaked out of the position by an untruth,
+instead of an apology. On the following day he caused a written
+assurance to be conveyed to the Chancellor, that the offensive speech
+"was nothing personal, but simply a proverb--a proverbial way of saying
+a man was governed by his wife." It is needless to say that the
+expression was not proverbial, but distinctly and grossly personal. Lord
+Malmesbury's comment on this affair is "Very absurd of Lord Eldon; but
+explained by his having literally done what the prince said." Lord
+Eldon's conduct absurd! What was the prince's?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+BANDS AND COLLARS.
+
+
+Bands came into fashion with Englishmen many years before wigs, but like
+wigs they were worn in general society before they became a recognized
+and distinctive feature of professional costume. Ladies of rank dyed
+their hair, and wore false tresses in Elizabethan England; but their
+example was not extensively followed by the men of their time--although
+the courtiers of the period sometimes donned 'periwinkes,' to the
+extreme disgust of the multitude, and the less stormy disapprobation of
+the polite. The frequency with which bands are mentioned in Elizabethan
+literature, affords conclusive evidence that they were much worn toward
+the close of the sixteenth century; and it is also matter of certainty
+that they were known in England at a still earlier period. Henry VIII.
+had "4 shirte bands of silver with ruffes to the same, whereof one was
+perled with golde;" and in 1638 Peacham observed, "King Henry VIII. was
+the first that ever wore a band about his neck, and that very plain,
+without lace, and about an inch or two in depth. We may see how the case
+is altered, he is not a gentleman, or in the fashion, whose band of
+Italian cutwork standeth him not at the least in three or four pounds;
+yea, a sempster in Holborn told me there are of threescore pound price
+apiece." That the fops of Charles I.'s reign were spending money on a
+fashion originally set by King Henry the Bluff, was the opinion also of
+Taylor the Water Poet, who in 1630 wrote--
+
+   "Now up alofte I mount unto the ruffe,
+   Which into foolish mortals pride doth puffe;
+   Yet ruffes' antiquity is here but small--
+   Within this eighty years not one at all;
+   For the Eighth Henry (so I understand)
+   Was the first king that ever wore a _band_;
+   And but a _falling-band_, plaine with a hem;
+   All other people knew no use of them.
+   Yet imitation in small time began
+   To grow, that it the kingdom overran;
+   The little falling-bands encreased to ruffes,
+   Ruffes (growing great) were waited on by cuffes,
+   And though our frailties should awake our care,
+   We make our ruffes as careless as we are."
+
+In regarding the falling-band as the germ of the ruff, the Water-Poet
+differs from those writers who, with greater appearance of reason,
+maintain that the ruff was the parent of the band. Into this question
+concerning origin of species, there is no occasion to enter on the
+present occasion. It is enough to state that in the earlier part of the
+seventeenth century bands or collars--bands stiffened and standing at
+the backward part, and bands falling upon the shoulder and breast--were
+articles of costume upon which men of expensive and modish habits spent
+large sums.
+
+In the days of James I., when standing bands were still the fashion, and
+falling-bands had not come in, the Inns of Court men were very
+particular about the stiffness, cut, and texture of their collars.
+Speaking of the Inns of Court men, Sir Thomas Overbury, (who was
+poisoned in 1613), says: "He laughs at every man whose band sits not
+well, or that hath not a fair shoe-type, and is ashamed to be in any
+man's company who wears not his cloathes well."
+
+If portraits may be trusted, the falling-band of Charles I.'s time, bore
+considerable resemblance to the falling neck-frill, which twenty years
+since was very generally worn by quite little boys, and is still sometimes
+seen on urchins who are about six years of age. The bands worn by the
+barristers and clergy of our own time are modifications of this antique
+falling-band, and like the coif cap of the modern sergeant, they bear
+only a faint likeness to their originals. But though bands--longer than
+those still worn by clergymen--have come to be a distinctive feature of
+legal costume, the bar was slow to adopt falling-collars--regarding them
+as a strange and fanciful innovation. Whitelock's personal narrative
+furnishes pleasant testimony that the younger gentry of Charles I.'s
+England adopted the new collar before the working lawyers.
+
+"At the Quarter-Sessions of Oxford," says Whitelock, speaking of the
+year 1635, when he was only thirty years of age, "I was put into the
+chair in court, though I was in colored clothes, a sword by my side, and
+a falling-band, which was unusual for lawyers in those days, and in this
+garb I gave the charge to the Grand Jury. I took occasion to enlarge on
+the point of jurisdiction in the temporal courts in matters
+ecclesiastical, and the antiquity thereof, which I did the rather
+because the spiritual men began in those days to swell higher than
+ordinary, and to take it as an injury to the Church that anything
+savoring of the spirituality, should be within the cognisance of
+ignorant laymen. The gentlemen and freeholders seemed well pleased with
+my charge, and the management of the business of the sessions; and said
+they perceived one might speak as good sense in a falling-band as in a
+ruff." At this time Whitelock had been about seven years at the bar; but
+at the Quarter-Sessions the young Templar was playing the part of
+country squire, and as his words show, he was dressed in a fashion that
+directly violated professional usage.
+
+Whitelock's speech seems to have been made shortly before the bar
+accepted the falling-band as an article of dress admissible in courts of
+law. Towards the close of Charles's reign, such bands were very
+generally worn in Westminster Hall by the gentlemen of the long robe;
+and after the Restoration, a barrister would as soon have thought of
+appearing at the King's Bench without his gown as without his band.
+Unlike the bar-bands of the present time--which are lappets of fine
+lawn, of simple make--the bands worn by Charles II.'s lawyers were
+dainty and expensive articles, such as those which Peacham exclaimed
+against in the preceding reign. At that date the Templar in prosperous
+circumstances had his bands made entirely of point lace, or of fine lawn
+edged with point lace; and as he wore them in society as well as in
+court, he was constantly requiring a fresh supply of them. Few accidents
+were more likely to ruffle a Templar's equanimity than a mishap to his
+band occurring through his own inadvertence or carelessness on the part
+of a servant. At table the pieces of delicate lace-work were exposed to
+many dangers. Continually were they stained with wine or soiled with
+gravy, and the young lawyer was deemed a marvel of amiability who could
+see his point lace thus defiled and abstain from swearing. "I remember,"
+observes Roger North, when he is showing the perfect control in which
+his brother Francis kept his temper, at his table a stupid servant spilt
+a glass of red wine upon his point band and clothes. "He only wiped his
+face and clothes with the napkin, and 'Here,' said he, 'take this away;'
+and no more."
+
+In 'The London Spy,' Ned Ward shows that during Queen Anne's reign legal
+practitioners of the lowest sort were particular to wear bands.
+Describing the pettifogger, Ward says, "He always talks with as great
+assurance as if he understood what he pretends to know; and always wears
+a band, in which lies his gravity and wisdom." At the same period a
+brisk trade was carried on in Westminster Hall by the sempstresses who
+manufactured bands and cuffs, lace ruffles, and lawn kerchiefs for the
+grave counsellors and young gallants of the Inns of Court. "From
+thence," says the author of 'The London Spy', "we walked down by the
+sempstresses, who were very nicely digitising and pleating turnsovers
+and ruffles for the young students, and coaxing them with amorous looks,
+obliging cant, and inviting gestures, to give so extravagant a price for
+what they buy."
+
+From collars of lace and lawn, let us turn to collars of precious metal.
+
+Antiquarians have unanimously rejected the fanciful legend adopted by
+Dugdale concerning the SS collar, as well as many not less ingenious
+interpretations of the mystic letters; and at the present time it is
+almost unanimously settled that the SS collar is the old Lancastrian
+badge, corresponding to the Yorkist collar of Roses and Suns, and that
+the S is either the initial of the sentimental word 'Souvenez,' or, as
+Mr. Beltz maintains, the initial letter of the sentimental motto,
+'Souvenez-vous de moi.' In Mr. Foss's valuable work, 'The Judges of
+England,' at the commencement of the seventh volume, the curious reader
+may find an excellent summary of all that has been or can be said about
+the origin of this piece of feudal livery, which, having at one time
+been very generally assumed by all gentle and fairly prosperous
+partisans of the House of Lancaster, has for many generations been the
+distinctive badge of a few official persons. In the second year of Henry
+IV. an ordinance forbade knights and Esquires to wear the collar, save
+in the king's presence; and in the reign of Henry VIII., the privilege
+of wearing the collar was taken away from simple esquires by the 'Acte
+for Reformacyon of Excesse in Apparayle,' 24 Henry VIII. c. 13, which
+ordained "That no man oneless he be a knight ... weare any color of
+Gold, named a color of S." Gradually knights and non-official persons
+relinquished the decoration; and in our own day the right to bear it is
+restricted to the two Chief Justices, the Chief Baron, the
+sergeant-trumpetor, and all the officers of the Heralds' College,
+pursuivants excepted; "unless," adds Mr. Foss, "the Lord Mayor of London
+is to be included, whose collar is somewhat similar, and is composed of
+twenty-eight SS, fourteen roses, thirteen knots; and measures sixty-four
+inches."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+BAGS AND GOWNS.
+
+
+On the stages of the Caroline theatres the lawyer is found with a green
+bag in his hand; the same is the case in the literature of Queen Anne's
+reign; and until a comparatively recent date green bags were generally
+carried in Westminster Hall and in provincial courts by the great body
+of legal practitioners. From Wycherley's 'Plain Dealer,' it appears that
+in the time of Charles II. angry clients were accustomed to revile their
+lawyers as 'green bag-carriers.' When the litigious Widow Blackacre
+upbraids the barrister who declines to argue for her, she
+exclaims--"Impertinent again, and ignorant to me! Gadsboddikins! you
+puny upstart in the law, to use me so, you green-bag carrier, you
+murderer of unfortunate causes, the clerk's ink is scarce off of your
+fingers." In the same drama, making much play with the green bag,
+Wycherley indicates the Widow Blackacre's quarrelsome disposition by
+decorating her with an enormous green reticule, and makes her son the
+law-student, stagger about the stage in a gown, and under a heavy burden
+of green bags.
+
+So also in the time of Queen Anne, to say that a man intended to carry a
+green bag, was the same as saying that he meant to adopt the law as a
+profession. In Dr. Arbuthnot's 'History of John Bull,' the prevalence of
+the phrase is shown by the passage, "I am told, Cousin Diego, you are
+one of those that have undertaken to manage me, and that you have said
+you will carry a green bag yourself, rather than we shall make an end of
+our lawsuit. I'll teach them and you too to manage." It must, however,
+be borne in mind that in Queen Anne's time, green bags, like white
+bands, were as generally adopted by solicitors and attorneys, as by
+members of the bar. In his 'character of a pettifogger' the author of
+'The London Spy' observes--"His learning is commonly as little as his
+honesty, and his conscience much larger than his green bag."
+
+Some years have elapsed since green bags altogether disappeared from our
+courts of law; but the exact date of their disappearance has hitherto
+escaped the vigilance and research of Colonel Landman, 'Causidicus,' and
+other writers who in the pages of that useful and very entertaining
+publication, _Notes and Queries_, have asked for information on that
+point and kindred questions. Evidence sets aside the suggestion that the
+color of the lawyer's bag was changed from green to red because the
+proceedings at Queen Caroline's trial rendered green bags odious to the
+public, and even dangerous to their bearers; for it is a matter of
+certainty that the leaders of the Chancery and Common Law bars carried
+red bags at a time considerably anterior to the inquiry into the queen's
+conduct.
+
+In a letter addressed to the editor of _Notes and Queries_, a writer who
+signs himself 'Causidicus,' observes--"When I entered the profession
+(about fifty years ago) no junior barrister presumed to carry a bag in
+the Court of Chancery, unless one had been presented to him by a King's
+Counsel; who, when a junior was advancing in practice, took an
+opportunity of complimenting him on his increase of business, and giving
+him his own bag to carry home his papers. It was then a distinction to
+carry a bag, and a proof that a junior was rising in his profession. I
+do not know whether the custom prevailed in other courts." From this it
+appears that fifty years since the bag was an honorable distinction at
+the Chancery bar, giving its bearer some such professional status as
+that which is conferred by 'silk' in these days when Queen's Counsel are
+numerous.
+
+The same professional usage seems to have prevailed at the Common Law
+bar more than eighty years ago; for in 1780, when Edward Law joined the
+Northern Circuit, and forthwith received a large number of briefs, he
+was complimented by Wallace on his success, and presented with a bag.
+Lord Campbell asserts that no case had ever before occurred where a
+junior won the distinction of a bag during the course of his first
+circuit. There is no record of the date when members of the junior bar
+received permission to carry bags according to their own pleasure; it is
+even matter of doubt whether the permission was ever expressly accorded
+by the leaders of the profession--or whether the old restrictive usage
+died a gradual and unnoticed death. The present writer, however, is
+assured that at the Chancery bar, long after _all_ juniors were allowed
+to carry bags, etiquette forbade them to adopt bags of the same color as
+those carried by their leaders. An eminent Queen's Counsel, who is a
+member of that bar, remembers that when he first donned a stuff gown,
+he, like all Chancery jurors, had a purple bag--whereas the wearers of
+silk at the same period, without exception, carried red bags.
+
+Before a complete and satisfactory account can be given of the use of
+bags by lawyers, as badges of honor and marks of distinction, answers
+must be found for several questions which at present remain open to
+discussion. So late as Queen Anne's reign, lawyers of the lowest
+standing, whether advocates or attorneys, were permitted to carry
+bags;--a right which the junior bar appears to have lost when Edward Law
+joined the Northern Circuit. At what date between Queen Anne's day and
+1780 (the year in which Lord Ellenborough made his _début_ in the
+North), was this change effected? Was the change gradual or sudden? To
+what cause was it due? Again, is it possible that Lord Campbell and
+Causidicus wrote under a misapprehension, when they gave testimony
+concerning the usages of the bar with regard to bags, at the close of
+the last and the beginning of the present century? The memory of the
+distinguished Queen's Counsel, to whom allusion is made in the preceding
+paragraph, is quite clear that in his student days Chancery jurors were
+forbidden by etiquette to carry _red_ bags, but were permitted to carry
+blue bags; and he is strongly of opinion that the restriction, to which
+Lord Campbell and Causidicus draw attention, did not apply at any time
+to blue bags, but only concerned red bags, which, so late as thirty
+years since, unquestionably were the distinguishing marks of men in
+leading Chancery practice. Perhaps legal readers of this chapter will
+favor the writer with further information on this not highly important,
+but still not altogether uninteresting subject.
+
+The liberality which for the last five and-twenty years has marked the
+distribution of 'silk' to rising members of the bar, and the ease with
+which all fairly successful advocates may obtain the rank of Queen's
+Counsel, enable lawyers of the present generation to smile at a rule
+which defined a man's professional position by the color of his bag,
+instead of the texture of his gown; but in times when 'silk' was given
+to comparatively few members of the bar, and when that distinction was
+most unfairly withheld from the brightest ornaments of their profession,
+if their political opinions displeased the 'party in power,' it was
+natural and reasonable in the bar to institute for themselves an 'order
+of merit'--to which deserving candidates could obtain admission without
+reference to the prejudices of a Chancellor or the whims of a clique.
+
+At present the sovereign's counsel learned in the law constitute a
+distinct order of the profession; but until the reign of William IV.
+they were merely a handful of court favorites. In most cases they were
+sound lawyers in full employment; but the immediate cause of their
+elevation was almost always some political consideration--and sometimes
+the lucky wearer of a silk gown had won the right to put K.C. or Q.C.
+after his name by base compliance with ministerial power. That our
+earlier King's Counsel were not created from the purest motives or for
+the most honorable purposes will be readily admitted by the reader who
+reflects that 'silk gowns' are a legal species, for which the nation is
+indebted to the Stuarts. For all practical purposes Francis Bacon was a
+Q.C. during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. He enjoyed peculiar and
+distinctive _status_ as a barrister, being consulted on legal matters by
+the Queen, although he held no place that in familiar parlance would
+entitle him to rank with her Crown Lawyers; and his biographers have
+agreed to call him Elizabeth's counsellor learned in the law. But a Q.C.
+holding his office by patent--that is to say, a Q.C. as that term is
+understood at the present time--Francis Bacon never was. On the
+accession, however, of James I., he received his formal appointment of
+K.C., the new monarch having seen fit to recognise the lawyer's claim to
+be regarded as a 'special counsel,' or 'learned counsel extraordinary.'
+Another barrister of the same period who obtained the same distinction
+was Sir Henry Montague, who, in a patent granted in 1608 to the two
+Temples, is styled "one of our counsel learned in the law." Thus
+planted, the institution of monarch's special counsel was for many
+generations a tree of slow growth. Until George III.'s reign the number
+of monarch's counsel, living and practising at the same time, was never
+large; and throughout the long period of that king's rule the fraternity
+of K.C. never assumed them agnitude and character of a professional
+order. It is uncertain what was the greatest number of contemporaneous
+K.C.'s during the Stuart dynasty; but there is no doubt that from the
+arrival of James I. to the flight of James II. there was no period when
+the K.C.'s at all approached the sergeants in name and influence. In
+Rymer's 'Foedera' mention is made of four barristers who were appointed
+counsellors to Charles I., one of whom, Sir John Finch, in a patent of
+precedence is designated "King's Counsel;" but it is not improbable that
+the royal martyr had other special counsellors whose names have not been
+recorded. At different times of Charles II.'s reign, there were created
+some seventeen K.C.'s, and seven times that number of sergeants. James
+II. made ten K.C.'s; William and Mary appointed eleven special
+counsellors; and the number of Q.C.'s appointed by Anne was ten. The
+names of George I.'s learned counsel are not recorded; the list of
+George II.'s K.C.'s, together with barristers holding patents of
+precedence, comprise thirty names; George III. throughout his long
+tenure of the crown, gave 'silk' with or without the title of K.C., to
+ninety-three barristers; George IV. to twenty-six; whereas the list of
+William IV.'s appointments comprised sixty-five names, and the present
+queen has conferred the rank of Q.C. on about two hundred advocates--the
+law-list for 1865 mentioning one hundred and thirty-seven barristers who
+are Q.C.'s, or holders of patents of precedence; and only twenty-eight
+sergeants-at-law, not sitting as judges in any of the supreme courts.
+The diminution in the numbers of the sergeants is due partly to the loss
+of their old monopoly of business in the Common Pleas, and partly--some
+say chiefly--to the profuseness with which silk gowns, with Q.C. rank
+attached, have been thrown to the bar since the passing of the Reform
+Bill.
+
+Under the old system when 'silk' was less bountifully bestowed, eminent
+barristers not only led their circuits in stuff; but, after holding
+office as legal advisers to the crown and wearing silk gowns whilst they
+so acted with their political friends, they sometimes resumed their
+stuff gowns and places 'outside the bar,' on descending from official
+eminence. When Charles York in 1763 resigned the post of Attorney
+General, he returned to his old place in court without the bar, clad in
+the black bombazine of an ordinary barrister, whereas during his tenure
+of office he had worn silk and sat within the bar. In the same manner
+when Dunning resigned the Solicitor Generalship in 1770, he reappeared
+in the Court of King's Bench, attired in stuff, and took his place
+without the bar; but as soon as he had made his first motion, he was
+addressed by Lord Mansfield, who with characteristic courtesy informed
+him that he should take precedence in that court before all members of
+the bar, whatever might be their standing, with the exception of King's
+Counsel, Sergeants, and the Recorder of London. On joining the Northern
+Circuit in 1780, Edward Law found Wallace and Lee leading in silk, and
+twenty years later he and Jemmy Park were the K.C.'s of the same
+district; Of course the circuit was not without wearers of the coif, one
+of its learned sergeants being Cockell, who, before Law obtained the
+leading place, was known as 'the Almighty of the North;' and whose
+success, achieved in spite of an almost total ignorance of legal
+science, was long quoted to show that though knowledge is power, power
+may be won without knowledge.
+
+From pure dislike of the thought that younger men should follow closely
+or at a distance in his steps to the highest eminences of legal success,
+Lord Eldon was disgracefully stingy in bestowing honors on rising
+barristers who belonged to his own party, but his injustice and
+downright oppression to brilliant advocates in the Whig ranks merit the
+warmest expressions of disapproval and contempt. The most notorious
+sufferers from his rancorous intolerance were Henry Brougham and Mr.
+Denman, who, having worn silk gowns as Queen Caroline's Attorney General
+and Solicitor General, were reduced to stuff attire on that wretched
+lady's death.
+
+It is worthy of notice that in old time, when silk gowns were few, their
+wearers were sometimes very young men. From the days of Francis North,
+who was made K.C. before he was a barrister for seven full years'
+standing, down to the days of Eldon, who obtained silk after seven
+years' service in stuff, instances could be cited of the rapidity with
+which lucky youngsters rose to the honors of silk, whilst hard-worked
+veterans were to the last kept outside the bar. Thurlow was called to
+the bar in November, 1754, and donned silk in December, 1761. Six years
+had now elapsed since his call to the English bar, when Alexander
+Wedderburn was entitled to put the initials K.C. after his name, and
+wrote to his mother in Scotland, "I can't very well explain to you the
+nature of my preferment, but it is what most people at the bar are very
+desirous of, and yet most people run a hazard of losing money by it. I
+can scarcely expect any advantage from it for some time equal to what I
+give up; and, notwithstanding, I am extremely happy, and esteem myself
+very fortunate in having obtained it." Erskine's silk was won with even
+greater speed, for he was invited within the bar, but his silk gown
+came to him with a patent of precedence, giving him the status without
+the title of a King's Counsel.
+
+Bar mourning is no longer a feature of legal costume in England. On the
+death of Charles II. members of the bar donned gowns indicative of their
+grief for the national loss, and they continued, either universally or
+in a large number of cases, to wear these woful habiliments till 1697,
+when Chief Justice Holt ordered all barristers practising in his court
+to appear "in their proper gowns and not in mourning ones"--an order
+which, according to Narcissus Luttrell, compelled the bar to spend £15
+per man. From this it may be inferred that (regard being had to change
+in value of money) a bar-gown at the close of the seventeenth century
+cost about ten times as much as it does at the present time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+HATS.
+
+
+Not less famous in history than Bradshaw's broad-brimmed hat, nor less
+graceful than Shaftesbury's jaunty beaver, nor less memorable than the
+sailor's tarpaulin, under cover of which Jeffreys slunk into the Red
+Cow, Wapping, nor less striking than the black cap still worn by Justice
+in her sternest mood, nor less fanciful than the cocked hat which
+covered Wedderburn's powdered hair when he daily paced the High Street
+of Edinburgh with his hands in a muff--was the white hat which an
+illustrious Templar invented at an early date of the eighteenth century.
+Beau Brummel's original mind taught the human species to starch their
+white cravats; Richard Nash, having surmounted the invidious bar of
+plebeian birth and raised himself upon opposing circumstances to the
+throne of Bath, produced a white hat. To which of these great men
+society owes the heavier debt of gratitude thoughtful historians cannot
+agree; but even envious detraction admits that they deserve high rank
+amongst the benefactors of mankind. Brummel was a soldier; but Law
+proudly claims as her own the parent of the pale and spotless _chapeau_.
+
+About lawyers' cocked hats a capital volume might be written, that
+should contain no better story than the one which is told of Ned
+Thurlow's discomfiture in 1788, when he was playing a trickster's game
+with his friends and foes. Windsor Castle just then contained three
+distinct centres of public interest--the mad king in the hands of his
+keepers; on the one side of the impotent monarch the Prince of Wales
+waiting impatiently for the Regency; on the other side, the queen with
+equal impatience longing for her husband's recovery. The prince and his
+mother both had apartments in the castle, her majesty's quarters being
+the place of meeting for the Tory ministers, whilst the prince's
+apartments were thrown open to the select leaders of the Whig
+expectants. Of course the two coteries kept jealously apart; but
+Thurlow, who wished to be still Lord Chancellor, "whatever king might
+reign," was in private communication with the prince's friends. With
+furtive steps he passed from the queen's room (where he had a minute
+before been assuring the ministers that he would be faithful to the
+king's adherents), and made clandestine way to the apartment where
+Sheridan and Payne were meditating on the advantages of a regency
+without restriction. On leaving the prince, the wary lawyer used to
+steal into the king's chamber, and seek guidance or encouragement from
+the madman's restless eyes. Was the malady curable? If curable, how
+long a time would elapse before the return of reason? These were the
+questions which the Chancellor put to himself, as he debated whether he
+should break with the Tories and go over to the Whigs. Through the
+action of the patient's disease, the most delicate part of the lawyer's
+occupation was gone; and having no longer a king's conscience to keep,
+he did not care, by way of diversion--to keep his own.
+
+For many days ere they received clear demonstration of the Chancellor's
+deceit, the other members of the cabinet suspected that he was acting
+disingenuously, and when his double-dealing was brought to their sure
+knowledge, their indignation was not even qualified with surprise. The
+story of his exposure is told in various ways; but all versions concur
+in attributing his detection to an accident. Like the gallant of the
+French court, whose clandestine intercourse with a great lady was
+discovered because, in his hurried preparations for flight from her
+chamber, he appropriated one of her stockings, Thurlow, according to one
+account, was convicted of perfidy by the prince's hat, which he bore
+under his arm on entering the closet where the ministers awaited his
+coming. Another version says that Thurlow had taken his seat at the
+council-table, when his hat was brought to him by a page, with an
+explanation that he had left it in the prince's private room. A third,
+and more probable representation of the affair, instead of laying the
+scene in the council-chamber, makes the exposure occur in a more public
+part of the castle. "When a council was to be held at Windsor," said the
+Right Honorable Thomas Grenville, in his old age recounting the
+particulars of the mishap, "to determine the course which ministers
+should pursue, Thurlow had been there some time before any of his
+colleagues arrived. He was to be brought back to London by one of them,
+and the moment of departure being come, the Chancellor's hat was
+nowhere to be found. After a fruitless search in the apartment where the
+council had been held, a page came with the hat in his hand, saying
+aloud, and with great _naïveté_, 'My lord, I found it in the closet of
+his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.' The other Ministers were still
+in the Hall, and Thurlow's confusion corroborated the inference which
+they drew." Cannot an artist be found to place upon canvas this scene,
+which furnishes the student of human nature with an instructive instance
+of
+
+   "That combination strange--a lawyer and a blush?"
+
+For some days Thurlow's embarrassment and chagrim were very painful. But
+a change in the state of the king's health caused a renewal of the
+lawyer's attachment to Tory principles and to his sovereign.
+
+The lawyers of what may be termed the cocked hat period seldom
+maintained the happy mean between too little and too great care for
+personal appearance. For the most part they were either slovenly or
+foppish. From the days when as a student he used to slip into Nando's in
+a costume that raised the supercilious astonishment of his
+contemporaries, Thurlow to the last erred on the side of neglect. Camden
+roused the satire of an earlier generation by the miserable condition of
+the tiewig which he wore on the bench of Chancery, and by an undignified
+and provoking habit of "gartering up his stockings while counsel were
+the most strenuous in their eloquence." On the other hand Joseph
+Yates--the puisne judge whom Mansfield's jeers and merciless oppressions
+drove from the King's Bench to the Common Pleas, where he died within
+four months of his retreat--was the finest of fine gentlemen. Before he
+had demonstrated his professional capacity, the habitual costliness and
+delicacy of his attire roused the distrust of attorneys, and on more
+than one occasion wrought him injury. An awkward, crusty, hard-featured
+attorney entered the foppish barrister's chambers with a bundle of
+papers, and on seeing the young man in a superb and elaborate evening
+dress, is said to have inquired, "Can you say, sir, when Mr. Yates will
+return?" "Return, my good sir!" answered the barrister, with an air of
+surprise, "I am Mr. Yates, and it will give me the greatest pleasure to
+talk with you about those papers." Having taken a deliberate survey of
+the young Templar, and made a mental inventory of all the fantastic
+articles of his apparel, the honest attorney gave an ominous grunt,
+replaced the papers in one of the deep pockets of his long-skirted coat,
+twice nodded his head with contemptuous significance, and then, without
+another word--walked out of the room. It was his first visit to those
+chambers, and his last. Joseph Yates lost his client, before he could
+even learn his name; but in no way influenced by the occurrence he
+maintained his reputation for faultless taste in dress, and when he had
+raised himself to the bench, he was amongst the judges of his day all
+that Revell Reynolds was amongst the London physicians of a later date.
+
+Living in the midst of the fierce contentions which distracted Ireland
+in the days of our grandfathers, John Toler, first Earl of Norbury,
+would not have escaped odium and evil repute, had he been a merciful man
+and a scrupulous judge; but in consequence of failings and wicked
+propensities, which gave countenance to the slanders of his enemies and
+at the same time earned for him the distrust and aversion of his
+political coadjutors, he has found countless accusers and not a single
+vindicator. Resembling George Jeffreys in temper and mental capacity, he
+resembled him also in posthumous fame. A shrewd, selfish, overbearing
+man, possessing wit which was exercised with equal promptitude upon
+friends and foes, he alternately roused the terror and the laughter of
+his audiences. At the bar and in the Irish House of Commons he was alike
+notorious as jester and bully; but he was a courageous bully, and to the
+last was always as ready to fight with bullets as with epigrams, and
+though his humor was especially suited to the taste and passions of the
+rabble, it sometimes convulsed with merriment those who were shocked by
+its coarseness and brutality. Having voted for the abolition of the
+Irish Parliament, the Right Honorable John Toler was prepared to justify
+his conduct with hair-triggers or sarcasms. To the men who questioned
+his patriotism he was wont to answer, "Name any hour before my court
+opens to-morrow," but to the patriotic Irish lady who loudly charged him
+in a crowded drawing-room with having sold his country, he replied, with
+an affectation of cordial assent, "Certainly, madam, I have sold my
+country. It was very lucky for me that I had a country to sell--I wish I
+had another." On the bench he spared neither counsel nor suitors,
+neither witnesses nor jurors. When Daniel O'Connell, whilst he was
+conducting a cause in the Irish Court of Common Pleas, observed, "Pardon
+me, my lord, I am afraid your lordship does not apprehend me;" the Chief
+Justice (alluding to a scandalous and false report that O'Connell had
+avoided a duel by surrendering himself to the police) retorted, "Pardon
+me also; no one is more easily apprehended than Mr. O'Connell"--(a
+pause--and then with emphatic slowness of utterance)--"whenever he
+wishes to be apprehended." It is _said_ that when this same judge passed
+sentence of death on Robert Emmett, he paused when he came to the point
+where it is usual for a judge to add in conclusion, "And may the Lord
+have mercy on your soul!" and regarded the brave young man with
+searching eyes. For a minute there was an awful silence in the court;
+the bar and the assembled crowd supposing that the Chief Justice had
+paused so that a few seconds of unbroken stillness might add to the
+solemnity of his last words. The disgust and indignation of the
+spectators were beyond the power of language, when they saw a smile of
+brutal sarcasm steal over the face of the Chief Justice as he rose from
+his seat of judgment without uttering another word.
+
+Whilst the state prosecutions were going forward, Lord Norbury appeared
+on the bench in a costume that accorded ill with the gravity of his
+office. The weather was intensely hot; and whilst he was at his morning
+toilet the Chief Justice selected from his wardrobe the dress which was
+most suited to the sultriness of the air. The garb thus selected for its
+coolness was a dress which his lordship had worn at a masquerade ball,
+and consisted of a green tabinet coat decorated with huge
+mother-of-pearl buttons, a waistcoat of yellow relieved by black
+stripes, and buff breeches. When he first entered the court, and
+throughout all the earlier part of the proceedings against a party of
+rebels, his judicial robes altogether concealed this grotesque attire;
+but unfortunately towards the close of the sultry day's work, Lord
+Norbury--oppressed by the stifling atmosphere of the court, and
+forgetting all about the levity as well as the lightness of his inner
+raiment--threw back his judicial robe and displayed the dress which
+several persons then present had seen him wear at Lady Castlereagh's
+ball. Ere the spectators recovered from their first surprise, Lord
+Norbury, quite unconscious of his indecorum, had begun to pass sentence
+of death on a gang of prisoners, speaking to them in a solemn voice that
+contrasted painfully with the inappropriateness of his costume.
+
+In the following bright and picturesque sentence, Dr. Dibdin gives a
+life-like portrait of Erskine, whose personal vanity was only equalled
+by the egotism which often gave piquancy to his orations, and never
+lessened their effect:--"Cocked hats and ruffles, with satin
+small-clothes and silk stockings, at this time constituted the usual
+evening dress. Erskine, though a good deal shorter than his brethren,
+somehow always seemed to take the lead both in pace and in discourse,
+and shouts of laughter would frequently follow his dicta. Among the
+surrounding promenaders, he and the one-armed Mingay seemed to be the
+main objects of attraction. Towards evening, it was the fashion for the
+leading counsel to promenade during the summer in the Temple Gardens,
+and I usually formed one in the thronging mall of loungers and
+spectators. I had analysed Blackstone, and wished to publish it under a
+dedication to Mr. Erskine. Having requested the favor of an interview,
+he received me graciously at breakfast before nine, attired in the smart
+dress of the times, a dark green coat, scarlet waistcoat, and silk
+breeches. He left his coffee, stood the whole time looking at the chart
+I had cut in copper, and appeared much gratified. On leaving him, a
+chariot-and-four drew up to wheel him to some provincial town on a
+special retainer. He was then coining money as fast as his chariot
+wheels rolled along." Erskine's advocacy was marked by that attention to
+trifles which has often contributed to the success of distinguished
+artists. His special retainers frequently took him to parts of the
+country where he was a stranger, and required him to make eloquent
+speeches in courts which his voice had never tested. It was his custom
+on reaching the town where he would have to plead on the following day,
+to visit the court over-night, and examine its arrangements, so that
+when the time for action arrived he might address the jury from the most
+favorable spot in the chamber. He was a theatrical speaker, and omitted
+no pains to secure theatrical effect. It was noticed that he never
+appeared within the bar until the _cause célèbre_ had been called; and
+a buzz of excitement and anxious expectation testified the eagerness of
+the assembled crowd to _see_, as well as to hear, the celebrated
+advocate. Every article of his bar costume received his especial
+consideration; artifice could be discerned in the modulations of his
+voice, the expressions of his countenance, and the movements of his
+entire body; but the coldest observer did not detect the artifice until
+it had stirred his heart. Rumor unjustly asserted that he never uttered
+an impetuous peroration which he had not frequently rehearsed in private
+before a mirror. About the cut and curls of his wigs, their texture and
+color, he was very particular: and the hands which he extended in
+entreaty towards British juries were always cased in lemon-colored kid
+gloves.
+
+Erskine was not more noticeable for the foppishness of his dress than
+was Lord Kenyon for a sordid attire. Whilst he was a leading advocate
+within the bar, Lord Kenyon's ordinary costume would have disgraced a
+copying clerk; and during his later years, it was a question amongst
+barristers whether his breeches were made of velvet or leather. The wits
+maintained that when he kissed hands upon his elevation to the
+Attorney's place, he went to court in a second-hand suit purchased from
+Lord Stormont's _valet_. In the letter attributed to him by a clever
+writer in the 'Rolliad,' he is made to say--"My income has been cruelly
+estimated at seven, or, as some will have it, eight thousand pounds per
+annum. I shall save myself the mortification of denying that I am rich,
+and refer you to the constant habits and whole tenor of my life. The
+proof to my friends is easy. My tailor's bill for the last fifteen years
+is a record of the most indisputable authority. Malicious souls may
+direct you, perhaps, to Lord Stormont's _valet de chambre_, and can
+vouch the anecdote that on the day when I kissed hands for my
+appointment to the office of Attorney General, I appeared in a laced
+waistcoat that once belonged to his master. I bought the waistcoat, but
+despise the insinuation; nor is this the only instance in which I am
+obliged to diminish my wants and apportion them to my very limited
+means. Lady K---- will be my witness that until my last appointment I
+was an utter stranger to the luxury of a pocket-handkerchief." The
+pocket-handkerchief which then came into his possession was supposed to
+have been found in the pocket of the second-hand waistcoat; and Jekyll
+always maintained that, as it was not considered in the purchase, it
+remained the valet's property, and did not pass into the lawyer's
+rightful possession. This was the only handkerchief which Lord Kenyon is
+said to have ever possessed, and Lord Ellenborough alluded to it when,
+in a conversation that turned upon the economy which the income-tax
+would necessitate in all ranks of life, he observed--"Lord Kenyon, who
+is not very nice, intends to meet the crisis by laying down his
+handkerchief."
+
+Of his lordship's way of getting through seasons of catarrh without a
+handkerchief, there are several stories that would scarcely please the
+fastidious readers of this volume.
+
+Of his two wigs (one considerably less worn than the other), and of his
+two hats (the better of which would not have greatly disfigured an old
+clothesman, whilst the worse would have been of service to a
+professional scarecrow), Lord Kenyon took jealous care. The inferior wig
+was always worn with the better hat, and the more dilapidated hat with
+the superior wig; and it was noticed that when he appeared in court with
+the shabbier wig he never removed his _chapeau_; whereas, on the days
+when he sat in his more decent wig, he pushed his old cocked hat out of
+sight. In the privacy of his house and in his carriage, whenever he
+traveled beyond the limits of town, he used to lay aside wig and hat,
+and cover his head with an old red night-cap. Concerning his great-coat,
+the original blackness of which had been tempered by long usage into a
+fuscous green, capital tales were fabricated. The wits could not spare
+even his shoes. "Once," Dr. Didbin gravely narrated, "in the case of an
+action brought for the non-fulfillment of a contract on a large scale
+for shoes, the question mainly was, whether or not they were well and
+soundly made, and with the best materials. A number of witnesses were
+called, one of them, a first-rate character in the gentle craft, being
+closely questioned, returned contradictory answers, when the Chief
+Justice observed, pointing to his own shoes, which were regularly
+bestridden by the broad silver buckle of the day, 'Were the shoes
+anything like these?' 'No, my lord,' replied the evidence, 'they were a
+good deal better and more genteeler.'" Dr. Didbin is at needless pains
+to assure his readers that the shoemaker's answer was followed by
+uproarious laughter.
+
+
+
+
+PART V.
+
+MUSIC.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+THE PIANO IN CHAMBERS.
+
+
+In the Inns of Court, even more often than in the colleges of Oxford and
+Cambridge, musical instruments and performances are regarded by severe
+students with aversion and abhorrence. Mr. Babbage will live in peace
+and charity with the organ-grinders who are continually doing him an
+unfriendly turn before the industrious conveyancer on the first floor
+will pray for the welfare of 'that fellow upstairs' who daily practises
+the flute or cornopean from 11 A.M. to 3 P.M. The 'Wandering Minstrels'
+and their achievements are often mentioned with respect in the western
+drawing-rooms of London; but if the gentlemen who form that
+distinguished _troupe_ of amateur performers wish to sacrifice their
+present popularity and take a leading position amongst the social
+nuisances of the period, they should migrate from the district which
+delights to honor them to chambers in Old Square, Lincoln's Inn, and
+give morning concerts every day of term time.
+
+Working lawyers feel warmly on this subject, maintaining that no man
+should be permitted to be an _amateur_-barrister and an
+_amateur_-musician at the same time, and holding that law-students with
+a turn for wind-instruments should, like vermin, be hunted down and
+knocked on the head--without law. Strange stories might be told of the
+discords and violent deeds to which music has given rise in the four
+Inns. In the last century many a foolish fellow was 'put up' at ten
+paces, because he refused to lay down an ophicleide; even as late as
+George IV.'s time death has followed from an inordinate addiction to the
+violin; and it was but the other day that the introduction of a piano
+into a house in Carey Street led to the destruction of three close and
+warm friendships.
+
+So alive are lawyers to the frightful consequences of a wholesale
+exhibition of melodious irritants, that a natural love of order and
+desire for self-preservation has prompted them to raise numerous
+obstructions to the free development of musical science in their
+peculiar localities of town. In the Inns of Court and Chancery Lane
+professional etiquette forbids barristers and solicitors to play upon
+organs, harmoniums, pianos, violins, or other stringed instruments,
+drums, trumpets, cymbals, shawms, bassoons, triangles, castanets or any
+other bony devices for the production of noise, flageolets, hautboys, or
+any other sort of boys--between the hours of 9 A.M. and 6 P.M. And this
+rule of etiquette is supported by various special conditions introduced
+into the leases by which the tenants hold much of the local house
+property. Under some landlords, a tenant forfeits his lease if he
+indulges in any pursuit that causes annoyance to his immediate
+neighbors; under others, every occupant of a set of chambers binds
+himself not to play any musical instrument therein, save between the
+hours of 9 A.M. and 12 P.M.; and in more than one clump of chambers,
+situated within a stone's throw from Chancery Lane, glee-singing is not
+permitted at any period of the four-and-twenty hours.
+
+That the pursuit of harmony is a dangerous pastime for young lawyers
+cannot be questioned, although a long list might be given of cases where
+musical barristers have gained the confidence of many clients, and
+eventually raised themselves to the bench. A piano is a treacherous
+companion for the student who can touch, it deftly--dangerous as an idle
+friend, whose wit is ever brilliant; fascinating as a beautiful woman,
+whose smile is always fresh; deceptive as the drug which seems to
+invigorate, whilst in reality it is stealing away the intellectual
+powers. Every persevering worker knows how large a portion of his hard
+work has been done 'against the grain,' and in spite of strong
+inclinations to indolence--in hours when pleasant voices could have
+seduced him from duty, and any plausible excuse for indulgence would
+have been promptly accepted. In the piano these pleasant voices are
+constantly present, and it can always show good reason--why reluctant
+industry should relax its exertions.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+THE BATTLE OF THE ORGANS.
+
+
+Sir Thomas More and Lord Bacon--the two most illustrious laymen who have
+held the Great Seal of England--were notable musicians; and many
+subsequent Keepers and Chancellors are scarcely less famous for love of
+harmonious sounds than for judicial efficiency. Lord Keeper Guildford
+was a musical amateur, and notwithstanding his low esteem of literature
+condescended to write about melody. Lord Jeffreys was a good
+after-dinner vocalist, and was esteemed a high authority on questions
+concerning instrumental performance. Lord Camden was an operatic
+composer; and Lord Thurlow studied thorough-bass, in order that he might
+direct the musical exercises of his children.
+
+In moments of depression More's favorite solace was the viol; and so
+greatly did he value musical accomplishments in women, that he not only
+instructed his first and girlish wife to play on various instruments,
+but even prevailed on the sour Mistress Alice Middleton "to take lessons
+on the lute, the cithara, the viol, the monochord, and the flute, which
+she daily practised to him." But More's love of music was expressed
+still more forcibly in the zeal with which he encouraged and took part
+in the choral services of Chelsea Church. Throughout his residence at
+Chelsea, Sir Thomas was a regular attendant at the church, and during
+his tenure of the seals he not only delighted to chant the appointed
+psalms, but used to don a white surplice, and take his place among the
+choristers. Having invited the Duke of Norfolk to dine with him, the
+Chancellor prepared himself for the enjoyment of that great peer's
+society by attending divine service, and he was still occupied with his
+religious exercises when his Grace of Norfolk entered the church, and to
+his inexpressible astonishment saw the keeper of the king's conscience
+in the flowing raiment of a chorister, and heard him give "Glory to God
+in the highest!" as though he were a hired singer. "God's body! God's
+body! My Lord Chancellor a parish clerk?--a parish clerk?" was the
+duke's testy expostulation with the Chancellor. Whereupon More, with
+gentle gravity, answered, "Nay; your grace may not think that the
+king--your master and mine--will with me, for serving his Master, be
+offended, and thereby account his office dishonored." Not only was it
+More's custom to sing in the church choir, but he used also to bear a
+cross in religious processions; and on being urged to mount horse when
+he followed the rood in Rogation week round the parish boundaries, he
+answered, "It beseemeth not the servant to follow his master prancing on
+a cock-horse, his master going on foot." Few incidents in Sir Thomas
+More's remarkable career point more forcibly to the vast difference
+between the social manners of the sixteenth century and those of the
+present day. If Lord Chelmsford were to recreate himself with leading
+the choristers in Margaret Street, and after service were seen walking
+homewards in an ecclesiastical dress, it is more than probable that
+public opinion would declare him a fit companion for the lunatics of
+whose interests he has been made the official guardian. Society felt
+some surprise as well as gratification when Sir Roundell Palmer recently
+published his 'Book of Praise;' but if the Attorney General, instead of
+printing his select hymns had seen fit to exemplify their beauties with
+his own voice from the stall of a church-singer, the piety of his
+conduct would have scarcely reconciled Lord Palmerston to its dangerous
+eccentricity.
+
+Amongst Elizabethan lawyers, Chief Justice Dyer was by no means singular
+for his love of music, though Whetstone's lines have given exceptional
+celebrity to his melodious proficiency:--
+
+   "For publique good, when care had cloid his minde,
+     The only joye, for to repose his sprights,
+   Was musique sweet, which showd him well inclind;
+     For he doth in musique much delight,
+     A conscience hath disposed to do most right:
+   The reason is, her sound within our eare,
+   A sympathie of heaven we thinke we heare."
+
+Like James Dyer, Francis Bacon found music a pleasant and salutary
+pastime, when he was fatigued by the noisy contentions of legal practice
+or by strenuous application to philosophic pursuits. A perfect master of
+the science of melody, Lord Bacon explained its laws with a clearness
+which has satisfied competent judges that he was familiar with the
+practice as well as the theories of harmony; but few passages of his
+works display more agreeably his personal delight and satisfaction in
+musical exercise and investigation than that section of the 'Natural
+History,' wherein he says, "And besides I practice as I do advise; which
+is, after long inquiry of things immersed in matter, to interpose some
+subject which is immateriate or less materiate; such as this of sounds:
+to the end that the intellect may be rectified and become not partial."
+
+A theorist as well as performer, the Lord Keeper Guilford enunciated his
+views regarding the principles of melody in 'A Philosophical Essay of
+Musick, Directed to a Friend'--a treatise that was published without the
+author's name, by Martin, the printer to the Royal Society, in the year
+1677, at which time the future keeper was Chief Justice of the Common
+Pleas. The merits of the tract are not great; but it displays the
+subtlety and whimsical quaintness of the musical lawyer, who performed
+on several instruments, was very vain of a feeble voice, and used to
+attribute much of his professional success to the constant study of
+music that marked every period of his life. "I have heard him say,"
+Roger records, "that if he had not enabled himself by these studies, and
+particular his practice of music upon his bass or lyra viol (which he
+used to touch lute-fashion upon his knee), to divert himself alone, he
+had never been a lawyer. His mind was so airy and volatile he could not
+have kept his chamber if he must needs be there, staked down purely to
+the drudgery of the law, whether in study or practice; and yet upon
+such a leaden proposition, so painful to brisk spirits, all the success
+of the profession, regularly pursued, depends." His first acquaintance
+with melodious art was made at Cambridge, where in his undergraduate
+days he took lessons on the viol. At this same period he "had the
+opportunity of practice so much in his grandfather's and father's
+families, where the entertainment of music in full concert was solemn
+and frequent, that he outdid all his teachers, and became one of the
+neatest violinists of his time." Scarcely in consistence with this
+declaration of the Lord Keeper's proficiency on the violin is a later
+passage of the biography, where Roger says that his brother "attempted
+the violin, being ambitious of the prime part in concert, but soon found
+that he began such a difficult art too late." It is, however, certain
+that the eminent lawyer in the busiest passages of his laborious life
+found time for musical practice, and that besides his essay on music, he
+contributed to his favorite art several compositions which were
+performed in private concert-rooms.
+
+Sharing in the musical tastes of his family, Roger North, the
+biographer, was the _friend_ who used to touch the harpsichord that
+stood at the door of the Lord Keeper's bedchamber; and when political
+changes had extinguished his hopes of preferment, he found consolation
+in music and literature. Retiring to his seat in Norfolk, Roger fitted
+up a concert-room with instruments that roused the astonishment of
+country squires, and an organ that was extolled by critical professors
+for the sweetness of its tones. In that seclusion, where he lived to
+extreme old age, the lettered lawyer composed the greater part of those
+writings which have rendered him familiar to the present generation. Of
+his 'Memoirs of Musick,' readers are not accustomed to speak so
+gratefully as of his biographies; but the curious sketch which Dr.
+Rimbault edited and for the first time published in 1846, is worthy of
+perusal, and will maintain a place on the shelves of literary collectors
+by the side of his brother's 'Essay.'
+
+In that treatise Roger alludes to a contest which in the reigns of
+Charles II. and James II. agitated the musicians of London, divided the
+Templars into two hostile parties, and for a considerable time gave rise
+to quarrels in every quarter of the town. All this disturbance resulted
+from "a competition for an organ in the Temple church, for which the two
+competitors, the best artists in Europe, Smith and Harris, were but just
+not ruined." The struggle thus mentioned in the 'Memoirs of Musick' is
+so comic an episode in the story of London life, and has been the
+occasion of so much error amongst writers, that it claims brief
+restatement in the present chapter.
+
+In February, 1682, the Benchers of the Temples, wishing to obtain for
+their church an organ of superlative excellence, invited Father Smith
+and Renatus Harris to compete for the honor of supplying the instrument.
+The masters of the benchers pledged themselves that "if each of these
+excellent artists would set up an organ in one of the halls belonging to
+either of the societies, they would have erected in their church that
+which, in the greatest number of excellencies, deserved the preference."
+For more than twenty years Father Smith had been the first organ-builder
+in England; and the admirable qualities of his instruments testify to
+his singular ability. A German artist (in his native country called
+Bernard Schmidt, but in London known as Father Smith), he had
+established himself in the English capital as early as the summer of
+1660; and gaining the cordial patronage of Charles II., he and his two
+grand-nephews soon became leaders of their craft. Father Smith built
+organs for Westminster Abbey, for the Church of St. Giles-in-the-Fields,
+for St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, for Durham Cathedral, and for
+other sacred buildings. In St. Paul's Cathedral he placed the organ
+which Wren disdainfully designated a "box of whistles;" and dying in
+1708, he left his son-in-law, Christopher Schreider, to complete the
+organ which still stands in the chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge.
+But notwithstanding his greatness, Father Smith had rivals; his first
+rival being Harris the Elder, who died in 1672, his second being Renatus
+Harris, or Harris the Younger. The elder Harris never caused Smith much
+discomfort; but his son, Renatus, was a very clever fellow, and a strong
+party of fashionable _connoisseurs_ declared that he was greatly
+superior to the German. Such was the position of these two rivals when
+the benchers made their proposal, which was eagerly accepted by the
+artificers, each of whom saw in it an opportunity for covering his
+antagonist with humiliation.
+
+The men went to work: and within fourteen months their instruments were
+ready for competition. Smith finished work before Harris, and prevailed
+on the benchers to let him place his organ in the Temple church, well
+knowing that the powers of the instrument could be much more readily and
+effectively displayed in the church than in either of the dining-halls.
+The exact site where he fixed his organ is unknown, but the careful
+author of 'A Few Notes on the Temple Organ, 1859,' is of opinion that it
+was put up "on the screen between the round and oblong churches--the
+position occupied by the organ until the present organ-chamber was
+built, and the organ removed there during the progress of the complete
+restoration of the church in the year 1843." No sooner had Harris
+finished his organ, than, following Father Smith's example, he asked
+leave of the benchers to erect it within the church. Harris's petition
+to this effect bears date May 26, 1684; and soon afterwards the organ
+was "set up in the Church on the south side of the Communion Table."
+
+Both organs being thus stationed under the roof of the church, the
+committee of benchers appointed to decide on their relative merits
+declared themselves ready to listen. The trial began, but many
+months--ay, some years--elapsed ere it came to an end. On either side
+the credit of the manufacturer was sustained by execution of the highest
+order of art. Father Smith's organ was handled alternately by Purcell
+and Dr. Blow; and Draghi, the queen's organist, did his best to secure a
+verdict for Renatus Harris. Of course the employment of these eminent
+musicians greatly increased the number of persons who felt personal
+interest in the contest. Whilst the pupils and admirers of Purcell and
+Blow were loud in declaring that Smith's organ ought to win, Draghi's
+friends were equally sure that the organ touched by his expert fingers
+ought not to lose. Discussion soon became violent; and in every
+profession, clique, coterie of the town, supporters of Smith wrangled
+with supporters of Harris. Like the battle of the Gauges in our time,
+the battle of the Organs was the grand topic with every class of
+society, at Court and on 'Change, in coffee-houses and at ordinaries.
+Again and again the organs were tested in the hearing of dense and
+fashionable congregations; and as often the judicial committee was
+unable to come to a decision. The hesitation of the judges put oil upon
+the fire; for Smith's friends, indignant at the delay, asserted that
+certain members of the committee were bound to Harris by corrupt
+considerations--an accusation that was retorted by the other side with
+equal warmth and want of justice.
+
+After the squabble had been protracted through many months, Harris
+created a diversion by challenging Father Smith to make additional
+reed-stops within a given time. The challenge was accepted; and
+forthwith the Father went to work and made Vox Humana, Cremorne, Double
+Courtel, or Double Bassoon, and other stops. A day was appointed for the
+renewal of the contest; but party feeling ran so high, that during the
+night preceding the appointed day a party of hot-headed Harrissians
+broke into the Temple Church, and cut Smith's bellows--so that on the
+following morning his organ was of no more service than an old
+linen-press. A row ensued; and in the ardor of debate swords were drawn.
+
+In June, 1685, the benchers of the Middle Temple, made a written
+declaration in favor of Father Smith, and urged that his organ should be
+forthwith accepted. Strongly and rather discourteously worded, this
+declaration gave offence to the benchers of the Inner Temple, who
+regarded it as an attempt at dictation; and on June 22, 1685, they
+recommended the appointment of another committee with powers to decide
+the contest. Declining to adopt this suggestion, the Middle Temple
+benchers reiterated their high opinion of Smith's instrument. On this
+the Battle of the Organs became a squabble between the two Temples; and
+the outside public, laughing over the quarrel of the lawyers, expressed
+a hope that honest men would get their own since the rogues had fallen
+out.
+
+At length, when the organ-builders had well-nigh ruined each other, and
+the town had grown weary of the dispute, the Inner Temple yielded
+somewhere about the beginning of 1688--at an early date of which year
+Smith received a sum of money in part payment for his organ. On May 27th
+of the same year, Mr. Pigott was appointed organist. After its rejection
+by the Temple, Renatus Harris divided his organ into two, and having
+sent the one part to the cathedral of Christ's Church, Dublin, he set up
+the other part in the church of St. Andrew, Holborn. Three years after
+his disappointment, Renatus Harris was tried at the Old Bailey for a
+political offence, the nature of which may be seen from the following
+entry in Narcissus Luttrell's Diary:--"April, 1691. The Sessions have
+been at the Old Bailey, where these persons, Renatus Harris, John Watts,
+William Rutland, Henry Gandy, and Thomas Tysoe, were tried at the Old
+Bailey for setting up policies of insurance that Dublin would be in the
+hands of some other king than their present majesties by Christmas next:
+the jury found them guilty of a misdemeanor." For this offence Renatus
+Harris was fined £200, and was required to give security for his good
+conduct until Christmas.
+
+An erroneous tradition assigns to Lord Jeffreys the honor of bringing
+the Battle of the Organs to a conclusion, and writers improving upon
+this tradition, have represented that Jeffreys acted as sole umpire
+between the contendants. In his 'History of Music,' Dr. Burney, to whom
+the prevalence of this false impression is mainly due, observes--"At
+length the decision was left to Lord Chief Justice Jeffries, afterwards
+King James the Second's pliant Chancellor, who was of that society (the
+Inner Temple), and he terminated the controversy in favor of Father
+Smith; so that Harris's organ was taken away without loss of reputation,
+having so long pleased and puzzled better judges than Jefferies."
+
+Careful inquirers have ascertained that Harris's organ did not go to
+Wolverhampton, but to Dublin and St. Andrew's Holborn, part of it being
+sent to the one, and part to the other place. It is certain that Jeffrys
+was not chosen to act as umpire in 1681, for the benchers did not make
+their original proposal to the rival builders until February, 1682; and
+years passed between that date and the termination of the squabble. When
+Burney wrote:--"At length the decision was left to Lord Chief Justice
+Jefferies, _afterwards King James II.'s pliant Chancellor_," the
+musician was unaware that the squabble was still at white heat whilst
+Jeffreys occupied the woolsack. On his return from the Western Campaign,
+Jeffreys received the seals in September, 1685, whereas the dispute
+about the organs did not terminate till the opening of 1688, or at
+earliest till the close of 1687. There is no authentic record in the
+archives of the Temples which supports, or in any way countenances, the
+story that Jeffreys made choice of Smith's instrument; but it is highly
+probable that the Lord Chancellor exerted his influence with the Inner
+Temple (of which society he was a member), and induced the benchers, for
+the sake of peace, to yield to the wishes of the Middle Temple. It is no
+less probable that his fine musical taste enabled him to see that the
+Middle Temple benchers were in the right, and gave especial weight to
+his words when he spoke against Harris's instrument.
+
+Though Jeffreys delighted in music, he does not seem to have held its
+professors in high esteem. In the time of Charles II. musical artists of
+the humbler grades liked to be styled 'musitioners;' and on a certain
+occasion, when he was sitting as Recorder for the City of London, George
+Jeffreys was greatly incensed by a witness who, in a pompous voice,
+called himself a musitioner. With a sneer the Recorder interposed--"A
+musitioner! I thought you were a fiddler!" "I am a musitioner," the
+violinist answered, stoutly. "Oh, indeed," croaked Jeffreys. "That is
+very important--highly important--extremely important! And pray, Mr.
+Witness, what is the difference between a musitioner and a fiddler?"
+With fortunate readiness the man answered, "As much, sir, as there is
+between a pair of bag-pipes and a Recorder."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+A THICKNESS IN THE THROAT.
+
+
+The date is September, 1805, and the room before us is a drawing-room in
+a pleasant house at Brighton. The hot sun is beating down on cliff and
+terrace, beach and pier, on the downs behind the town and the sparkling
+sea in front. The brightness of the blue sky is softened by white vapor
+that here and there resembles a vast curtain of filmy gauze, but nowhere
+has gathered into visible masses of hanging cloud. In the distance the
+sea is murmuring audibly, and through the screened windows, together
+with the drowsy hum of the languid waves, comes a light breeze that is
+invigorating, notwithstanding its sensible warmth.
+
+Besides ourselves there are but two people in the room: a gentlewoman
+who has said farewell to youth, but not to feminine grade and delicacy;
+and an old man, who is lying on a sofa near one of the open windows,
+whilst his daughter plays passages of Handel's music on the piano-forte.
+
+The old man wears the dress of an obsolete school of English gentlemen;
+a large brown wig with three rows of curls, the lowest row resting on
+the curve of his shoulders; a loose grey coat, notable for the size of
+its cuffs and the bigness of its heavy buttons; ruffles at his wrists,
+and frills of fine lace below his roomy cravat. These are the most
+conspicuous articles of his costume, but not the most striking points of
+his aspect. Over his huge, pallid, cadaverous, furrowed face there is an
+air singularly expressive of exhaustion and power, of debility and
+latent strength--an air that says to sensitive beholders, "This
+prostrate veteran was once a giant amongst giants; his fires are dying
+out; but the old magnificent courage and ability will never altogether
+leave him until the beatings of his heart shall have quite ceased: touch
+him with foolishness or disrespect, and his rage will be terrible."
+Standing here we can see his prodigious bushy eyebrows, that are as
+white as driven snow, and under them we can see the large black eyes,
+beneath the angry fierceness of which hundreds of proud British peers,
+assembled in their council-chamber, have trembled like so many whipped
+schoolboys. There is no lustre in them now, and their habitual
+expression is one of weariness and profound indifference to the world--a
+look that is deeply pathetic and depressing, until some transient cause
+of irritation or the words of a sprightly talker rouse him into
+animation. But the most noticeable quality of his face is its look of
+extreme age. Only yesterday a keen observer said of him, "Lord Thurlow
+is, I believe, only seventy-four; and from his appearance I should think
+him a hundred years old."
+
+So quiet is the reclining form, that the pianist thinks her father must
+be sleeping. Turning on the music-stool to get a view of his
+countenance, and to satisfy herself as to his state, she makes a false
+note, when, quick as the blunder, the brown wig turns upon the
+pillow--the furrowed face is presented to her observation, and an
+electric brightness fills the big black eyes, as the veteran, with deep
+rolling tones, reproves her carelessness:--"What are you doing?--what
+are you doing? I had almost forgotten the world. Play that piece again."
+
+Twelve months more--and the lady will be playing Handel's music on that
+same instrument; but the old man will not be a listener.
+
+From Brighton, in 1805, let readers transport themselves to Canterbury
+in 1776, and let them enter a barber's shop, hard by Canterbury
+Cathedral. It is a primitive shop, with the red and white pole over the
+door, and a modest display of wigs and puff-boxes in the window. A small
+shop, but, notwithstanding its smallness, the best shop of its kind in
+Canterbury; and its lean, stiff, exceedingly respectable master is a man
+of good repute in the cathedral town. His hands have, ere now, powdered
+the Archbishop's wig, and he is specially retained by the chief clergy
+of the city and neighborhood to keep their false hair in order, and trim
+the natural tresses of their children. Not only have the dignitaries of
+the cathedral taken the worthy barber under their special protection,
+but they have extended to his little boy Charles, a demure, prim lad,
+who is at this present time a pupil in the King's School, to which
+academy clerical interest gained him admission. The lad is in his
+fourteenth year; and Dr. Osmund Beauvoir, the master of the school,
+gives him so good a character for industry and dutiful demeanor, that
+some of the cathedral ecclesiastics have resolved to make the little
+fellow's fortune--by placing him in the office of a Chorister. There is
+a vacant place in the cathedral choir; and the boy who is lucky enough
+to receive the appointment will be provided for munificently. He will
+forthwith have a maintenance, and in course of time his salary will be
+£70 per annum.
+
+During the last fortnight the barber has been in great and constant
+excitement--hoping that his little boy will obtain this valuable piece
+of preferment; persuading himself that the lad's thickness of voice,
+concerning which the choir-master speaks with aggravating persistence,
+is a matter of no real importance; fearing that the friends of another
+contemporary boy, who is said by the choir-master to have an exceedingly
+mellifluous voice, may defeat his paternal aspirations. The momentous
+question agitates many humble homes in Canterbury; and whilst Mr.
+Abbott, the barber, is encouraged to hope the best for his son, the
+relatives and supporters of the contemporary boy are urging him not to
+despair. Party spirit prevails on either side--Mr. Abbott's family
+associates maintaining that the contemporary boy's higher notes resemble
+those of a penny whistle; whilst the contemporary boy's father, with
+much satire and some justice, murmurs that "old Abbott, who is the
+gossip-monger of the parsons, wants to push his son into a place for
+which there is a better candidate."
+
+To-day is the eventful day when the election will be made. Even now,
+whilst Abbott, the barber, is trimming a wig at his shop window, and
+listening to the hopeful talk of an intimate neighbor, his son Charley
+is chanting the Old Hundredth before the whole chapter. When Charley has
+been put through his vocal paces, the contemporary boy is requested to
+sing. Whereupon that clear-throated competitor, sustained by justifiable
+self-confidence and a new-laid egg which he had sucked scarcely a minute
+before he made his bow to their reverences, sings out with such richness
+and compass that all the auditors recognize his great superiority.
+
+Ere ten more minutes have passed Charley Abbot knows that he has lost
+the election; and he hastens from the cathedral with quick steps.
+Running into the shop he gives his father a look that tells the whole
+story of--failure, and then the little fellow, unable to command his
+grief, sits down upon the floor and sobs convulsively.
+
+Failure is often the first step to eminence.
+
+Had the boy gained the chorister's place, he would have a cathedral
+servant all his days.
+
+Having failed to get it, he returned to the King's School, went a poor
+scholar to Oxford, and fought his way to honor. He became Chief Justice
+of the King's Bench, and a peer of the realm. Towards the close of his
+honorable career Lord Tenterden attended service in the Cathedral of
+Canterbury, accompanied by Mr. Justice Richardson. When the ceremonial
+was at an end the Chief Justice said to his friend--"Do you see that old
+man there amongst the choristers? In him, brother Richardson, behold the
+only being I ever envied: when at school in this town we were candidates
+together for a chorister's place; he obtained it; and if I had gained my
+wish he might have been accompanying you as Chief Justice, and pointing
+me out as his old school-fellow, the singing man."
+
+
+
+
+PART VI.
+
+AMATEUR THEATRICALS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+ACTORS AT THE BAR.
+
+
+Some years since the late Sergeant Wilkins was haranguing a crowd of
+enlightened electors from the hustings of a provincial borough, when a
+stentorian voice exclaimed, "Go home, you rope-dancer!" Disdaining to
+notice the interruption, the orator continued his speech for fifty
+seconds, when the same voice again cried out, "Go home, you
+rope-dancer!" A roar of laughter followed the reiteration of the insult;
+and in less than two minutes thrice fifty unwashed blackguards were
+roaring with all the force of their lungs, "Ah-h-h--Go home, you
+rope-dancer!" Not slow to see the moaning of the words, the unabashed
+lawyer, who in his life had been a dramatic actor, replied with his
+accustomed readiness and effrontery. A young man unacquainted with mobs
+would have descanted indignantly and with many theatrical flourishes on
+the dignity and usefulness of the player's vocation; an ordinary
+demagogue would have frankly admitted the discourteous impeachment, and
+pleaded in mitigation that he had always acted in leading parts and for
+high salaries. Sergeant Wilkins took neither of those courses, for he
+knew his audience, and was aware that his connection with the stage was
+an affair about which he had better say as little as possible. Instead
+of appealing to their generosity, or boasting of his histrionic
+eminence, he threw himself broadly on their sense of humor. Drawing
+himself up to his full height, the big, burly man advanced to the marge
+of the platform, and extending his right hand with an air of authority,
+requested silence by the movement of his arm. The sign was instantly
+obeyed; for having enjoyed their laugh, the multitude wished for the
+rope-dancer's explanation. As soon as the silence was complete, he drew
+back two paces, put himself in an oratorical _pose_, as though he were
+about to speak, and then, disappointing the expectations of the
+assembly, deliberately raised forwards and upwards the skirts of his
+frock-coat. Having thus arranged his drapery he performed a slow
+gyration--presenting his huge round shoulders and unwieldy legs to the
+populace. When his back was turned to the crowd, he stooped and made a
+low obeisance to his vacant chair, thereby giving the effect of
+caricature to the outlines of his most protuberant and least honorable
+part. This pantomime lasted scarcely a minute; and before the spectators
+could collect themselves to resent so extraordinary an affront, the
+sergeant once again faced them, and in a clear, rich, jovial tone
+exclaimed, "_He_ called me a rope-dancer!--after what you have seen, do
+you believe him?"
+
+With the exception of the man who started the cry, every person in the
+dense multitude was convulsed with laughter; and till the end of the
+election no turbulent rascal ventured to repeat the allusion to the
+sergeant's former occupation. At a moment of embarrassment, Mr.
+Disraeli, in the course of one of his youthful candidatures, created a
+diversion in his favor by telling a knot of unruly politicians that he
+_stood on his head_. With less wit, and much less decency, but with
+equal good fortune, Sergeant Wilkins took up his position on a baser
+part of his frame.
+
+The electors who respected Mr. Wilkins because he was a successful
+barrister, whilst they reproached him with having been a stage-player,
+were unaware how close an alliance exists between the art of the actor
+and the art of the advocate. To lawyers of every grade and speciality
+the histrionic faculty is a useful power; but to the advocate who wishes
+to sway the minds of jurors it is a necessary endowment. Comprising
+several distinct abilities, it not only enables the orator to rouse the
+passions and to play on the prejudices of his hearers, but it preserves
+him from the errors of judgment, tone, emphasis--in short, from manifold
+blunders of indiscretion and tact by which verdicts are lost quite as
+often as through defect of evidence and merit. Like the dramatic
+performer, the court-speaker, especially at the common law bar, has to
+assume various parts. Not only should he know the facts of his brief,
+but he should thoroughly identify himself with the client for whom his
+eloquence is displayed. On the theatrical stage mimetic business is cut
+up into specialities, men in most cases filling the parts of men, whilst
+actresses fill the parts of women; the young representing the
+characteristics of youth, whilst actors with special endowments simulate
+the qualities of old age; some confining themselves to light and trivial
+characters, whilst others are never required to strut before the scenes
+with hurried paces, or to speak in phrases that lack dignity and fine
+sentiment. But the popular advocate must in turn fill every _rôle_. If
+childish simplicity be his client's leading characteristic, his
+intonations will express pliancy and foolish confidence; or if it is
+desirable that the jury should appreciate his client's honesty of
+purpose, he speaks with a voice of blunt, bluff, manly frankness.
+Whatever quality the advocate may wish to represent as the client's
+distinctive characteristic, it must be suggested to the jury by mimetic
+artifice of the finest sort. Speaking of a famous counsel, an
+enthusiastic juryman once said to this writer--"In my time I have heard
+Sir Alexander in pretty nearly every part: I've heard him as an old man
+and a young woman; I have heard him when he has been a ship run down at
+sea, and when he has been an oil-factory in a state of conflagration;
+once, when I was foreman of a jury, I saw him poison his intimate
+friend, and another time he did the part of a pious bank director in a
+fashion that would have skinned the eyelids of Exeter Hall: he ain't bad
+as a desolate widow with nine children, of which the eldest is under
+eight years of age; but if ever I have to listen to him again, I should
+like to see him as a young lady of good connexions who has been seduced
+by an officer of the Guards." In the days of his forensic triumphs Henry
+Brougham was remarkable for the mimetic power which enabled him to
+describe friend or foe by a few subtle turns of the voice. At a later
+period, long after he had left the bar, in compliance with a request
+that he would return thanks for the bridesmaids at a wedding breakfast,
+he observed, that "doubtless he had been selected for the task in
+consideration of his youth, beauty, and innocence." The laughter that
+followed this sally was of the sort which in poetic phraseology is
+called inextinguishable; and one of the wedding guests who heard the
+joke and the laughter, assures this writer that the storm of mirthful
+applause was chiefly due to the delicacy and sweetness of the
+intonations by which the speaker's facile voice, with its old and once
+familiar art, made the audience realize the charms of youth, beauty and
+innocence--charms which, so far as the lawyer's wrinkled visage was
+concerned, were conspicuous by their absence.
+
+Eminent advocates have almost invariably possessed qualities that would
+have made them successful mimics on the stage. For his mastery of
+oratorical artifices Alexander Wedderburn was greatly indebted to
+Sheridan, the lecturer on elocution, and to Macklin, the actor, from
+both of whom he took lessons; and when he had dismissed his teachers and
+become a leader of the English bar he adhered to their rules, and daily
+practised before a looking-glass the facial tricks by which Macklin
+taught him to simulate surprise or anger, indignation or triumph.
+Erskine was a perfect master of dramatic effect, and much of his
+richly-deserved success was due to the theatrical artifices with which
+he played upon the passions of juries. At the conclusion of a long
+oration he was accustomed to feign utter physical prostration, so that
+the twelve gentlemen in the box, in their sympathy for his sufferings
+and their admiration for his devotion to the interests of his client,
+might be impelled by generous emotion to return a favorable verdict.
+Thus when he defended Hardy, hoarseness and fatigue so overpowered him
+towards the close of his speech, that during the last ten minutes he
+could not speak above a whisper, and in order that his whispers might be
+audible to the jury, the exhausted advocate advanced two steps nearer to
+their box, and then extended his pale face to their eager eyes. The
+effect of the artifice on the excited jury is said to have been great
+and enduring, although they were speedily enlightened as to the real
+nature of his apparent distress. No sooner had the advocate received the
+first plaudits of his theatre on the determination of his harangue, than
+the multitude outside the court, taking up the acclamations which were
+heard within the building, expressed their feelings with such deafening
+clamor, and with so many signs of riotous intention, that Erskine was
+entreated to leave the court and soothe the passions of the mob with a
+few words of exhortation. In compliance with this suggestion he left the
+court, and forthwith addressed the dense out-door assembly in clear,
+ringing tones that were audible in Ludgate Hill, at one end of the Old
+Bailey, and to the billowy sea of human heads that surged round St.
+Sepulchre's Church at the other extremity of the dismal thoroughfare.
+
+At the subsequent trial of John Horne Tooke, Sir John Scott, unwilling
+that Erskine should enjoy a monopoly of theatrical artifice, endeavored
+to create a diversion in favor of the government by a display of those
+lachrymose powers, which Byron ridiculed in the following century. "I
+can endure anything but an attack on my good name," exclaimed the
+Attorney General, in reply to a criticism directed against his mode of
+conducting the prosecution; "my good name is the little patrimony I have
+to leave to my children, and, with God's help, gentlemen of the jury, I
+will leave it to them unimpaired." As he uttered these words tears
+suffused the eyes which, at a later period of the lawyer's career, used
+to moisten the woolsack in the House of Lords--
+
+   "Because the Catholics would not rise,
+   In spite of his prayers and his prophecies."
+
+For a moment Horne Tooke, who persisted in regarding all the
+circumstances of his perilous position as farcical, smiled at the
+lawyer's outburst in silent amusement; but as soon as he saw a
+sympathetic brightness in the eyes of one of the jury, the dexterous
+demagogue with characteristic humor and effrontery accused Sir John
+Mitford, the Solicitor General, of needless sympathy with the
+sentimental disturbance of his colleague. "Do you know what Sir John
+Mitford is crying about?" the prisoner inquired of the jury. "He is
+thinking of the destitute condition of Sir John Scott's children, and
+the _little patrimony_ they are likely to divide among them." The jury
+and all present were not more tickled by the satire upon the Attorney
+General than by the indignant surprise which enlivened the face of Sir
+John Mitford, who was not at all prone to tears, and had certainly
+manifested no pity for John Scott's forlorn condition.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+"THE PLAY'S THE THING."
+
+
+Following the example set by the nobility in their castles and civic
+palaces, the Inns of Court set apart certain days of the year for
+feasting and revelry, and amongst the diversions with which the lawyers
+recreated themselves at these periods of rejoicing, the rude
+Pre-Shakespearian dramas took a prominent place. So far back as A.D.
+1431, the Masters of the Lincoln's Inn Bench restricted the number of
+annual revels to four--"one at the feast of All-Hallown, another at the
+feast of St. Erkenwald; the third at the feast of the Purification of
+our Lady; and the 4th at Midsummer." The ceremonials of these holidays
+were various; but the brief and sometimes unintelligible notices of the
+chroniclers give us sufficiently vivid and minute pictures of the
+boisterous jollity that marked the proceedings. Miracle plays and
+moralities, dancing and music, fantastic processions and mad pranks,
+spurred on the hours that were not devoted to heavy meals and deep
+potations. In the merriments of the different Inns there was a pleasant
+diversity--with regard to the duration and details of the
+entertainments: and occasionally the members of the four societies acted
+with so little concert that their festivals, falling at exactly the same
+time, were productive of rivalry and disappointments. Dugdale thinks
+that the Christmas revels were not regularly kept in Lincoln's Inn
+during the reign of Henry VIII.; and draws attention to an order made by
+the benchers of that house on 27 Nov., 22 H. VIII., the record of which
+runs thus:--"It is agreed that IF the two Temples do kepe Chrystemas,
+then the Chrystemas to be kept here; and to know this, the Steward of
+the House ys commanded to get knowledge, and to advertise my masters by
+the next day at night."
+
+But notwithstanding changes and novelties, the main features of a revel
+in an Inn of Court were always much the same. Some member of the society
+conspicuous for rank or wit of style, or for a combination of these
+qualities, was elected King of the Revel, and until the close of the
+long frolic he was despot and sole master of the position--so long as he
+did not disregard a few not vexatious conditions by which, the benchers
+limited his authority. He surrounded himself with a mock court, exacted
+homage from barristers and students, made proclamations to his loyal
+children, sat on a throne at daily banquets, and never appeared in
+public without a body-guard, and a numerous company of musicians, to
+protect his person and delight his ear.
+
+The wit and accomplishments of the younger lawyers were signally
+displayed in the dramatic interludes that usually enlivened these
+somewhat heavy and sluggish jollifications. Not only did they write the
+pieces, and put them before the audience with cunning devices for the
+production of scenic effect, but they were their own actors. It was not
+long before their 'moralities' were seasoned with political sentiments
+and allusions to public affairs. For instance, when Wolsey was in the
+fulness of his power, Sergeant Roo ventured to satirize the Cardinal in
+a masque with which Gray's Inn entertained Henry VIII. and his
+courtiers. Hall records that, "This plaie was so set furth with riche
+and costlie apparel; with strange diuises of maskes and morrishes, that
+it was highly praised of all menne saving the Cardinall, whiche imagined
+that the plaie had been deuised of him, and in greate furie sent for the
+said Maister Roo, and toke from hym his coife, and sent him to the
+Flete, and after he sent for the yoong gentlemen that plaied in the
+plaie, and them highly rebuked and threatened, and sent one of them,
+called Thomas Moyle, of Kent, to the Flete; but by means of friendes
+Master Roo and he wer deliuered at last." The author stoutly denied that
+he intended to satirize the Cardinal; and the chronicler, believing the
+sergeant's assertions, observes, "This plaie sore displeased the
+Cardinal, and yet it was never meant to him." That the presentation of
+plays was a usual feature of the festivals at Gray's Inn may be inferred
+from the passage where Dugdale, in his notes on that society, says;--"In
+4 Edw. VI. (17 Nov.), it was also ordered that henceforth there should
+be no comedies called _Interludes_ in this House out of Term time, but
+when the feast of the Nativity of our Lord is solemnly observed. And
+that when there shall be any such comedies, then all the society at that
+time in commons to bear the charge of the apparel."
+
+Notwithstanding her anxiety for the maintenance of good discipline in
+the Inns of Court, Queen Elizabeth encouraged the Societies to celebrate
+their feasts with costliness and liberal hospitality, and her taste for
+dramatic entertainments increased the splendor and frequency of
+theatrical diversions amongst the lawyers. Christopher Hatton's name is
+connected with the history of the English drama, by the acts which he
+contributed to 'The Tragedie of Tancred and Gismunda, compiled by the
+gentlemen of the Inner Temple, and by them presented before her
+majestie;' and he was one of the chief actors in that ponderous and
+extravagant mummery with which the Inner Temple kept Christmas in the
+fourth year of Elizabeth's reign.
+
+The circumstances of that festival merit special notice.
+
+In the third year of Elizabeth's reign the Middle Temple and the Inner
+Temple were at fierce war, the former society having laid claim to
+Lyon's Inn, which had been long regarded as a dependency of the Inner
+Temple. The two Chief Justices, Sir Robert Catlyn and Sir James Dyer,
+were known to think well of the claimant's title, and the masters of the
+Inner Temple bench anticipated an adverse decision, when Lord Robert
+Dudley (afterwards Earl of Leicester) came to their relief with an order
+from Queen Elizabeth enjoining the Middle Templars no longer to vex
+their neighbors in the matter. Submission being the only course open to
+them, the lawyers of the Middle Temple desisted from their claim; and
+the Masters of the Inner Temple Bench expressed their great gratitude to
+Lord Robert Dudley, "by ordering and enacting that no person or persons
+of their society that then were, or thereafter should be, should be
+retained of councell against him the said Lord Robert, or his heirs; and
+that the arms of the said Lord Robert should be set up and placed in
+some convenient place in their Hall as a continual monument of his
+lordship's favor unto them."
+
+Further honors were paid to this nobleman at the ensuing Christmas, when
+the Inner Temple held a revel of unusual magnificence and made Lord
+Robert the ruler of the riot. Whilst the holidays lasted the young
+lord's title and style were "Pallaphilos, prince of Sophie High
+Constable Marshal of the Knights Templars, and Patron of the Honorable
+Order of Pegasus." And he kept a stately court, having for his chief
+officers--Mr. Onslow (Lord Chancellor), Anthony Stapleton (Lord
+Treasurer), Robert Kelway (Lord Privy Seal), John Fuller (Chief Justice
+of the King's Bench), William Pole (Chief Justice of the Common Pleas),
+Roger Manwood (Chief Baron of the Exchequer), Mr. Bashe (Steward of the
+Household), Mr. Copley (Marshal of the Household), Mr. Paten (Chief
+Butler), Christopher Hatton (Master of the Game), Messieurs Blaston,
+Yorke, Penston, Jervise (Masters of the Revels), Mr. Parker (Lieutenant
+of the Tower), Mr. Kendall (Carver), Mr. Martyn (Ranger of the Forests),
+and Mr. Stradling (Sewer). Besides these eighteen Placemen, Pallaphilos
+had many other mock officers, whose names are not recorded, and he was
+attended by a body-guard of fourscore members of the Inn.
+
+From the pages of Gerard Leigh and Dugdale, the reader can obtain a
+sufficiently minute account of the pompous ceremonials and heavy
+buffooneries of the season. He may learn some of the special services
+and contributions which Prince Pallaphilos required of his chief
+courtiers, and take note how Mr. Paten, as Chief Butler, had to provide
+seven dozen silver and gilt spoons, twelve dozen silver and gilt
+salt-cellars, twenty silver and gilt candlesticks, twenty fine large
+table-cloths of damask and diaper, twenty dozen white napkins, three
+dozen fair large towels, twenty dozen white cups and green pots, to say
+nothing of carving-knives, carving table, tureens, bread, beer, ale, and
+wine. The reader also may learn from those chroniclers how the company
+were placed according to degrees at different tables; how the banquets
+were served to the sound of drums and fifes; how the boar's head was
+brought in upon a silver dish; how the gentlemen in gowns, the
+trumpeters, and other musicians followed the boar's head in stately
+procession; and how, by a rule somewhat at variance with modern notions
+concerning old English hospitality, strangers of worth were expected to
+pay in cash for their entertainment, eightpence per head being the
+charge for dinner on the day of Christmas Eve, and twelve-pence being
+demanded from each stranger for his dinner on the following day.
+
+Ladies were not excluded from all the festivities; though it may be
+presumed they did not share in all the riotous meals of the period. It
+is certain that they were invited, together with the young law-students
+from the Inns of Chancery, to see a play and a masque acted in the hall;
+that seats were provided for their special accommodation in the hall
+whilst the sports were going forward; and that at the close of the
+dramatic performances the gallant dames and pretty girls were
+entertained by Pallaphilos in the library with a suitable banquet;
+whilst the mock Lord Chancellor, Mr. Onslow, presided at a feast in the
+hall, which with all possible speed had been converted from theatrical
+to more appropriate uses.
+
+But though the fun was rare and the array was splendid to idle folk of
+the sixteenth century, modern taste would deem such gaiety rude and
+wearisome, would call the ladies' banquet a disorderly scramble, and
+think the whole frolic scarce fit for schoolboys. And in many respects
+those revels of olden time were indecorous, noisy, comfortless affairs.
+There must have been a sad want of room and fresh air in the Inner
+Temple dining-hall, when all the members of the inn, the selected
+students from the subordinate Inns of Chancery, and half a hundred
+ladies (to say nothing of Mr. Gerard Leigh and illustrious strangers),
+had crowded into the space set apart for the audience. At the dinners
+what wrangling and tumult must have arisen through squabbles for place,
+and the thousand mishaps that always attend an endeavor to entertain
+five hundred gentlemen at a dinner, in a room barely capacious enough
+for the proper accommodation of a hundred and fifty persons. Unless this
+writer greatly errs, spoons and knives were in great request, and table
+linen was by no means 'fair and spotless' towards the close of the rout.
+
+Superb, on that holyday, was the aspect of Prince Pallaphilos. Wearing a
+complete suit of elaborately wrought and richly gilt armor, he bore
+above his helmet a cloud of curiously dyed feathers, and held a gilt
+pole-axe in his hand. By his side walked the Lieutenant of the Tower
+(Mr. Parker), clad in white armor, and like Pallaphilos furnished with
+feathers and a pole-axe.
+
+On entering the hall the prince and his Lieutenant of the Tower were
+preceded by sixteen trumpeters (at full blare), four drummers (at full
+drum), and a company of fifers (at full whistle), and followed by four
+men in white armor, bearing halberds in their hands. Thrice did this
+procession march round the fire that blazed in the centre of the hall;
+and when in the course of these three circuits the four halberdiers and
+the musicians had trodden upon everybody's toes (their own included),
+and when moreover they had blown themselves out of time and breath,
+silence was proclaimed; and Prince Pallaphilos, having laid aside his
+pole-axe and his naked sword and a few other trifles, took his seat at
+the urgent entreaty of the mock Lord Chancellor.
+
+But Kit Hatton's appearance and part in the proceedings were even more
+outrageously ridiculous. The future Lord Chancellor of England was then
+a very elegant and witty young fellow, proud of his quick humor and
+handsome face, but far prouder of his exquisitely proportioned legs. No
+sooner had Prince Pallaphilos taken his seat, at the Lord Chancellor's
+suggestion, than Kit Hatton (as master of the game) entered the hall,
+dressed in a complete suit of green velvet, and holding a green bow in
+his left hand. His quiver was supplied with green arrows, and round his
+neck was slung a hunting-horn. By Kit's side, arrayed in exactly the
+same style, walked the Ranger of the Forests (Mr. Martyn); and having
+forced their way into the crowded chamber, the two young men blew three
+blasts of venery upon their horns, and then paced three times round the
+fire. After thus parading the hall they paused before the Lord
+Chancellor, to whom the Master of Game made three curtsies, and then on
+his knees proclaimed the desire of his heart to serve the mighty Prince
+Pallaphilos.
+
+Having risen from his kneeling posture Kit Hatton blew his horn, and at
+the signal his huntsman entered the room, bringing with him a fox, a
+cat, and ten couples of hounds. Forthwith the fox was released from the
+pole to which it was bound; and when the luckless creature had crept
+into a corner under one of the tables, the ten couples of hounds were
+sent in pursuit. It is a fact that English gentlemen in the sixteenth
+century thus amused themselves with a fox-hunt in a densely crowded
+dining-room. Over tables and under tables, up the hall and down the
+hall, those score hounds went at full cry after a miserable fox, which
+they eventually ran into and killed in the cinder-pit, or as Dugdale
+expresses it, "beneath the fire." That work achieved, the cat was turned
+off, and the hounds sent after her, with much blowing of horns, much
+cracking of whips, and deafening cries of excitement from the gownsmen,
+who tumbled over one another in their eagerness to be in at the death.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+THE RIVER AND THE STRAND BY TORCHLIGHT.
+
+
+Scarcely less out of place in the dining-hall than Kit Hatton's hounds,
+was the mule fairly mounted on which the Prince Pallaphilos made his
+appearance at the High Table after supper, when he notified to his
+subjects in what manner they were to disport themselves till bedtime.
+Thus also when the Prince of Purpoole kept his court at Gray's Inn, A.D.
+1594, the prince's champion rode into the dining-hall upon the back of a
+fiery charger which, like the rider, was clothed in a panoply of steel.
+
+In costliness and riotous excess the Prince of Purpoole's revel at
+Gray's Inn was not inferior to any similar festivity in the time of
+Elizabeth. On the 20th of December, St. Thomas's Eve, the Prince (one
+Master Henry Holmes, a Norfolk gentleman) took up his quarters in the
+Great Hall of the Inn, and by the 3rd day of January the grandeur and
+comicality of his proceedings had created so much talk throughout the
+town that the Lord Treasurer Burghley, the Earls of Cumberland, Essex,
+Shrewsbury and Westmoreland, the Lords Buckhurst, Windsor, Sheffield,
+Compton, and a magnificent array of knights and ladies visited Gray's
+Inn Hall on that day and saw the masque which the revellers put upon the
+stage. After the masque there was a banquet, which was followed by a
+ball. On the following day the prince, attended by eighty gentlemen of
+Gray's Inn and the Temple (each of the eighty wearing a plume on his
+head), dined in state with the Lord Mayor and aldermen of the city, at
+Crosby Place. The frolic continued for many days more; the royal
+Purpoole on one occasion visiting Blackwall with a splendid retinue, on
+another (Twelfth Night) receiving a gallant assembly of lords, ladies,
+and Knights, at his court in Gray's Inn, and on a third (Shrovetide)
+visiting the queen herself at Greenwich, when Her Majesty warmly
+applauded the masque set before her by the actors who were members of
+the Prince's court. So delighted was Elizabeth with the entertainment,
+that she graciously allowed the masquers to kiss her right hand, and
+loudly extolled Gray's Inn "as an house she was much indebted to, for it
+did always study for some sports to present unto her;" whilst to the
+mock Prince she showed her favor, by placing in his hand the jewel (set
+with seventeen diamonds and fourteen rubies) which he had won by valor
+and skill in the tournament which formed part of the Shrovetide sports.
+
+Numerous entries in the records of the inns testify to the importance
+assigned by the olden lawyers to their periodic feasts; and though in
+the fluctuations of public opinion with regard to the effects of
+dramatic amusements, certain benchers, or even all the benchers of a
+particular inn, may be found at times discountenancing the custom of
+presenting masques, the revels were usually diversified and heightened
+by stage plays. Not only were interludes given at the high and grand
+holidays styled _Solemn Revels_, but also at the minor festivities
+termed Post Revels they were usually had recourse to for amusement.
+"Besides those _solemn revels_, or measures aforesaid," says Dugdale,
+concerning the old usages of the 'Middle Temple,' "they had wont to be
+entertained with Post Revels performed by the better sort of the young
+gentlemen of the society, with galliards, corrantoes, and other dances,
+or else with stage-plays; the first of these feasts being at the
+beginning, and the other at the latter end of Christmas. But of late
+years these Post Revels have been disused, both here and in the other
+Inns of Court."
+
+Besides producing and acting some of our best Pro-Shakespearian dramas,
+the Elizabethan lawyers put upon the stage at least one of William
+Shakespeare's plays. From the diary of a barrister (supposed to be John
+Manningham, of the Middle Temple), it is learnt that the Middle
+Templar's acted Shakespeare's 'Twelfth Night' at the Readers' feast on
+Candlemas Day, 1601-2.[20]
+
+In the following reign, the masques of the lawyers in no degree fell off
+with regard to splendor. Seldom had the Thames presented a more
+picturesque and exhilarating spectacle than it did on the evening of
+February 20, 1612, when the gentlemen masquers of Gray's Inn and the
+Temple, entered the king's royal barge at Winchester House, at seven
+o'clock, and made the voyage to Whitehall, attended by hundreds of
+barges and boats, each vessel being so brilliantly illuminated that the
+lights reflected upon the ripples of the river, seemed to be countless.
+As though the hum and huzzas of the vast multitude on the water were
+insufficient to announce the approach of the dazzling pageant, guns
+marked the progress of the revellers, and as they drew near the palace,
+all the attendant bands of musicians played the same stirring tune with
+uniform time. It is on record that the king received the amateur actors
+with an excess of condescension, and was delighted with the masque which
+Master Beaumont of the Inner Temple, and his friend, Master Fletcher,
+had written and dedicated "to the worthy Sir Francis Bacon, his
+Majesty's Solicitor-General, and the grave and learned bench of the
+anciently-called houses of Grayes Inn and the Inner Temple, and the
+Inner Temple and Grayes Inn." The cost of this entertainment was
+defrayed by the members of the two inns--each reader paying £4, each
+ancient, £2 10_s._; each barrister, £2, and each student, 20_s._
+
+The Inner Temple and Gray's Inn having thus testified their loyalty and
+dramatic taste, in the following year on Shrove-Monday night (Feb. 15,
+1613), Lincoln's Inn and the Middle Temple, with no less splendor and
+_éclat_, enacted at Whitehall a masque written by George Chapman. For
+this entertainment, Inigo Jones designed and perfected the theatrical
+decorations in a style worthy of an exhibition that formed part of the
+gaieties with which the marriage of the Palsgrave with the Princess
+Elizabeth was celebrated. And though the masquers went to Whitehall by
+land, their progress was not less pompous than the procession which had
+passed up the Thames in the February of the preceding year. Having
+mustered in Chancery Lane, at the official residence of the Master of
+the Rolls, the actors and their friends delighted the town with a
+gallant spectacle. Mounted on richly-caparisoned and mettlesome horses,
+they rode from Fleet Street up the Strand, and by Charing Cross to
+Whitehall, through a tempest of enthusiasm. Every house was illuminated,
+every window was crowded with faces, on every roof men stood in rows,
+from every balcony bright eyes looked down upon the gay scene, and from
+basement to garret, from kennel to roof-top throughout the long way,
+deafening cheers testified, whilst they increased the delight of the
+multitude. Such a pageant would, even in these sober days, rouse London
+from her cold propriety. Having thrown aside his academic robe, each
+masquer had donned a fantastic dress of silver cloth embroidered with
+gold lace, gold plate, and ostrich plumes. He wore across his breast a
+gold baldrick, round his neck a ruff of white feathers brightened with
+pearls and silver lace, and on his head a coronal of snowy plumes.
+Before each mounted masquer rode a torch-bearer, whose right hand waved
+a scourge of flame, instead of a leathern thong. In a gorgeous chariot,
+preceded by a long train of heralds, were exhibited the Dramatis
+Personæ--Honor, Plutus, Eunomia, Phemeis, Capriccio--arrayed in their
+appointed costumes; and it was rumored that the golden canopy of their
+coach had been bought for an enormous sum. Two other triumphal cars
+conveyed the twelve chief musicians of the kingdom, and these masters of
+melody were guarded by torch-bearers, marching two deep before and
+behind, and on either side of the glittering carriages. Preceding the
+musicians, rode a troop of ludicrous objects, who roused the derision of
+the mob, and made fat burghers laugh till tears ran down their cheeks.
+They were the mock masque, each resembling an ape, each wearing a
+fantastic dress that heightened the hideous absurdity of his monkey's
+visage, each riding upon an ass, or small pony, and each of them
+throwing shells upon the crowd by way of a largess. In the front of the
+mock masque, forming the vanguard of the entire spectacle, rode fifty
+gentlemen of the Inns of Court, reining high-bred horses, and followed
+by their running footmen, whose liveries added to the gorgeous
+magnificence of the display.
+
+Besides the expenses which fell upon individuals taking part in the
+play, or procession, this entertainment cost the two inns £1086 8_s._
+11_d._ About the same time Gray's Inn, at the instigation of Attorney
+General Sir Francis Bacon, performed 'The Masque of Flowers' before the
+lords and ladies of the court, in the Banqueting-house, Whitehall; and
+six years later Thomas Middleton's Inner Temple Masque, or Masque of
+Heroes' was presented before a goodly company of grand ladies by the
+Inner Templars.
+
+[20] The propensity of lawyers for the stage, lingered amongst
+barristers on Circuit, to a comparatively recent date. 'Old stagers' of
+the Home and Western Circuits, can recall how the juniors of their
+briefless and bagless days used to entertain the natives of Guildford
+and Exeter with Shakspearian performances. The Northern Circuit also was
+at one time famous for the histrionic ability of its bar, but toward the
+close of the last century, the dramatic recreations of its junior
+members were discountenanced by the Grand Court.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+ANTI-PRYNNE.
+
+
+Of all the masques mentioned in the records of the Inns of Court, the
+most magnificent and costly was the famous Anti-Prynne demonstration, by
+which the lawyers endeavored to show their contemptuous disapproval of a
+work that inveighed against the licentiousness of the stage, and
+preferred a charge of wanton levity against those who encouraged
+theatrical performances.
+
+Whilst the 'Histriomastix' rendered the author ridiculous to mere men of
+pleasure, it roused fierce animosities by the truth and fearless
+completeness of its assertions; but to no order of society was the
+famous attack on the stage more offensive than to the lawyers; and of
+lawyers the members of Lincoln's Inn were the most vehement in their
+displeasure. The actors writhed under the attack; the lawyers were
+literally furious with rage--for whilst rating them soundly for their
+love of theatrical amusements, Prynne almost contrived to make it seem
+that his views were acceptable to the wisest and most reverend members
+of the legal profession. Himself a barrister of Lincoln's Inn, he with
+equal craft and audacity complimented the benchers of that society on
+the firmness with which they had forbidden professional actors to take
+part in the periodic revels of the inn, and on their inclination to
+govern the society in accordance with Puritanical principles. Addressing
+his "Much Honored Friends, the Right Worshipful Masters of the Bench of
+the Honorable Flourishing Law Society of Lincoln's Inne," the
+utter-barrister said: "For whereas other Innes of Court (I know not by
+what evil custom, and worse example) admit of common actors and
+interludes upon their two grand festivalls, to recreate themselves
+withall, notwithstanding the statutes of our Kingdome (of which
+lawyers, of all others, should be most observant), have branded all
+professed stage-players for infamous rogues, and stage-playes for
+unlawful pastimes, especially on Lord's-dayes and other solemn
+holidayes, on which these grand dayes ever fall; yet such hath been your
+pious tender care, not only of this societie's honor, but also of the
+young students' good (for the advancing of whose piety and studies you
+have of late erected a magnificent chapel, and since that a library),
+that as you have prohibited by late publicke orders, all disorderly
+Bacchanalian Grand-Christmasses (more fit for pagans than Christians;
+for the deboisest roarers than grave civill students, who should be
+patternes of sobriety unto others), together with all publicke dice-play
+in the Hall (a most pernicious, infamous game; condemned in all ages,
+all places, not onely by councels, fathers, divines, civilians,
+canonists, politicians, and other Christian writers; by divers Pagan
+authors of all sorts, and by Mahomet himselfe; but likewise by sundry
+heathen, yea, Christian Magistrates' edicts)."
+
+Concerning the London theatres he observes that the "two old play
+houses" (_i.e._, the Fortune and the Red Bull), the "new theatre"
+(_i.e._, Whitefriars play-house), and two other established theatres,
+being found inadequate to the wants of the play-going public, a sixth
+theatre had recently been opened. "The multitude of our London
+play-haunters being so augmented now, that all the ancient Divvel's
+Chappels (for so the fathers style all play-houses) being five in
+number, are not sufficient to containe their troops, whence we see a
+sixth now added to them, whereas even in vitious Nero his raigne there
+were but three standing theatres in Pagan Rome (though far more splendid
+than Christian London), and those three too many." Having thus
+enumerated some of the saddest features of his age, the author of the
+'Player's Scourge' again commends the piety and decorum of the
+Lincoln's Inn Benchers, saying, "So likewise in imitation of the ancient
+Lacedæmonians and Massilienses, or rather of primitive zealous
+Christians, you have always from my first admission into your society,
+and long before, excluded all common players with their ungodly
+interludes, from all your solemn festivals."
+
+If the benchers of one Inn winced under Prynne's 'expressions of
+approval,' the students of all the Inns of Court were even more
+displeased with the author who, in a dedicatory letter "to the right
+Christian, Generous Young Gentlemen-Students of the four Innes of Court,
+and especially those of Lincolne's Inne," urged them to "at last
+falsifie that ignominious censure which some English writers in their
+printed works have passed upon Innes of Court Students, of whom they
+record:--That Innes of Court men were undone but for players, that they
+are their chiefest guests and imployment, and the sole business that
+makes them afternoon's men; that is one of the first things they learne
+as soon as they are admitted, to see stage-playes, and take smoke at a
+play-house, which they commonly make their studie; where they quickly
+learne to follow all fashions, to drinke all healths, to wear favours
+and good cloathes, to consort with ruffianly companions, to swear the
+biggest oaths, to quarrel easily, fight desperately, quarrel
+inordinately, to spend their patrimony ere it fall, to use gracefully
+some gestures of apish compliment, to talk irreligiously, to dally with
+a mistresse, and hunt after harlots, to prove altogether lawless in
+steed of lawyers, and to forget that little learning, grace, and vertue
+which they had before; so much that they grow at last past hopes of ever
+doing good, either to the church, their country, their owne or others'
+souls."
+
+The storm of indignation which followed the appearance of the
+'Histriomastix' was directed by the members of the Four Inns, who felt
+themselves bound by honor no less than by interest, to disavow all
+connexion with, or leaning towards, the unpopular author.
+
+On the suggestion of Lincoln's Inn, the four societies combined their
+forces, and at a cost of more than twenty thousand pounds, in addition
+to sums spent by individuals, entertained the Court with that splendid
+masque which Whitelock has described in his 'Memoirs' with elaborate
+prolixity. The piece entitled 'The Triumph of Peace,' was written by
+Shirley, and it was produced with a pomp and lavish expenditure that
+were without precedent. The organization and guidance of the undertaking
+were entrusted to a committee of eight barristers, two from each inn;
+and this select body comprised men who were alike remarkable for
+talents, accomplishments, and ambition, and some of whom were destined
+to play strangely diverse parts in the drama of their epoch. It
+comprised Edward Hyde, then in his twenty-sixth year; young Bulstrode
+Whitelock, who had not yet astonished the more decorous magnates of his
+country by wearing a falling-band at the Oxford Quarter Sessions; Edward
+Herbert, the most unfortunate of Cavalier lawyers; John Selden, already
+a middle-aged man; John Finch, born in the same year as Selden, and
+already far advanced in his eager course to a not honorable notoriety.
+Attorney General Noy was also of the party, but his disastrous career
+was already near its close.
+
+The committee of management had their quarters at Ely House, Holborn;
+and from that historic palace the masquers started for Whitehall on the
+eve of Candlemas Day, 1633-4. It was a superb procession. First marched
+twenty tall footmen, blazing in liveries of scarlet cloth trimmed with
+lace, each of them holding a baton in his right hand, and in his left a
+flaring torch that covered his face with light, and made the steel and
+silver of his sword-scabbard shine brilliantly. A company of the
+marshal's men marched next with firm and even steps, clearing the way
+for their master. A burst of deafening applause came from the multitude
+as the marshal rode through the gateway of Ely House, and caracoled over
+the Holborn way on the finest charger that the king's stables could
+furnish. A perfect horseman and the handsomest man then in town, Mr.
+Darrel of Lincoln's Inn, had been elected to the office of marshal in
+deference to his wealth, his noble aspect, his fine nature, and his
+perfect mastery of all manly sports. On either side of Mr. Darrel's
+horse marched a lacquey bearing a flambeau, and the marshal's page was
+in attendance with his master's cloak. An interval of some twenty paces,
+and then came the marshal's body-guard, composed of one hundred mounted
+gentlemen of the Inns of Court--twenty-five from each house; showing in
+their faces the signs of gentle birth and honorable nurture; and with
+strong hands reining mettlesome chargers that had been furnished for
+their use by the greatest nobles of the land. This flood of flashing
+chivalry was succeeded by an anti-masque of beggars and cripples,
+mounted on the lamest and most unsightly of rat-tailed srews and
+spavined ponies, and wearing dresses that threw derision on legal
+vestments and decorations. Another anti-masque satirized the wild
+projects of crazy speculators and inventors; and as it moved along the
+spectators laughed aloud at the "fish-call, or looking-glass for fishes
+in the sea, very useful for fishermen to call all kinds of fish to their
+nets;" the newly-invented wind-mate for raising a breeze over becalmed
+seas, the "movable hydraulic" which should give sleep to patients
+suffering under fever.
+
+Chariots and horsemen, torch-bearers and lacqueys, followed in order.
+"Then came the first chariot of the grand masquers, which was not so
+large as those that went before, but most curiously framed, carved, and
+painted with exquisite art, and purposely for this service and occasion.
+The form of it was after that of the Roman triumphant chariots. The
+seats in it were made of oval form in the back end of the chariot, so
+that there was no precedence in them, and the faces of all that sat in
+it might be seen together. The colors of the first chariot were silver
+and crimson, given by the lot to Gray's Inn: the chariot was drawn with
+four horses all abreast, and they were covered to their heels all over
+with cloth of tissue, of the colors of crimson and silver, huge plumes
+of white and red feathers on their heads; the coachman's cap and
+feather, his long coat, and his very whip and cushion of the same stuff
+and color. In this chariot sat the four grand masquers of Gray's Inn,
+their habits, doublets, trunk-hose, and caps of most rich cloth of
+tissue, and wrought as thick with silver spangles as they could be
+placed; large white stockings up to their trunk-hose, and rich sprigs in
+their cap, themselves proper and beautiful young gentlemen. On each side
+of the chariot were four footmen in liveries of the color of the
+chariot, carrying huge flamboys in their hands, which, with the torches,
+gave such a lustre to the paintings, spangles, and habits that hardly
+anything could be invented to appear more glorious."
+
+Six musicians followed the state-chariot of Gray's Inn, playing as they
+went; and then came the triumphal cars of the Middle Templars, the Inner
+Templars, and the Lincoln's Inn men--each car being drawn by four horses
+and attended by torch-bearers, flambeau-bearers, and musicians. In shape
+these four cars were alike, but they differed in the color of their
+fittings. Whilst Gray's Inn used scarlet and silver, the Middle
+Templars chose blue and silver decorations, and each of the other two
+houses adopted a distinctive color for the housings of their horses and
+the liveries of their servants. It is noteworthy that the inns (equal as
+to considerations of dignity) took their places in the pageant by lot;
+and that the four grand masquers of each inn were seated in their
+chariot on seats so constructed that none of the four took precedence of
+the others. The inns, in days when questions of precedence received much
+attention, were very particular in asserting their equality, whenever
+two or more of them acted in co-operation. To mark this equality, the
+masque written by Beaumont and Fletcher in 1612 was described "The
+Masque of the Inner Temple and Grayes Inn; Grayes Inn and the Inner
+Temple:" and the dedication of the piece to Francis Bacon, reversing
+this transposition, mentions "the allied houses of Grayes Inn and the
+Inner Temple, and the Inner Temple and Grayes Inn," these changes being
+made to point the equal rank of the two fraternities.
+
+Through the illuminated streets this pageant marched to the sound of
+trumpets and drums, cymbals and fifes, amidst the deafening acclamations
+of the delighted town; and when the lawyers reached Whitehall, the king
+and queen were so delighted with the spectacle, that the procession was
+ordered to make the circuit of the tilt-yard for the gratification of
+their Majesties, who would fain see the sight once again from the
+windows of their palace. Is there need to speak of the manner in which
+the masque was acted, of the music and dances, of the properties and
+scenes, of the stately banquet after the play and the grand ball which
+began at a still later hour, of the king's urbanity and the graciousness
+of Henrietta, who "did the honor to some of the masquers to dance with
+them herself, and to judge them as good dancers as she ever saw!"
+
+Notwithstanding a few untoward broils and accidents, the entertainment
+passed off so satisfactorily that 'The Triumph of Peace' was acted for a
+second time in the presence of the king and queen, in the Merchant
+Taylors' Hall. Other diversions of the same kind followed with scarcely
+less _éclat_. At Whitehall the king himself and some of the choicest
+nobles of the land turned actors, and performed a grand masque, on which
+occasion the Templars were present as spectators in seats of honor.
+
+During the Shrovetide rejoicings of 1635, Henrietta even condescended to
+witness the performance of Davenant's 'Triumphs of the Prince d'Amour,'
+in the hall of the Middle Temple. Laying aside the garb of royalty, she
+went to the Temple, attended by a party of lords and ladies, and fine
+gentlemen who, like herself, assumed for the evening dresses suitable to
+persons of private station. The Marquis of Hamilton, the Countess of
+Denbigh, the Countess of Holland, and Lady Elizabeth Fielding were her
+companions; whilst the official attendants on her person were the Earl
+of Holland, Lord Goring, Mr. Percy, and Mr. Jermyn. Led to her place by
+"Mrs. Basse, the law-woman," Henrietta took a seat upon a scaffold fixed
+along the northern side of the hall, and amidst a crush of benchers'
+wives and daughters saw the play and heartily enjoyed it.
+
+Says Whitelock, at the conclusion of his account of the grand masque
+given by the four inns, "Thus these dreams past, and these pomps
+vanished." Scarcely had the frolic terminated when death laid a chill
+hand on the time-serving Noy, who in the consequences of his dishonest
+counsels left a cruel legacy to the master and the country whom he alike
+betrayed. A few more years--and John Finch, having lost the Great Seal,
+was an exile in a foreign land, destined to die in penury, without
+again setting foot on his native soil. The graceful Herbert, whose
+smooth cheek had flushed with joy at Henrietta's musical courtesies,
+became for a brief day the mock Lord Keeper of Charles II.'s mock court
+at Paris, and then, dishonored and disowned by his capricious master, he
+languished in poverty and disease, until he found an obscure grave in
+the French capital. More fortunate than his early rival, Edward Hyde
+outlived Charles Stuart's days of adverse fortune, and rose to a
+grievous greatness; but like that early rival, he, too, died in exile in
+France. Perhaps of all the managers of the grand masque the scholarly
+pedant, John Selden, had the greatest share of earthly satisfaction. Not
+the least fortunate of the party was the historian of "the pomp and
+glory, if not the vanity of the show," who having survived the
+Commonwealth and witnessed the Restoration, was permitted to retain his
+paternal estate, and in his last days could tell his numerous
+descendants how his old chum, Edward Hyde, had risen, fallen,
+and--passed to another world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+AN EMPTY GRATE.
+
+
+With the revival of gaiety which attended and followed the Restoration,
+revels and masques came once more into vogue at the Inns of Court,
+where, throughout the Commonwealth, plays had been prohibited, and
+festivals had been either abolished or deprived of their ancient
+hilarity. The caterers of amusement for the new king were not slow to
+suggest that he should honor the lawyers with a visit; and in accordance
+with their counsel, His Majesty took water on August 15, 1661, and went
+in the royal barge from Whitehall to the Temple to dine at the Reader's
+feast.
+
+Heneage Finch had been chosen Autumn Reader of that inn, and in
+accordance with ancient usage he demonstrated his ability to instruct
+young gentlemen in the principles of English law, by giving a series of
+costly banquets. From the days of the Tudors to the rise of Oliver
+Cromwell, the Reader's feasts had been amongst the most sumptuous and
+ostentatious entertainments of the town--the Sergeant's feasts scarcely
+surpassing them in splendor, the inaugural dinners of lord mayors often
+lagging behind them in expense. But Heneage Finch's lavish hospitality
+outstripped the doings of all previous Readers. His revel was protracted
+throughout six days, and on each of these days he received at his table
+the representative members of some high social order or learned body.
+Beginning with a dinner to the nobility and Privy Councillors, he
+finished with a banquet to the king; and on the intervening days he
+entertained the civic authorities, the College of Physicians, the civil
+lawyers, and the dignitaries of the Church.
+
+The king's visit was attended with imposing ceremony, and wanted no
+circumstance that could have rendered the occasion more honorable to the
+host or to the society of which he was a member. All the highest
+officers of the court accompanied the monarch, and when he stepped from
+his barge at the Temple Stairs, he spoke with jovial urbanity to his
+entertainer and the Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, who received
+him with tokens of loyal deference and attachment. "On each side," says
+Dugdale, "as His Majesty passed, stood the Reader's servants in scarlet
+cloaks and white tabba doublets; there being a way made through the wall
+into the Temple Gardens; and above them on each side the benchers,
+barristers, and other gentlemen of the society, all in their gowns and
+formalities, the loud music playing from the time of his landing till he
+entered the hall; where he was received with xx violins, which continued
+as long as his majesty stayed." Fifty chosen gentlemen of the inn,
+wearing their academic gowns, placed dinner on the table, and waited on
+the feasters--no other servants being permitted to enter the hall during
+the progress of the banquet. On the dais at the top of the hall, under a
+canopy of state, the king and his brother James sat apart from men of
+lower degree, whilst the nobles of Whitehall occupied one long table,
+under the presidency of the Lord Chancellor, and the chief personages of
+the inn dined at a corresponding long table, having the reader for their
+chairman.
+
+In the following January, Charles II. and the Duke of York honored
+Lincoln's Inn with a visit, whilst the mock Prince de la Grange held his
+court within the walls of that society. Nine years later--in the
+February of 1671--King Charles and his brother James again visited
+Lincoln's Inn, on which occasion they were entertained by Sir Francis
+Goodericke, Knt., the reader of the inn, who seems almost to have gone
+beyond Heneage Finch in sumptuous profusion of hospitality. Of this
+royal visit a particular account is to be seen in the Admittance Book of
+the Honorable Society, from which it appears that the royal brothers
+were attended by the Dukes of Monmouth and Richmond; the Earls of
+Manchester, Bath, and Anglesea; Viscount Halifax, the Bishop of Ely,
+Lord Newport, Lord Henry Howard, and "divers others of great qualitie."
+
+The entertainment in most respects was a repetition of Sir Heneage
+Finch's feast--the king, the Duke of York, and Prince Rupert dining on
+the dais at the top of the hall, whilst the persons of inferior though
+high quality were regaled at two long tables, set down the hall; and
+the gentlemen of the inn condescending to act as menial servants. The
+reader himself, dropping on his knee when he performed the servile
+office, proffered the towel with which the king prepared himself for the
+repast; and barristers of ancient lineage and professional eminence
+contended for the honor of serving His Majesty with surloin and
+cheesecake upon the knee, and hastened with the alacrity of well-trained
+lacqueys to do the bidding of "the lords att their table." Having eaten
+and drunk to his lively satisfaction, Charles called for the Admittance
+Book of the Inn, and placed his name on the roll of members, thereby
+conferring on the society an honor for which no previous king of England
+had furnished a precedent. Following their chief's example, the Duke of
+York and Prince Rupert and other nobles forthwith joined the fraternity
+of lawyers; and hastily donning students' gowns, they mingled with the
+troop of gowned servitors, and humbly waited on their liege lord.
+
+In like manner, twenty-one years since (July 29, 1845) when Queen
+Victoria and her lamented consort visited Lincoln's Inn, on the opening
+of the new hall, they condescended to enter their names in the Admission
+Book of the Inn, thereby making themselves students of the society. Her
+Majesty has not been called to the bar; but Prince Albert in due course
+became a barrister and bencher. Repeating the action of Charles II.'s
+courtiers, the great Duke of Wellington and the bevy of great nobles
+present at the celebration became fellow-students with the queen; and on
+leaving the table the prince walked down the hall, wearing a student's
+stuff gown (by no means the most picturesque of academic robes), over
+his field-marshal's uniform. Her Majesty forbore to disarrange her
+toilet--which consisted of a blue bonnet with blue feathers, a dress of
+Limerick lace, and a scarlet shawl, with a deep gold edging--by putting
+her arms through the sleeveless arm-holes of a bombazine frock.
+
+Grateful to the lawyers for the cordiality with which they welcomed him
+to the country, William III. accepted an invitation to the Middle
+Temple, and was entertained by that society with a banquet and a masque,
+of which notice has been taken in another chapter of this work; and in
+1697-8 Peter the Great was a guest at the Christmas revels of the
+Templars. On that occasion the Czar enjoyed a favorable opportunity for
+gratifying his love of strong drink, and for witnessing the ease with
+which our ancestors drank wine by the magnum and punch by the gallon,
+when they were bent on enjoyment.
+
+In the greater refinement and increasing delicacy of the eighteenth
+century, the Inns of Court revels, which had for so many generations
+been conspicuous amongst the gaieties of the town, became less and less
+magnificent; and they altogether died out under the second of those
+Georges who are thought by some persons to have corrupted public morals
+and lowered the tastes of society. In 1733-4, when Lord Chancellor
+Talbot's elevation to the woolsack was celebrated by a revel in the
+Inner Temple Hall, the dulness and disorder of the celebration convinced
+the lawyers that they had not acted wisely in attempting to revive
+usages that had fallen into desuetude because they were inconvenient to
+new arrangements or repugnant to modern taste. No attempt was made to
+prolong the festivity over a succession of days. It was a revel of one
+day; and no one wished to add another to the period of riot. At two
+o'clock on Feb. 2, 1733-4, the new Chancellor, the master of the revels,
+the benchers of the inns, and the guests (who were for the most part
+lawyers), sat down to dinner in the hall. The barristers and students
+had their ordinary fare, with the addition of a flask of claret to each
+mess; but a superior repast was served at the High Table where fourteen
+students (of whom the Chancellor's eldest son was one), served as
+waiters. Whilst the banquet was in progress, musicians stationed in the
+gallery at the upper end of the hall filled the room with deafening
+noise, and ladies looked down upon the feasters from a large gallery
+which had been fitted up for their reception over the screen. After
+dinner, as soon as the hall could be cleared of dishes and decanters,
+the company were entertained with 'Love for Love,' and 'The Devil to
+Pay,' performed by professional actors who "all came from the Haymarket
+in chairs, ready dressed, and (as it was said), refused any gratuity for
+their trouble, looking upon the honor of distinguishing themselves on
+this occasion as sufficient." The players having withdrawn, the judges,
+sergeants, benchers, and other dignitaries, danced 'round about the coal
+fire;' that is to say, they danced round about a stove in which there
+was not a single spark of fire. The congregation of many hundreds of
+persons, in a hall which had not comfortable room for half the number,
+rendered the air so oppressively hot that the master of the revels
+wisely resolved to lead his troop of revellers round an empty grate. The
+chronicler of this ridiculous mummery observes: "And all the time of the
+dance the ancient song, accompanied by music, was sung by one Toby
+Aston, dressed in a bar-gown, whose father had formerly been Master of
+the Plea Office in the King's Bench. When this was over, the ladies came
+down from the gallery, went into the parliament chamber, and stayed
+about a quarter of an hour, while the hall was being put in order. They
+then went into the hall and danced a few minuets. Country dances began
+at ten, and at twelve a Very fine cold collation was provided for the
+whole company, from which they returned to dancing, which they
+continued as long as they pleased, and the whole day's entertainment was
+generally thought to be very genteelly and liberally conducted. The
+Prince of Wales honored the performance with his company part of the
+time; he came into the music _incog._ about the middle of the play, and
+went away as soon as the farce of 'walking round the coal fire' was
+over."
+
+With this notable dance of lawyers round an empty grate, the old revels
+disappeared. In their Grand Days, equivalent to the gaudy days, or feast
+days, or audit days of the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, the Inns of
+Court still retain the last vestiges of their ancient jollifications,
+but the uproarious riot of the obsolete festivities is but faintly
+echoed by the songs and laughter of the junior barristers and students
+who in these degenerate times gladden their hearts and loosen their
+tongues with an extra glass of wine after grand dinners, and then hasten
+back to chambers for tobacco and tea.
+
+On the discontinuance of the revels the Inns of Court lost their chief
+attractions for the courtly pleasure-seekers of the town, and many a day
+passed before another royal visit was paid to any one of the societies.
+In 1734 George III.'s father stood amongst the musicians in the Inner
+Temple Hall; and after the lapse of one century and eleven years the
+present queen accepted the hospitality of Lincoln's Inn. No record
+exists of a royal visit made to an Inn of Court between those events.
+Only the other day, however, the Prince of Wales went eastwards and
+partook of a banquet in the hall of Middle Temple, of which society he
+is a barrister and a bencher.
+
+
+
+
+PART VII.
+
+LEGAL EDUCATION.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+INNS OF COURT AND INNS OF CHANCERY.
+
+
+Schools for the study of the Common Law, existed within the bounds of
+the city of London, at the commencement of the thirteenth century. No
+sooner had a permanent home been assigned to the Court of Common Pleas,
+than legal practitioners fixed themselves in the neighborhood of
+Westminster, or within the walls of London. A legal society speedily
+grew up in the city; and some of the older and more learned professors
+of the Common Law, devoting a portion of their time and energies to the
+labors of instruction, opened academies for the reception of students.
+Dugdale notices a tradition that in ancient times a law-school, called
+Johnson's Inn, stood in Dowgate, that another existed in Pewter Lane,
+and that Paternoster Row contained a third; and it is generally thought
+that these three inns were amongst the academies which sprung up as soon
+as the Common Pleas obtained a permanent abode.
+
+The schools thus established in the opening years of the thirteenth
+century, were not allowed to flourish for any great length of time; for
+in the nineteenth year of his reign, Henry III. suppressed them by a
+mandate addressed to the mayor and sheriffs of the city. But though this
+king broke up the schools, the scholars persevered in their study; and
+if the king's mandate aimed at a complete discontinuance of legal
+instruction, his policy was signally defeated.
+
+Successive writers have credited Edward III.'s reign with the
+establishment of Inns of Court; and it has been erroneously inferred
+that the study of the Common Law not only languished, but was altogether
+extinct during the period of nearly one hundred years that intervened
+between Henry III.'s dissolution of the city schools and Edward III.'s
+accession. Abundant evidence, however, exists that this was not the
+case. Edward I., in the twentieth year of his reign, ordered his judges
+of the Common Pleas to "provide and ordain, from every county, certain
+attorneys and lawyers" (in the original "atturnatus et _apprenticiis_")
+"of the best and most apt for their learning and skill, who might do
+service to his court and people; and those so chosen, and no other
+should follow his court, and transact affairs therein; the words of
+which order make it clear that the country contained a considerable body
+of persons who devoted themselves to the study and practice of the law."
+So also in the Year-book, 1 Ed. III., the words, "et puis une apprentise
+demand," show that lawyers holding legal degrees existed in the very
+first year of Edward III.'s reign; a fact which justifies the inference
+that in the previous reign England contained Common Law schools capable
+of granting the legal degree of apprentice. Again Dugdale remarks, "In
+20 Ed. III., in a _quod ei deforciat_ to an exception taken, it was
+answered by Sir Richard de Willoughby (then a learned justice of the
+_Common Pleas_) and William Skipwith, (afterwards also one of the
+justices of that court), that the same was no exception amongst the
+_Apprentices in Hostells or Inns_." Whence it is manifest that Inns of
+Court were institutions in full vigor at the time when they have been
+sometimes represented as originally established.
+
+But after their expulsion from the city, there is reason to think that
+the common lawyers made no attempt to reside in colleges within its
+boundaries. They preferred to establish themselves on spots where they
+could enjoy pure air and rural quietude, could surround themselves with
+trees and lawns, or refresh their eyes with the sight of the silver
+Thames. In the earliest part of the fourteenth century, they took
+possession of a great palace that stood on the western outskirt of the
+town, and looked westwards upon green fields, whilst its eastern wall
+abutted on New Street--a thoroughfare that was subsequently called
+Chancellor's Lane, and has for many years been known as Chancery Lane.
+This palace had been the residence of Henry Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, who
+conferred upon the building the name which it still bears. The earl died
+in 1310, some seventeen years before Edward III.'s accession; and
+Thynne, the antiquary, was of opinion that no considerable period
+intervened between Henry Lacy's death and the entry of the lawyers. In
+the same century, the lawyers took possession of the Temple. The exact
+date of their entry is unknown; but Chaucer's verse enables the student
+to fix, with sufficient preciseness, the period when the more noble
+apprentices of the law first occupied the Temple as tenants of the
+Knight's Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, who obtained a grant of
+the place from Edward III.[21] The absence of fuller particulars
+concerning the early history of the legal Templars, is ordinarily and
+with good reason attributed to Wat Tyler's rebels, who destroyed the
+records of the fraternity by fire. From roof to basement, beginning with
+the tiles, and working downwards, the mob destroyed the principal houses
+of the college; and when they had burnt all the archives on which they
+could lay hands, they went off and expended their remaining fury on
+other buildings, of which the Knights of St. John were proprietors.
+
+The same men who saw the lawyers take possession of the Temple on the
+northern banks of the Thames, and of the Earl of Lincoln's palace in New
+Street, saw them also make a third grand settlement. The manor of
+Portepoole, or Purpoole, became the property of the Grays of Wilton, in
+the twenty-second year of Edward I.; and on its green fields, lying
+north of Holborn, a society of lawyers established a college which still
+retains the name of the ancient proprietors of the soil. Concerning the
+exact date of its institution, the uncertainty is even greater than
+that which obscures the foundation of the Temple and Lincoln's Inn; but
+antiquaries have agreed to assign the creation of Gray's Inn, as an
+hospicium for the entertainment of lawyers, to the time of Edward III.
+
+The date at which the Temple lawyers split up into two separate
+societies, is also unknown; but assigning the division to some period
+posterior to Wat Tyler's insurrection, Dugdale says, "But,
+notwithstanding, this spoil by the rebels, those students so increased
+here, that at length they divided themselves into two bodies; the one
+commonly known by the Society of the Inner Temple, and the other of the
+Middle Temple, holding this mansion as tenants." But as both societies
+had a common origin in the migration of lawyers from Thavies Inn,
+Holborn, in the time of Edward III., it is usual to speak of the two
+Temples as instituted in that reign, and to regard all four Inns of
+Court as the work of the fourteenth century.
+
+The Inns of Chancery for many generations maintained towards the Inns of
+Court a position similar to that which Eton School maintains towards
+King's at Cambridge, or that which Winchester School holds to New
+College at Oxford. They were seminaries in which lads underwent
+preparation for the superior discipline and greater freedom of the four
+colleges. Each Inn of Court had its own Inns of Chancery, yearly
+receiving from them the pupils who had qualified themselves for
+promotion to the status of Inns-of-Court men. In course of time,
+students after receiving the preliminary education in an Inn of Chancery
+were permitted to enter an Inn of Court on which their Inn of Chancery
+was not dependent; but at every Inn of Court higher admission fees were
+charged to students coming from Inns of Chancery over which it had no
+control, than to students who came from its own primary schools. If the
+reader bears in mind the difference in respect to age, learning, and
+privileges between our modern public schoolboys and university
+undergraduates, he will realize with sufficient nearness to truth the
+differences which existed between the Inns of Chancery students and the
+Inns of Court students in the fifteenth century; and in the students,
+utter-barristers, and benchers of the Inns of Court at the same period
+he may see three distinct orders of academic persons closely resembling
+the undergraduates, bachelors of arts, and masters of arts in our
+universities.
+
+In the 'De Laudibus Legum Angliæ,'[22] written in the latter part of the
+fifteenth century, Sir John Fortescue says--"But to the intent, most
+excellent Prince, yee may conceive a forme and an image of this study,
+as I am able, I wil describe it unto you. For there be in it ten lesser
+houses or innes, and sometimes moe, which are called Innes of the
+Chauncerye. And to every one of them belongeth an hundred students at
+least, and to some of them a much greater number, though they be not
+ever all together in the same."
+
+In Charles II.'s time there were eight Inns of Chancery; and of them
+three were subsidiary to the Inner Temple--viz., Clifford's Inn,
+Clement's Inn, and Lyon's Inn. Clifford's Inn (originally the town
+residence of the Barons Clifford) was first inhabited by law-students in
+the eighteenth year of Edward III. Clement's Inn (taking its name from
+the adjacent St. Clement's Well) was certainly inhabited by law-students
+as early as the nineteenth year of Edward IV. Lyon's Inn was an Inn of
+Chancery in the time of Henry V.
+
+One alone (New Inn) was attached to the Middle Temple. In the previous
+century, the Middle Temple had possessed another Inn of Chancery called
+Strand Inn; but in the third year of Edward VI. this nursery was pulled
+down by the Duke of Somerset, who required the ground on which it stood
+for the site of Somerset House.
+
+Lincoln's Inn had for dependent schools Furnival's Inn and Thavies
+Inn--the latter of which hostels was inhabited by law-students in Edward
+III.'s time. Of Furnival's Inn (originally Lord Furnival's town mansion,
+and converted into a law-school in Edward VI.'s reign) Dugdale says:
+"After which time the Principall and Fellows of this Inne have paid to
+the society of Lincoln's Inne the rent of iiil vis iiid as an yearly
+rent for the same, as may appear by the accompts of that house; and by
+speciall order there made, have had these following priviledges: first
+(viz. 10 Eliz.), that the utter-barristers of Furnivall's Inne, of a
+yeares continuance, and so certified and allowed by the Benchers of
+Lincoln's Inne, shall pay no more than four marks apiece for their
+admittance into that society. Next (viz. in Eliz.) that every fellow of
+this inne, who hath been allowed an utter-barrister here, and that hath
+mooted here two vacations at the Utter Bar, shall pay no more for their
+admission into the Society of Lincoln's Inne, than xiiis iiiid, though
+all utter-barristers of any other Inne of Chancery (excepting Thavyes
+Inne) should pay xxs, and that every inner-barrister of this house, who
+hath mooted here one vacation at the Inner Bar, should pay for his
+admission into this House but xxs, those of other houses (excepting
+Thavyes Inne) paying xxvis viiid."
+
+The subordinate seminaries of Gray's Inn, in Dugdale's time, were Staple
+Inn and Barnard's Inn. Originally the Exchange of the London woolen
+merchants, Staple Inn was a law-school as early as Henry V.'s time. It
+is probable that Bernard's Inn became an academy for law-students in
+the reign of Henry VI.
+
+[21] Chaucer mentions the Temple thus:--
+
+"A manciple there was of the Temple, Of which all catours might take
+ensemple For to be wise in buying of vitaile; For whether he pay'd or
+took by taile, Algate he wayted so in his ashate, That he was aye before
+in good estate. Now is not that of God a full faire grace, That such a
+leude man's wit shall pace The wisdome of an heape of learned men? Of
+masters had he more than thrice ten, That were of law expert and
+curious, Of which there was a dozen in that house, Worthy to been
+stewards of rent and land Of any lord that is in England; To maken him
+live by his proper good In honour debtless, but if he were wood; Or live
+as scarcely as him list desire, And able to helpen all a shire, In any
+case that might have fallen or hap, And yet the manciple set all her
+capp."
+
+[22] The 'De Laudibus' was written in Latin; but for the convenience of
+readers not familiar with that classic tongue, the quotations from the
+treatise are given from Robert Mulcaster's English version.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+LAWYERS AND GENTLEMEN.
+
+
+Thus planted in the fourteenth century beyond the confines of the city,
+and within easy access of Westminster Hall, the Inns of Court and
+Chancery formed an university, which soon became almost as powerful and
+famous as either Oxford or Cambridge. For generations they were spoken
+of collectively as the law-university, and though they were voluntary
+societies--in their nature akin to the club-houses of modern
+London--they adopted common rules of discipline, and an uniform system
+of instruction. Students flocked to them in abundance; and whereas the
+students of Oxford and Cambridge were drawn from the plebeian ranks of
+society, the scholars of the law-university were almost invariably the
+sons of wealthy men and had usually sprung from gentle families. To be a
+law-student was to be a stripling of quality. The law university enjoyed
+the same patrician _prestige_ and _éclat_ that now belong to the more
+aristocratic houses of the old universities.
+
+Noblemen sent their sons to it in order that they might acquire the
+style and learning and accomplishments of polite society. A proportion
+of the students were encouraged to devote themselves to the study of the
+law and to attend sedulously the sittings of Judges in Westminster Hall;
+but the majority of well-descended boys who inhabited the Inns of
+Chancery were heirs to good estates, and were trained to become their
+wealth rather than to increase it--to perfect themselves in graceful
+arts, rather than to qualify themselves to hold briefs. The same was the
+case in the Inns of Court, which were so designated--not because they
+prepared young men to rise in courts of law, but because they taught
+them to shine in the palaces of kings. It is a mistake to suppose that
+the Inns of Court contain at the present time a larger proportion of
+idle members, who have no intention to practise at the bar, than they
+contained under the Plantagenets and Tudors. On the contrary, in the
+fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the number of Templars who merely
+played at being lawyers, or were lawyers only in name, was actually as
+well as relatively greater than the merely _nominal_ lawyers of the
+Temple at the present time. For several generations, and for two
+centuries after Sir John Fortescue wrote the 'De Laudibus,' the
+Inns-of-Court man was more busied in learning to sing than in learning
+to argue a law cause, more desirous to fence with a sword than to fence
+with logic.
+
+"Notwithstanding," runs Mulcaster's translation of the 'De
+Laudibus,'[23] "the same lawes are taught and learned, in a certaine
+place of publique or common studie, more convenient and apt for
+attayninge to the knowledge of them, than any other university. For
+theyr place of studie is situate nigh to the Kinges Courts, where the
+same lawes are pleaded and argued, and judgements by the same given by
+judges, men of gravitie, auncient in yeares, perfit and graduate in the
+same lawes. Wherefore, euerie day in court, the students in those lawes
+resorte by great numbers into those courts wherein the same lawes are
+read and taught, as it were in common schooles. This place of studie is
+far betweene the place of the said courts and the cittie of London,
+which of all thinges necessarie is the plentifullest of all cities and
+townes of the realme. So that the said place of studie is not situate
+within the cittie, where the confluence of people might disturb the
+quietnes of the studentes, but somewhat severall in the suburbes of the
+same cittie, and nigher to the saide courts, that the studentes may
+dayelye at their pleasure have accesse and recourse thither without
+weariness."
+
+Setting forth the condition and pursuits of law-students in his day, Sir
+John Fortesque continues; "For in these greater inns, there can no
+student bee mayntayned for lesse expenses by the yeare than twentye
+markes. And if hee have a servaunt to wait uppon him, as most of them
+have, then so much the greater will his charges bee. Nowe, by reason of
+this charge, the children onely of noblemenne doo studye the lawes in
+those innes. For the poore and common sorte of the people are not able
+to bear so great charges for the exhibytion of theyr chyldren. And
+Marchaunt menne can seldome finde in theyr heartes to hynder theyr
+merchaundise with so greate yearly expenses. And it thus falleth out
+that there is scant anye man founde within the realme skilfull and
+cunning in the lawes, except he be a gentleman borne, and come of noble
+stocke. Wherefore they more than any other kinde of men have a speciall
+regarde to their nobility, and to the preservation of their honor and
+fame. And to speake upryghtlye, there is in these greater innes, yea,
+and in the lesser too, beside the studie of the lawes, as it were an
+university or schoole of all commendable qualities requisite for noble
+men. There they learn to sing, and to exercise themselves in all kinde
+of harmonye. There also they practice daunsing, and other noblemen's
+pastimes, as they use to do, which are brought up in the king's house.
+On the working dayes, the most of them apply themselves to the studye of
+the lawe, and on the holye dayes to the studye of holye Scripture;[24]
+and out of the tyme of divine service, to the reading of Chronicles. For
+there indeede are vertues studied, and vices exiled. So that, for the
+endowment of vertue, and abandoning of vice, Knights and Barrons, with
+other states and noblemen of the realme, place their children in those
+innes, though they desire not to have them learned in the lawes, nor to
+lieue by the practice thereof, but onely uppon their father's allowance.
+Scant at anye tyme is there heard among them any sedition, chyding, or
+grudging, and yet the offenders are punished with none other payne, but
+onely to bee amooved from the compayne of their fellowshippe. Which
+punishment they doo more feare than other criminall offendours doo feare
+imprisonment and yrons: For hee that is once expelled from anye of those
+fellowshippes is never received to bee a felowe in any of the other
+fellowshippes. And so by this means there is continuall peace; and their
+demeanor is lyke the behaviour of such as are coupled together in
+perfect amytie."
+
+Any person familiar with the Inns of Court at the present time will see
+how closely the law-colleges of Victoria's London resemble in many
+important particulars the law-colleges of Fortescue's period. After the
+fashion of four centuries since young men are still induced to enter
+them for the sake of honorable companionship, good society, and social
+prestige, rather than for the sake of legal education. After the remarks
+already made with regard to musical lawyers in a previous section of
+this work, it is needless to say that Inns of Court men are not
+remarkable for their application to vocal harmony; but the younger
+members are still remarkable for the zeal with which they endeavor to
+master the accomplishments which distinguish men of fashion and tone. If
+the nominal (sometimes they are called 'ornamental') barristers of the
+fifteenth century liked to read the Holy Scriptures, the young lawyers
+of the nineteenth century are no less disposed to read their Bibles
+critically, and argue as to the merits of Bishop Colenso and his
+opponents. Moreover, the discipline described by Fortescue is still
+found sufficient to maintain order in the inns.
+
+Writing more than a century after Fortescue, Sir John Ferne, in his
+'Blazon of Gentrie, the Glory of Generosity, and the Lacy's Nobility,'
+observes: "Nobleness of blood, joyned with virtue, compteth the person
+as most meet to the enterprize of any public service; and for that cause
+it was not for nought that our antient governors in this land, did with
+a special foresight and wisdom provide, that none should be admitted
+into the Houses of Court, being seminaries sending forth men apt to the
+government of justice, except he were a gentleman of blood. And that
+this may seem a truth, I myself have seen a kalendar of all those which
+were together in the society of one of the same houses, about the last
+year of King Henry the Fifth, with the armes of their House and family
+marshalled by their names; and I assure you, the self same monument doth
+both approve them all to be gentlemen of perfect descents and also the
+number of them much less than now it is, being at that time in one house
+scarcely three score."[25]
+
+This passage from an author who delighted to magnify the advantages of
+generous descent, has contributed to the very general and erroneous
+impression that until comparatively recent times the members of the
+English bar were necessarily drawn from the highest ranks of society;
+and several excellent writers on the antiquities of the law have laid
+aside their customary caution and strengthened Ferne's words with
+inaccurate comment.
+
+Thus Pearce says of the author of the 'Glory of Generositie'--"He was
+one of the advocates for excluding from the Inns of Court all who were
+not 'a gentleman by blood,' according to the ancient rule mentioned by
+Fortescue, which seems to have been disregarded in Elizabeth's time."
+Fortescue nowhere mentions any such rule, but attributes the
+aristocratic character of the law-colleges to the high cost of
+membership. Far from implying that men of mean extraction were excluded
+by an express prohibition, his words justify the inference that no such
+rule existed in his time.
+
+Though Inns-of-Court men were for many generations gentlemen by birth
+almost without a single exception, it yet remains to be proved that
+plebeian birth at any period disqualified persons for admission to the
+law-colleges. If such a restriction ever existed it had disappeared
+before the close of the fifteenth century--a period not favorable to the
+views of those who were most anxious to remove the barriers placed by
+feudal society between the gentle and the vulgar. Sir John More (the
+father of the famous Sir Thomas) was a Judge in the King's Bench,
+although his parentage was obscure; and it is worthy of notice that he
+was a successful lawyer of Fortescue's period. Lord Chancellor Audley
+was not entitled to bear arms by birth, but was merely the son of a
+prosperous yeoman. The lowliness of his extraction cannot have been any
+serious impediment to him, for before the end of his thirty-sixth year
+he was a sergeant. In the following century the inns received a steadily
+increasing number of students, who either lacked generous lineage or
+were the offspring of shameful love. For instance, Chief Justice Wray's
+birth was scandalous; and if Lord Ellesmere in his youth reflected with
+pride on the dignity of his father, Sir Richard Egerton, he had reason
+to blush for his mother. Ferne's lament over the loss of heraldric
+virtue and splendor, which the inns had sustained in his time, testifies
+to the presence of a considerable plebeian element amongst the members
+of the law-university. But that which was marked in the sixteenth was
+far more apparent in the seventeenth century. Scroggs's enemies were
+wrong in stigmatizing him as a butcher's son, for the odious chief
+justice was born and bred a gentleman, and Jeffreys could boast a decent
+extraction; but there is abundance of evidence that throughout the
+reigns of the Stuarts the inns swarmed with low-born adventurers. The
+career of Chief Justice Saunders, who, beginning as a "poor beggar boy,"
+of unknown parentage, raised himself to the Chiefship of the King's
+Bench, shows how low an origin a judge might have in the seventeenth
+century. To mention the names of such men as Parker, King, Yorke, Ryder,
+and the Scotts, without placing beside them the names of such men as
+Henley, Harcourt, Bathurst, Talbot, Murray, and Erskine, would tend to
+create an erroneous impression that in the eighteenth century the bar
+ceased to comprise amongst its industrious members a large aristocratic
+element.
+
+The number of barristers, however, who in that period brought themselves
+by talent and honorable perseverance into the foremost rank of the legal
+profession in spite of humble birth, unquestionably shows that ambitious
+men from the obscure middle classes were more frequently than in any
+previous century found pushing their fortunes in Westminster Hall. Lord
+Macclesfield was the son of an attorney whose parents were of lowly
+origin, and whose worldly means were even lower than their ancestral
+condition. Lord Chancellor King's father was a grocer and salter who
+carried on a retail business at Exeter; and in his youth the Chancellor
+himself had acted as his father's apprentice--standing behind the
+counter and wearing the apron and sleeves of a grocer's servitor. Philip
+Yorke was the son of a country attorney who could boast neither wealth
+nor gentle descent. Chief Justice Ryder was the son of a mercer whose
+shop stood in West Smithfield, and grandson of a dissenting minister,
+who, though he bore the name, is not known to have inherited the blood
+of the Yorkshire Ryders. Sir William Blackstone was the fourth son of a
+silkman and citizen of London. Lords Stowell and Eldon were the children
+of a provincial tradesman. The learned and good Sir Samuel Romilly's
+father was Peter Romilly, jeweller, of Frith Street, Soho. Such were the
+origins of some of the men who won the prizes of the law in
+comparatively recent times. The present century has produced an even
+greater number of barristers who have achieved eminence, and are able to
+say with honest pride that they are the _first_ gentlemen mentioned in
+their pedigrees; and so thoroughly has the bar become an open
+profession, accessible to all persons[26] who have the means of
+gentlemen, that no barrister at the present time would have the bad
+taste or foolish hardihood to express openly his regret that the members
+of a liberal profession should no longer pay a hurtful attention to
+illiberal distinctions.
+
+According to Fortescue, the law-students belonging at the same time to
+the Inns of Court and Chancery numbered _at least_ one thousand eight
+hundred in the fifteenth century; and it may be fairly inferred from his
+words that their number considerably exceeded two thousand. To each of
+the ten Inns of Chancery the author of the 'De Laudibus' assigns "an
+hundred students at the least, and to some of them a much greater
+number;" and he says that the least populous of the four Inns of Court
+contained "two hundred students or thereabouts." At the present time the
+number of barristers--together with Fellows of the College of Advocates,
+and certificated special pleaders and conveyancers not at the bar--is
+shown by the Law List for 1866 to be somewhat more than 4800.[27] Even
+when it is borne in mind how much the legal business of the whole nation
+has necessarily increased with the growth of our commercial
+prosperity--it being at the same time remembered, upon the other hand,
+how many times the population of the country has doubled itself since
+the wars of the Roses--few persons will be of opinion that the legal
+profession, either by the number of its practitioners or its command of
+employment, is a more conspicuous and prosperous power at the present
+time than it was in the fifteenth century.
+
+Ferne was by no means the only gentleman of Elizabethan London to
+deplore the rapid increase in the number of lawyers, and to regret the
+growing liberality which encouraged--or rather the national prosperity
+which enabled--men of inferior parentage to adopt the law as a
+profession. In his address on Mr. Clerke's elevation to the dignity of a
+sergeant, Lord Chancellor Hatton, echoing the common complaint
+concerning the degradation of the law through the swarms of plebeian
+students and practitioners, observed--"Let not the dignitie of the lawe
+be geven to men unmeete. And I do exhorte you all that are heare present
+not to call men to the barre or the benches that are so unmeete. I finde
+that there are now more at the barre in one house than there was in all
+the Innes of Court when I was a younge man." Notwithstanding the
+Chancellor's earnest statement of his personal recollection of the state
+of things when he was a young man, there is reason to think that he was
+quite in error in thinking that lawyers had increased so greatly in
+number. From a MS. in Lord Burleigh's collection, it appears that in
+1586 the number of law-students, resident during term, was only 1703--a
+smaller number than that which Fortescue computed the entire population
+of the London law-students, at a time when civil war had cruelly
+diminished the number of men likely to join an aristocratic university.
+Sir Edward Coke estimated the roll of Elizabethan law-students at one
+thousand, half their number in Fortescue's time. Coke, however, confined
+his attention in this matter to the Students of Inns of Court, and paid
+no attention to Inns of Chancery. Either Hatton greatly exaggerated the
+increase of the legal working profession; or in previous times the
+proportion of law-students who never became barristers greatly exceeded
+those who were ultimately called to the bar.
+
+Something more than a hundred years later, the old cry against the
+low-born adventurers, who, to the injury of the public and the
+degradation of the law, were said to overwhelm counsellors and
+solicitors of superior tone and pedigree, was still frequently heard in
+the coteries of disappointed candidates for employment in Westminster
+Hall, and on the lips of men whose hopes of achieving social distinction
+were likely to be frustrated so long as plebeian learning and energy
+were permitted to have free action. In his 'History of Hertfordshire'
+(published in 1700), Sir Henry Chauncey, Sergeant-at-Law, exclaims: "But
+now these mechanicks, ambitious of rule and government, often educate
+their sons in these seminaries of law, whereby they overstock the
+profession, and so make it contemptible; whilst the gentry, not sensible
+of the mischief they draw upon themselves, but also upon the nation,
+prefer them in their business before their own children, whom they
+bereave of their employment, formerly designed for their support;
+qualifying their servants, by the profit of this profession, to purchase
+their estates, and by this means make them their lords and masters,
+whilst they lessen the trade of the kingdom, and cause a scarcity of
+husbandmen, workmen, artificers, and servants in the nation."
+
+That the Inns of Court became less and less aristocratic throughout the
+seventeenth and eighteenth centuries there is no reason to doubt; but it
+may be questioned whether it was so overstocked with competent working
+members, as poor Sir Henry Chauncey imagined it. Describing the state of
+the inns some two generations later, Blackstone computed the number of
+law-students at about a thousand, perhaps slightly more; and he observes
+that in his time the merely _nominal_ law-students were comparatively
+few. "Wherefore," he says, "few gentlemen now resort to the Inns of
+Court, but such for whom the knowledge of practice is absolutely
+necessary; such, I mean, as are intended for the profession; the rest of
+our gentry, (not to say our nobility also) having usually retired to
+their estates, or visited foreign kingdoms, or entered upon public life,
+without any instruction in the laws of the land, and indeed with hardly
+any opportunity of gaining instruction, unless it can be afforded to
+them in the universities."
+
+The folly of those who lamented that men of plebeian rank were allowed
+to adopt the legal profession as a means of livelihood, was however
+exceeded by the folly of men of another sort, who endeavored to hide the
+humble extractions of eminent lawyers, under the ingenious falsehoods of
+fictitious pedigrees. In the last century, no sooner had a lawyer of
+humble birth risen to distinction, than he was pestered by fabricators
+of false genealogies, who implored him to accept their silly romances
+about his ancestry. In most cases, these ridiculous applicants hoped to
+receive money for their dishonest representations; but not seldom it
+happened that they were actuated by a sincere desire to protect the
+heraldic honor of the law from the aspersions of those who maintained
+that a man might fight his way to the woolsack, although his father had
+been a tender of swine. Sometimes these imaginative chroniclers, not
+content with fabricating a genealogical chart for a _parvenu_ Lord
+Chancellor, insisted that he should permit them to write their lives in
+such a fashion, that their earlier experiences should seem to be in
+harmony with their later fortunes. Lord Macclesfield (the son of a poor
+and ill-descended country attorney), was traced by officious adulators
+to Reginald Le Parker, who accompanied Edward I., while Prince of Wales,
+to the Holy Land. In like manner a manufacturer of genealogies traced
+Lord Eldon to Sir Michael Scott of Balwearie. When one of this servile
+school of worshippers approached Lord Thurlow with an assurance that he
+was of kin with Cromwell's secretary Thurloe, the Chancellor, with bluff
+honesty, responded, "Sir, as Mr. Secretary Thurloe was, like myself, a
+Suffolk man, you have an excuse for your mistake. In the seventeenth
+century two Thurlows, who were in no way related to each other,
+flourished in Suffolk. One was Cromwell's secretary Thurloe, the other
+was Thurlow, the Suffolk carrier. I am descended from the carrier."
+Notwithstanding Lord Thurlow's frequent and consistent disavowals of
+pretension to any heraldic pedigree, his collateral descendants are
+credited in the 'Peerages' with a descent from an ancient family.
+
+[23] This charming book was written during the author's exile, which
+began in 1463.
+
+[24] This passage is one of several passages in Pre-reformation English
+literature which certify that the Bible was much more widely and
+carefully read by lettered and studious layman, in times prior to the
+rupture between England and Rome, than many persons are aware, and some
+violent writers like to acknowledge.
+
+[25] Pathetically deploring the change wrought by time, Ferne also
+observes of the Inns of Court,--"Pity to see the same places, through
+the malignity of the times, and the negligence of those which should
+have had care to the same, been altered quite from their first
+institution."
+
+[26] It is not unusual now-a-days to see on the screened list of
+students about to be called to the bar the names of gentlemen who have
+caused themselves to be described in the quasi-public lists as the sons
+of tradesmen. Some few years since a gentleman who has already made his
+name known amongst juniors, was thus 'screened'in the four halls as the
+son of a petty tradesman in an obscure quarter of London; and assuming
+that his conduct was due to self-respect and affectionate regard for his
+parent, it seemed to most observers that the young lawyer, in thus
+frankly stating his lowly origin, acted with spirit and dignity. It may
+be that years hence this highly-accomplished gentleman will, like Lord
+Tenterden and Lord St. Leonards (both of whom were the sons of honest
+but humble tradesmen), see his name placed upon the roll of England's
+hereditary noblesse.
+
+[27] Of this number about 2500 reside in or near London and maintain
+some apparent connexion with the Inns of Court. Of the remainder, some
+reside in Scotland, some in Ireland, some in the English provinces, some
+in the colonies; whilst some of them, although their names are still on
+the Law List, have ceased to regard themselves as members of the legal
+profession.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+LAW-FRENCH AND LAW-LATIN.
+
+
+No circumstances of the Norman Conquest more forcibly illustrate the
+humiliation of the conquered people, than the measures by which the
+invaders imposed their language on the public courts of the country, and
+endeavored to make it permanently usurp the place of the mother-tongue
+of the despised multitude; and no fact more signally displays our
+conservative temper than the general reluctance of English society to
+relinquish the use of the French words and phrases which still tincture
+the language of parliament, and the procedures of Westminster Hall,
+recalling to our minds the insolent domination of a few powerful
+families who occupied our country by force, and ruled our forefathers
+with vigorous injustice.
+
+Frenchmen by birth, education, sympathy, William's barons did their
+utmost to make England a new France: and for several generations the
+descendants of the successful invaders were no less eager to abolish
+every usage which could remind the vanquished race of their lost
+supremacy. French became the language of parliament and the
+council-chamber. It was spoken by the judges who dispensed justice in
+the name of a French king, and by the lawyers who followed the royal
+court in the train of the French-speaking judges. In the hunting-field
+and the lists no gentleman entitled to bear coat-armour deigned to utter
+a word of English: it was the same in Fives' Court and at the
+gambling-table. Schoolmasters were ordered to teach their pupils to
+construe from Latin into French, instead of into English; and young men
+of Anglo-Saxon extraction, bent on rising in the world by native talent
+and Norman patronage, labored to acquire the language of the ruling
+class and forget the accents of their ancestors. The language and usages
+of modern England abound with traces of the French of this period. To
+every act that obtained the royal assent during last session of
+parliament, the queen said "La reyne le veult." Every bill which is sent
+up from the Commons to the Lords, an officer of the lower house endorses
+with "Soit bailé aux Seigneurs;" and no bill is ever sent down from the
+Lords to the Commons until a corresponding officer of the upper house
+has written on its back, "Soit bailé aux Communes."
+
+In like manner our parochial usages, local sports, and domestic games
+continually remind us of the obstinate tenacity with which the
+Anglo-Saxon race has preserved, and still preserves, the vestiges of its
+ancient subjection to a foreign yoke. The crier of a country town, in
+any of England's fertile provinces, never proclaims the loss of a
+yeoman's sporting-dog, the auction of a bankrupt dealer's
+stock-in-trade, or the impounding of a strayed cow, until he has
+commanded, in Norman-French, the attention of the sleepy rustics. The
+language of the stable and the kennel is rich in traces of Norman
+influence; and in backgammon, as played by orthodox players, we have a
+suggestive memorial of those Norman nobles, of whom Fortescue, in the
+'De Laudibus' observes: "Neither had they delyght to hunt, and to
+exercise other sportes and pastimes, as dyce-play and the hand-ball, but
+in their own proper tongue."
+
+In behalf of the Norman _noblesse_ it should be borne in mind that their
+policy in this matter was less intentionally vexatious and insolent than
+it has appeared to superficial observers. In the great majority of
+causes the suitors were Frenchmen; and it was just as reasonable that
+they should like to understand the arguments of their counsel and
+judges, as it is reasonable for suitors in the present day to require
+the proceedings in Westminster Hall to be clothed in the language most
+familiar to the majority of persons seeking justice in its courts. If
+the use of French pleadings was hard on the one Anglo-Saxon suitor who
+demanded justice in Henry I.'s time, the use of English pleadings would
+have been equally annoying to the nine French gentlemen who appeared for
+the same purpose in the king's court. It was greatly to be desired that
+the two races should have one common language; and common sense ordained
+that the tongue of the one or the other race should be adopted as the
+national language. Which side therefore was to be at the pains to learn
+a new tongue? Should the conquerors labor to acquire Anglo-Saxon? or
+should the conquered be required to learn French? In these days the
+cultivated Englishmen who hold India by military force, even as the
+Norman invaders held England, by the right of might, settle a similar
+question by taking upon themselves the trouble of learning as much of
+the Asiatic dialects as is necessary for purposes of business. But the
+Norman barons were not cultivated; and for many generations ignorance
+was with them an affair of pride no less than of constitutional
+inclination.
+
+Soon ambitious Englishmen acquired the new language, in order to use it
+as an instrument for personal advancement. The Saxon stripling who could
+keep accounts in Norman fashion, and speak French as fluently as his
+mother tongue, might hope to sell his knowledge in a good market. As the
+steward of a Norman baron he might negotiate between my lord and my
+lord's tenants, letting my lord know as much of his tenant's wishes, and
+revealing to the tenants as much of their lord's intentions as suited
+his purpose. Uniting in his own person the powers of interpreter,
+arbitrator, and steward, he possessed enviable opportunities and
+facilities for acquiring wealth. Not seldom, when he had grown rich, or
+whilst his fortunes were in the ascendant, he assumed a French name as
+well as a French accent; and having persuaded himself and his younger
+neighbors that he was a Frenchman, he in some cases bequeathed to his
+children an ample estate and a Norman pedigree. In certain causes in the
+law courts the agent (by whatever title known) who was a perfect master
+of the three languages (French, Latin, and English) had greatly the
+advantage over an opposing agent who could speak only French and Latin.
+
+From the Conquest till the latter half of the fourteenth century the
+pleadings in courts of justice were in Norman-French; but in the 36 Ed.
+III., it was ordained by the king "that all plees, which be to be pleded
+in any of his courts, before any of his justices; or in his other
+places; or before any of his other ministers; or in the courts and
+places of any other lords within the realm, shall be pleded, shewed, and
+defended, answered, debated, and judged in the English tongue, and that
+they be entred and enrolled in Latine. And that the laws and customs of
+the same realm, termes, and processes, be holden and kept as they be,
+and have been before this time; and that by the antient termes and forms
+of the declarations no man be prejudiced; so that the matter of the
+action be fully shewed in the demonstration and in the writ." Long
+before this wise measure of reform was obtained by the urgent wishes of
+the nation, the French of the law courts had become so corrupt and
+unlike the language of the invaders, that it was scarcely more
+intelligible to educated natives of France than to most Englishmen of
+the highest rank. A jargon compounded of French and Latin, none save
+professional lawyers could translate it with readiness or accuracy; and
+whilst it unquestionably kept suitors in ignorance of their own affairs,
+there is reason to believe that it often perplexed the most skilful of
+those official interpreters who were never weary of extolling his
+lucidity and precision.
+
+But though English lawyers were thus expressly forbidden in 1362 to
+plead in Law-French, they persisted in using the hybrid jargon for
+reports and treatises so late as George II.'s reign; and for an equal
+length of time they seized every occasion to introduce scraps of
+Law-French into their speeches at the bars of the different courts. It
+should be observed that these antiquarian advocates were enabled thus to
+display their useless erudition by the provisions of King Edward's act,
+which, while it forbade French _pleadings_, specially ordained the
+retention of French terms.
+
+Roger North's essay 'On the study of the Laws' contains amusing
+testimony to the affection with which the lawyers of his day regarded
+their Law-French, and also shows how largely it was used till the close
+of the seventeenth century by the orators of Westminster Hall. "Here I
+must stay to observe," says the author, enthusiastically, "the
+necessity of a student's early application to learn the old Law-French,
+for these books, and most others of considerable authority, are
+delivered in it. Some may think that because the Law-French is no better
+than the old Norman corrupted, and now a deformed hotch-potch of the
+English and Latin mixed together, it is not fit for a polite spark to
+foul himself with; but this nicety is so desperate a mistake, that
+lawyer and Law-French are coincident; one will not stand without the
+other." So enamored was he of the grace and excellence of law-reporters'
+French, that he regarded it as a delightful study for a man of fashion,
+and maintained that no barrister would do justice to the law and the
+interests of his clients who did not season his sentences with Norman
+verbiage. "The law," he held, "is scarcely expressible properly in
+English, and when it is done, it must be _Françoise_, or very uncouth."
+
+Edward III.'s measure prohibitory of French pleadings had therefore
+comparatively little influence on the educational course of
+law-students. The published reports of trials, known by the name of
+Year-Books, were composed in French, until the series terminated in the
+time of Henry VIII.; and so late as George II.'s reign, Chief Baron
+Comyn preferred such words as 'chemin,' 'dismes,' and 'baron and feme,'
+to such words as 'highway,' 'tithes,' 'husband and wife.' More liberal
+than the majority of his legal brethren, even as his enlightenment with
+regard to public affairs exceeded that of ordinary politicians of his
+time, Sir Edward Coke wrote his commentaries in English, but when he
+published them, he felt it right to soothe the alarm of lawyers by
+assuring them that his departure from ancient usage could have no
+disastrous consequences. "I cannot conjecture," he apologetically
+observes in his preface, "that the general communicating these laws in
+the English tongue can work any inconvenience."
+
+Some of the primary text-books of legal lore had been rendered into
+English, and some most valuable treatises had been written and published
+in the mother tongue of the country; but in the seventeenth century no
+Inns-of-Court man could acquire an adequate acquaintance with the usages
+and rules of our courts and the decisions of past judges, until he was
+able to study the Year-Books and read Littleton in the original. To
+acquire this singular language--a _dead_ tongue that cannot be said to
+have ever lived--was the first object of the law-student. He worked at
+it in his chamber, and with faltering and uncertain accents essayed to
+speak it at the periodic mootings in which he was required to take part
+before he could be called to the bar, and also after he had become an
+utter-barrister. In his 'Autobiography,' Sir Simonds D'Ewes makes
+mention in several places of his Law-French exercises (_temp._ James
+I.), and in one place of his personal story he observes, "I had twice
+mooted in Law-French before I was called to the bar, and several times
+after I was made an utter-barrister, in our open hall. Thrice also
+before I was of the bar, I argued the reader's cases at the Inns of
+Chancery publicly, and six times afterwards. And then also, being an
+utter-barrister, I had twice argued our Middle-Temple reader's case at
+the cupboard, and sat nine times in our hall at the bench, and argued
+such cases in English as had before been argued by young gentlemen or
+utter-barristers in Law-French bareheaded."
+
+Amongst the excellent changes by which the more enlightened of the
+Commonwealth lawyers sought to lessen the public clamor of law-reform
+was the resolution that all legal records should be kept, and all writs
+composed, in the language of the country. Hitherto the law records had
+been kept in a Latin that was quite as barbarous as the French used by
+the reporters; and the determination to abolish a custom which served
+only to obscure the operations of justice and to confound the illiterate
+was hailed by the more intelligent purchasers of law as a notable step
+in the right direction. But the reform was by no means acceptable to the
+majority of the bar, who did not hesitate to stigmatize the measure as a
+dangerous innovation--which would prove injurious to learned lawyers and
+peace-loving citizens, although it might possibly serve the purposes of
+ignorant counsel and litigious 'lay gents.'[28]The legal literature of
+three generations following Charles I.'s execution abounds with
+contemptuous allusions to the 'English times' of Cromwell; the
+old-fashioned reporters, hugging their Norman-French and looking with
+suspicion on popular intelligence, were vehement in expressing their
+contempt for the prevalent misuse of the mother tongue. "I have,"
+observes Styles, in the preface to his reports, "made these reports
+speak English; not that I believe that they will be thereby more
+generally useful, for I have always been and yet am of opinion, that
+that part of the Common Law which is in the English hath only occasioned
+the making of unquiet spirits contentiously knowing, and more apt to
+offend others than to defend themselves; but I have done it in obedience
+to authority, and to stop the mouths of such of this English age, who,
+though they be confessedly different in their minds and judgments, as
+the builders of Babel were in their language, yet do think it vain, if
+not impious, to speak or understand more than their own mother tongue."
+In like manner, Whitelock's uncle Bulstrode, the celebrated reporter,
+says of the second part of his reports, "that he had manny years since
+perfected the words in French, in which language he had desired it
+might have seen the light, being most proper for it, and most convenient
+for the professors of the law."
+
+The restorers who raised Charles II. to his father's throne, lost no
+time in recalling Latin to the records and writs; and so gladly did the
+reporters and the practising counsel avail themselves of the reaction in
+favor of discarded usages, that more Law-French was written and talked
+in Westminster Hall during the time of the restored king, than had been
+penned and spoken throughout the first fifty years of the seventeenth
+century.
+
+The vexatious and indescribably absurd use of Law-Latin in records,
+writs, and written pleadings, was finally put an end to by statute 4
+George II. c. 26; but this bill, which discarded for legal processes a
+cumbrous and harsh language, that was alike unmusical and inexact, and
+would have been utterly unintelligible to a Roman gentleman of the
+Augustan period, did not become law without much opposition from some of
+the authorities of Westminster Hall. Lord Raymond, Chief Justice of the
+King's Bench, spoke in accordance with opinions that had many supporters
+on the bench and at the bar, when he expressed his warm disapprobation
+of the proposed measure, and sarcastically observed "that if the bill
+paused, the law might likewise be translated into Welsh, since many in
+Wales understood not English." In the same spirit Sir Willian Blackstone
+and more recent authorities have lamented the loss of Law-Latin. Lord
+Campbell, in the 'Chancellors,' records that he "heard the late Lord
+Ellenborough from the bench regret the change, on the ground that it had
+had the tendency to make attorneys illiterate."
+
+The sneer by which Lord Raymond endeavored to cast discredit on the
+proposal to abolish Law-Latin, was recalled after the lapse of many
+years by Sergeant Heywood, who forthwith acted upon it as though it
+originated in serious thought. Whilst acting as Chief Justice of the
+Carmarthen Circuit, the sergeant was presiding over a trial of murder,
+when it was discovered that neither the prisoner, nor any member of the
+jury, could understand a word of English; under these circumstances it
+was suggested that the evidence and the charge should be explained
+_verbatim_, to the prisoner and his twelve triers by an interpreter. To
+this reasonable petition that the testimony should be presented in a
+Welsh dress, the judge replied that, "to accede to the request would be
+to repeal the act of parliament, which required that all proceedings in
+courts of justice should be in the English tongue, and that the case of
+a trial in Wales, in which the prisoner and jury should not understand
+English, was a case not provided for, although the attention of the
+legislature had been called to it by that great judge Lord Raymond." The
+judge having thus decided, the inquiry proceeded--without the help of an
+interpreter--the counsel for the prosecution favoring the jury with an
+eloquent harangue, no single sentence of which was intelligible to them;
+a series of witnesses proving to English auditors, beyond reach of
+doubt, that the prisoner had deliberately murdered his wife; and finally
+the judge instructing the jury, in language which was as insignificant
+to their minds as the same quantity of obsolete Law-French would have
+been, that it was their duty to return a verdict of 'Guilty.' Throwing
+themselves into the humor of the business, the Welsh jurymen, although
+they were quite familiar with the facts of the case, acquitted the
+murderer, much to the encouragement of many wretched Welsh husbands
+anxious for a termination of their matrimonial sufferings.
+
+[28] In the seventeenth century, lawyers usually called their clients
+and the non-legal public 'Lay Gents.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+STUDENT LIFE IN OLD TIME.
+
+
+From statements made in previous chapters, it may be seen that in
+ancient times the Law University was a far more conspicuous feature of
+the metropolis than it has been in more modern generations. In the
+fifteenth century the law students of the town numbered about two
+thousand; in Elizabethan London their number fluctuated between one
+thousand and two thousand; towards the close of Charles II.'s reign they
+were probably much less than fifteen hundred; in the middle of the
+eighteenth century they do not seem to have much exceeded one thousand.
+Thus at a time when the entire population of the capital was
+considerably less than the population of a third-rate provincial town of
+modern England, the Inns of Court and Chancery contained more
+undergraduates than would be found on the books of the Oxford Colleges
+at the present time.
+
+Henry VIII.'s London looked to the University for mirth, news, trade.
+During vacations there was but little stir in the taverns and shops of
+Fleet Street; haberdashers and vintners sate idle; musicians starved;
+and the streets of the capital were comparatively empty when the
+students had withdrawn to spend their holidays in the country. As soon
+as the gentlemen of the robe returned to town all was brisk and merry
+again. As the town grew in extent and population, the social influence
+of the university gradually decreased; but in Elizabethan London the
+_éclat_ of the inns was at its brightest, and during the reigns of
+Elizabeth's two nearest successors London submitted to the Inns-of-Court
+men as arbiters of all matters pertaining to taste--copying their dress,
+slang, amusements, and vices. The same may be said, with less emphasis,
+of Charles II.'s London. Under the 'Merry Monarch' theatrical managers
+were especially anxious to please the inns, for they knew that no play
+would succeed which the lawyers had resolved to damn--that no actor
+could achieve popularity if the gallants of the Temple combined to laugh
+him down--that no company of performers could retain public favor when
+they had lost the countenance of law-colleges. Something of this power
+the young lawyers retained beyond the middle of the last century.
+Fielding and Addison caught with nervous eagerness the critical gossip
+of the Temple and Chancery Lane, just as Congreve and Wycherly, Dryden
+and Cowley had caught it in previous generations. Fashionable tradesmen
+and caterers for the amusement of the public made their engagements and
+speculations with reference to the opening of term. New plays, new
+books, new toys were never offered for the first time to London
+purchasers when the lawyers were away. All that the 'season' is to
+modern London, the 'term' was to old London, from the accession of Henry
+VIII. to the death of George II., and many of the existing commercial
+and fashionable arrangements of a London 'season' maybe traced to the
+old-world 'term.'
+
+In olden time the influence of the law-colleges was as great upon
+politics as upon fashion. Sheltering members of every powerful family in
+the country they were centres of political agitation, and places for the
+secret discussion of public affairs. Whatever plot was in course of
+incubation, the inns invariably harbored persons who were cognisant of
+the conspiracy. When faction decided on open rebellion or hidden
+treason, the agents of the malcontent leaders gathered together in the
+inns, where, so long as they did not rouse the suspicions of the
+authorities and maintained the bearing of studious men, they could hire
+assassins, plan risings, hold interviews with fellow-conspirators, and
+nurse their nefarious projects into achievement. At periods of danger
+therefore spies were set to watch the gates of the hostels, and mark who
+entered them. Governments took great pains to ascertain the secret life
+of the collegians. A succession of royal directions for the discipline
+of the inns under the Tudors and Stuarts points to the jealousy and
+constant apprehensions with which the sovereigns of England long
+regarded those convenient lurking-places for restless spirits and
+dangerous adversaries. Just as the Student-quarter of Paris is still
+watched by a vigilant police, so the Inns of Court were closely watched
+by the agents of Wolsey and Thomas Cromwell, of Burleigh and Buckingham.
+During the troubles and contentions of Elizabeth's reign Lord Burleigh
+was regularly informed concerning the life of the inns, the number of
+students in and out of town, the parentage and demeanor of new members,
+the gossip of the halls, and the rumors of the cloisters. In proportion
+as the political temper and action of the lawyers were deemed matters of
+high importance, their political indiscretions and misdemeanors were
+promptly and sometimes ferociously punished. An idle joke over a pot of
+wine sometimes cost a witty barrister his social rank and his ears. To
+promote a wholesome fear of authority in the colleges, government every
+now and then flogged a student at the cart's tail in Holborn, or
+pilloried a sad apprentice of the law in Chancery Lane, or hung an
+ancient on a gibbet at the entrance of his inn.
+
+The anecdote-books abound with good stories that illustrate the
+political excitability of the inns in past times, and the energy with
+which ministers were wont to repress the first manifestations of
+insubordination. Rushworth records the adventure of four young men of
+Lincoln's Inn who throw aside prudence and sobriety in a tavern hard by
+their inn, and drank to "the confusion of the Archbishop of Canterbury."
+The next day, full of penitence and head-ache, the offenders were
+brought before the council, and called to account for their scandalous
+conduct; when they would have fared ill had not the Earl of Dorset done
+them good service, and privately instructed them to say in their
+defence, that they had not drunk confusion to the archbishop but to the
+archbishop's _foes_. On this ingenious representation, the council
+supposed that the drawer--on whose information the proceedings were
+taken--had failed to catch the last word of the toast; and consequently
+the young gentlemen were dismissed with a 'light admonition,' much to
+their own surprise and the informer's chagrin.
+
+Of the political explosiveness of the inns in Charles II.'s time
+Narcissus Luttrell gives the following illustration in his diary, under
+date June 15 and 16, 1681:--"The 15th was a project sett on foot in
+Grayes Inn for the carrying on an addresse for thankes to his majestie
+for his late declaration; and was moved that day in the hall by some at
+dinner, and being (as is usual) sent to the barre messe to be by them
+recommended to the bench, but was rejected both by bench and barr; but
+the other side seeing they could doe no good this way, they gott about
+forty together and went to the tavern, and there subscribed the said
+addresse in the name of the truelye loyall gentlemen of Grayes Inn. The
+chief sticklers for the said addition were Sir William Seroggs, Jun.,
+Robert Fairebeard, Capt. Stowe, Capt. Radcliffe, one Yalden, with
+others, to the number of 40 or thereabouts; many of them sharpers about
+town, with clerks not out of their time, and young men newly come from
+the university. And some of them went the 17th to Windsor, and presented
+the said addresse to his majesty: who was pleasd to give them his
+thanks and confer (it is said) knighthood on the said Mr. Fairebeard;
+this proves a mistake since. The 16th was much such another addresse
+carried on in the Middle Temple, where several Templars, meeting about
+one or two that afternoon in the hall for that purpose, they began to
+debate it, but they were opposed till the hall began to fill; and then
+the addressers called for Mr. Montague to take the chaire; on which a
+poll was demanded, but the addressers refused it, and carried Mr.
+Montague and sett him in the chaire, and the other part pulled him out,
+on which high words grew, and some blows were given; but the addressers
+seeing they could doe no good with it in the hall, adjourned to the
+Divill Tavern, and there signed the addresse; the other party kept in
+the hall, and fell to protesting against such illegall and arbitrary
+proceedings, subscribing their names to a greater number than the
+addressers were, and presented the same to the bench as a grievance."
+
+Like the King's Head Tavern, which stood in Chancery Lane, the Devil
+Tavern, in Fleet Street, was a favorite house with the Caroline Lawyers.
+Its proximity to the Temple secured the special patronage of the
+templars, whereas the King's Head was more frequented by Lincoln's-Inn
+men; and in the tavern-haunting days of the seventeenth century those
+two places of entertainment saw many a wild and dissolute scene. Unlike
+Chattelin, who endeavored to satisfy his guests with delicate repasts
+and light wines, the hosts of the Devil and the King's Head provided the
+more substantial fare of old England, and laid themselves out to please
+roysterers who liked pots of ale in the morning, and were wont to drink
+brandy by the pint as the clocks struck midnight. Nando's, the house
+where Thurlow in his student-period used to hold nightly disputations
+with all comers of suitable social rank, was an orderly place in
+comparison with these more venerable hostelries; and though the Mitre,
+Cock, and Rainbow have witnessed a good deal of deep drinking, it may be
+questioned if they, or any other ancient taverns of the legal quarter,
+encouraged a more boisterous and reckless revelry than that which
+constituted the ordinary course of business at the King's Head and the
+Devil.
+
+In his notes for Jan. 1681-2, Mr. Narcissus Luttrell observes--"The
+13th, at night, some young gentlemen of the Temple went to the King's
+Head Tavern, Chancery Lane, committing strange outrages there, breaking
+windowes, &c., which the watch hearing of came to disperse them; but
+they sending for severall of the watermen with halberts that attend
+their comptroller of the revells, were engaged in a desperate riott, in
+which one of the watchmen was run into the body and lies very ill; but
+the watchmen secured one or two of the watermen." Eleven years later the
+diarist records: "Jan. 5. One Batsill, a young gentleman of the Temple,
+was committed to Newgate for wounding a captain at the Devil Tavern in
+Fleet Street on Saturday last." Such ebullitions of manly
+spirit--ebullitions pleasant enough to the humorist, but occasionally
+productive of very disagreeable and embarrassing consequences--were not
+uncommon in the neighborhood of the Inns of Court whilst the Christmas
+revels were in progress.
+
+A tempestuous, hot-blooded, irascible set were these gentlemen of the
+law-colleges, more zealous for their own honor than careful for the
+feelings of their neighbors. Alternately warring with sharp tongues,
+sharp pens, and sharp swords they went on losing their tempers, friends,
+and lives in the most gallant and picturesque manner imaginable. Here is
+a nice little row which occurred in the Middle Temple Hall during the
+days of good Queen Bess! "The records of the society," says Mr. Foss,
+"preserve an account of the expulsion of a member, which is rendered
+peculiarly interesting in consequence of the eminence to which the
+delinquent afterwards attained as a statesman, a poet, and a lawyer.
+Whilst the masters of the bench and other members of the society were
+sitting quietly at dinner on February 9, 1597-8, John Davis came into
+the hall with his hat on his head, and attended by two persons armed
+with swords, and going up to the barrister's table, where Richard Martin
+was sitting, he pulled out from under his gown a cudgel 'quem vulgariter
+vocant a bastinado,' and struck him over the head repeatedly, and with
+so much violence that the bastinado was shivered into many pieces. Then
+retiring to the bottom of the hall, he drew one of his attendants'
+swords and flourished it over his head, turning his face towards Martin,
+and then turning away down the water steps of the Temple, threw himself
+into a boat. For this outrageous act he was immediately disbarred and
+expelled the house, and deprived for ever of all authority to speak or
+consult in law. After nearly four years' retirement he petitioned the
+benchers for his restoration, which they accorded on October 30, 1601,
+upon his making a public submission in the hall, and asking pardon of
+Mr. Martin, who at once generously forgave him." Both the principals in
+this scandalous outbreak and subsequent reconciliation became honorably
+known in their profession--Martin rising to be a Recorder of London and
+a member of parliament; and Davies acting as Attorney General of Ireland
+and Speaker of the Irish parliament, and achieving such a status in
+politics and law that he was appointed to the Chief Justiceship of
+England, an office, however, which sudden death prevented him from
+filling.
+
+Nor must it be imagined that gay manners and lax morals were less
+general amongst the veterans than amongst the youngsters of the bar.
+Judges and sergeants were quite as prone to levity and godless riot as
+students about to be called; and such was the freedom permitted by
+professional decorum that leading advocates habitually met their clients
+in taverns, and having talked themselves dry at the bars of Westminster
+Hall, drank themselves speechless at the bars of Strand taverns--ere
+they reeled again into their chambers. The same habits of uproarious
+self-indulgence were in vogue with the benchers of the inns, and the
+Doctors of Doctors' Commons. Hale's austerity was the exceptional
+demeanor of a pious man protesting against the wickedness of an impious
+age. Had it not been for the shortness of time that had elapsed since
+Algernon Sidney's trial and sentence, John Evelyn would have seen no
+reason for censuring the loud hilarity and drunkenness of Jeffreys and
+Withings at Mrs. Castle's wedding.
+
+In some respects, however, the social atmosphere of the inns was far
+more wholesome in the days of Elizabeth, and for the hundred years
+following her reign, than it is at present. Sprung in most cases from
+legal families, the students who were educated to be working members of
+the bar lived much more under the observation of their older relations,
+and in closer intercourse with their mothers and sisters than they do at
+present. Now-a-days young Templars, fresh from the universities, would
+be uneasy and irritable under strict domestic control; and as men with
+beards and five-and-twenty years' knowledge of the world, they would
+resent any attempt to draw them within the lines of domestic control.
+But in Elizabethan and also in Stuart London, law-students were
+considerably younger than they are under Victoria.
+
+Moreover, the usage of the period trained young men to submit with
+cheerfulness to a parental discipline that would be deemed intolerable
+by our own youngsters. During the first terms of their eight, seven, or
+at least six years of pupilage, until they could secure quarters within
+college walls, students frequently lodged in the houses or chambers of
+near relations who were established in the immediate vicinity of the
+inns. A judge with a house in Fleet Street, an eminent counsel with a
+family mansion in Holborn, or an office-holder with commodious chambers
+in Chancery Lane, usually numbered amongst the members of his family a
+son, or nephew, or cousin who was keeping terms for the bar. Thus placed
+under the immediate superintendence of an elder whom he regarded with
+affection and pride, and surrounded by the wholesome interests of a
+refined domestic circle, the raw student was preserved from much folly
+and ill-doing into which he would have fallen had he been thrown
+entirely on his own resources for amusement.
+
+The pecuniary means of Inns-of-Court students have not varied much
+throughout the last twelve generations. In days when money was scarce
+and very precious they of course lived on a smaller number of coins than
+they require in these days when gold and silver are comparatively
+abundant and cheap; but it is reasonable to suppose that in every period
+the allowances, on which the less affluent of them subsisted, represent
+the amounts on which young men of their respective times were just able
+to maintain the figure and style of independent gentlemen. The costly
+pageants and feasts of the inns in old days must not be taken as
+indicative of the pecuniary resources of the common run of students; for
+the splendor of those entertainments was mainly due to the munificence
+of those more wealthy members who by a liberal and even profuse
+expenditure purchased a right to control the diversions of the colleges.
+Fortescue, speaking of his own time, says: "There can no student bee
+mayntayned for lesse expenses by the yeare than twentye markes. And if
+hee haue a seruant to waite uppon him, as most of them haue, then so
+much the greater will his charges bee." Hence it appears that during the
+most patrician period of the law university, when wealthy persons were
+accustomed to maintain ostentatious retinues of servants, a law-student
+often had no private personal attendant. An ordinance shows that in
+Elizabethan London the Inns-of-Court men were waited upon by laundresses
+or bedmakers who served and took wages from several masters at the same
+time. It would be interesting to ascertain the exact time when the
+"laundress" was first introduced into the Temple. She certainly
+flourished in the days of Queen Bess; and Roger North's piquant
+description of his brother's laundress is applicable to many of her
+successors who are looking after their perquisites at the present date.
+"The housekeeper," says Roger, "had been formerly his lordship's
+laundress at the Temple, and knew well her master's brother so early as
+when he was at the writing-school. She _was a phthisical old woman, and
+could scarce crawl upstairs once a day_." This general employment of
+servants who were common to several masters would alone prove that the
+Inns-of-Court men in the seventeenth century felt it convenient to
+husband their resources, and exercise economy. Throughout that century
+sixty pounds was deemed a sufficient income for a Temple student; and
+though it was a scant allowance, some young fellows managed to push on
+with a still more modest revenue. Simonds D'Ewes had £60 per annum
+during his student course, and £100 a year on becoming an
+utter-barrister. "It pleased God also in mercy," he writes, "after this
+to ease me of that continual want or short stipend I had for about five
+years last past groaned under; for my father, immediately on my call to
+the bar, enlarged my former allowance with forty pounds more annually;
+so as, after this plentiful annuity of one hundred pounds was duly and
+quarterly paid me by him, I found myself easyd of so many cares and
+discontents as I may well account that the 27th day of June foregoing
+the first day of my outward happiness since the decease of my dearest
+mother." All things considered, a bachelor in James I.'s London with a
+clear income of £100 per annum was on the whole as well off for his time
+as a young barrister of the present day would be with an annual
+allowance of £250 or £300. Francis North, when a student, was allowed
+only £60 per annum; and as soon as he was called and began to earn a
+little money, his parsimonious father reduced the stipend by £10; but,
+adds Roger North, "to do right to his good father, he paid him that
+fifty pounds a year as long as he lived, saying he would not discourage
+industry by rewarding it, when successful, with less." George Jeffreys,
+in his student-days, smarted under a still more galling penury, for he
+was allowed only £50 a year, £10 being for his clothes, and £40 for the
+rest of his expenditure. In the following century the nominal incomes of
+law-students rose in proportion as the wealth of the country increased
+and the currency fell in value. In George II.'s time a young Templar
+expected his father to allow him £150 a year, and on encouragement would
+spend twice that amount in the same time. Henry Fielding's allowance
+from General Fielding was £200 per annum; but as he said, with a laugh,
+he had too feeling and dutiful a nature to press an affectionate father
+for money which he was totally unable to pay. At the present time £150
+per annum is about the smallest sum on which a law-student can live with
+outward decency; and £250 per annum the lowest amount on which a chamber
+barrister can live with suitable dignity and comfort. If he has to
+maintain the expenses of a distant circuit Mr. Briefless requires from
+£100 to £200 more. Alas! how many of Mr. Briefless's meritorious and
+most ornamental kind are compelled to shift on far less ample means!
+How many of them periodically repeat the jest of poor A----, who made
+this brief and suggestive official return to the Income Tax
+Commissioners--"I am totally dependent on my father, who allows
+me--nothing!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+READERS AND MOOTMEN.
+
+
+Romantic eulogists of the Inns of Court maintain that, as an instrument
+of education, the law-university was nearly perfect for many generations
+after its consolidation. That in modern time abuses have impaired its
+faculties and diminished its usefulness they admit. Some of them are
+candid enough to allow that, as a school for the systematic study of
+law, it is under existing circumstances a deplorably deficient machine;
+but they unite in declaring that there _was_ a time when the system of
+the combined Colleges was complete and thoroughly efficacious. The more
+cautious of these eulogists decline to state the exact limits of the
+period when the actual condition of the university merited their cordial
+approval, but they concur in pointing to the years between the accession
+of Henry VII. and the death of James I., as comprising the brightest
+days of its academical vigor and renown.
+
+It is however worthy of observation that throughout the times when the
+legal learning and discipline of the colleges are described to have been
+admirable, the system and the students by no means won the approbation
+of those critical authorities who were best able to see their failings
+and merits. Wolsey was so strongly impressed by the faulty education of
+the barristers who practised before him, and more especially by their
+total ignorance of the principles of jurisprudence, that he prepared a
+plan for a new university which should be established in London, and
+should impart a liberal and exact knowledge of law. Had he lived to
+carry out his scheme it is most probable that the Inns of Court and
+Chancery would have become subsidiary and subordinate establishments to
+the new foundation. In this matter, sympathizing with the more
+enlightened minds of his age, Sir Nicholas Bacon was no less desirous
+than the great cardinal that a new law university should be planted in
+town, and he urged on Henry VIII. the propriety of devoting a certain
+portion of the confiscated church property to the foundation and
+endowment of such an institution.
+
+On paper the scheme of the old exercises and degrees looks very
+imposing, and those who delight in painting fancy pictures may infer
+from them that the scholastic order of the colleges was perfect. Before
+a young man could be called to the bar, he had under ordinary
+circumstances to spend seven or eight years in arguing cases at the Inns
+of Chancery, in proving his knowledge of law and Law-French at moots, in
+sharpening his wits at case-putting, in patient study of the Year-Books,
+and in watching the trials of Westminster Hall. After his call he was
+required to spend another period in study and academic exercise before
+he presumed to raise his voice at the bar; and in his progress to the
+highest rank of his profession he was expected to labor in educating the
+students of his house as assistant-reader, single-reader, double-reader.
+The gravest lawyers of every inn were bound to aid in the task of
+teaching the mysteries of the law to the rising generation.
+
+The old ordinances assumed that the law-student was thirsting for a
+knowledge of law, and that the veterans were no less eager to impart
+it. During term law was talked in hall at dinner and supper, and after
+these meals the collegians argued points. "The cases were put" after the
+earlier repast, and twice or thrice a week moots were "brought in" after
+the later meal. The students were also encouraged to assemble towards
+the close of each day and practise 'case-putting' in their gardens and
+in the cloisters of the Temple or Lincoln's Inn. The 'great fire' of
+1678-9 having destroyed the Temple Cloisters, some of the benchers
+proposed to erect chambers on the ground, to and fro upon which
+law-students had for generations walked whilst they wrangled aloud; but
+the Earl of Nottingham, recalling the days when young Heneage Finch used
+to put cases with his contemporary students, strangled the proposal at
+its birth, and Sir Christopher Wren subsequently built the Cloisters
+which may be seen at the present day.
+
+But there is reason to fear that at a very early period in their history
+the Inns of Court began to pay more attention to certain outward forms
+of instruction than to instruction itself. The unbiassed inquirer is
+driven to suspect that 'case-putting' soon became an idle ceremony, and
+'mooting' a mere pastime. Gentlemen ate heartily in the sixteenth and
+seventeenth centuries; and it is not easy to believe that immediately
+after a twelve o'clock dinner benchers were in the best possible mood to
+teach, or students in the fittest condition for learning. It is credible
+that these post-prandial exercitations were often enlivened by sparkling
+quips and droll occurrences; but it is less easy to believe that they
+were characterised by severe thought and logical exactness. So also with
+the after-supper exercises. The six o'clock suppers of the lawyers were
+no light repasts, but hearty meals of meat and bread, washed down by
+'_green pots_' of ale and wine. When 'the horn' sounded for supper, the
+student was in most cases better able to see the truth of knotty points
+than when in compliance with etiquette he bowed to the benchers, and
+asked if it was their pleasure to hear a moot. It seems probable that
+long before 'case-puttings' and 'mootings' were altogether disused, the
+old benchers were wont to wink mischievously at each other when they
+prepared to teach the boys, and that sometimes they would turn away from
+the proceedings of a moot with an air of disdain or indifference. The
+inquirer is not induced to rate more highly the intellectual effort of
+such exercises because the teachers refreshed their exhausted powers
+with bread and beer as soon as the arguments were closed.
+
+When such men as Coke and Francis Bacon were the readers, the students
+were entertained with lectures of surpassing excellence; but it was
+seldom that such readers could be found. It seems also that at an early
+period men became readers, not because they had any especial aptitude
+for offices of instruction, or because they had some especial fund of
+information--but simply because it was their turn to read. Routine
+placed them in the pulpit for a certain number of weeks; and when they
+had done all that routine required of them, and had thereby qualified
+themselves for promotion to the rank of sergeant, they took their seats
+amongst the benchers and ancients with the resolution not to trouble
+themselves again about the intellectual progress of the boys.
+
+Soon also the chief teacher of an Inn of Court became its chief feaster
+and principal entertainer; and in like manner his subordinates in
+office, such as assistant readers and readers elect, were required to
+put their hands into their pockets, and feed their pupils with venison
+and wine as well as with law and equity. It is amusing to observe how
+little Dugdale has to say about the professional duties of readers--and
+how much about their hospitable functions and responsibilities. Philip
+and Mary ordered that no reader of the Middle Temple should give away
+more than fifteen bucks during his readings; but so greatly did the cost
+of readers' entertainments increase in the following century, that
+Dugdale observes--"But the times are altered; there being few summer
+readers who, in half the time that heretofore a reading was wont to
+continue, spent so little as threescore bucks, besides red deer; some
+have spent fourscore, some an hundred."
+
+Just as readers were required to spend more in hospitality, they were
+required to display less learning. Sound lawyers avoided election to the
+readers' chairs, leaving them to be filled by rich men who could afford
+to feast the nobility and gentry, or at least by men who were willing to
+purchase social _éclat_ with a lavish outlay of money. Under Charles II.
+the 'readings' were too often nothing better than scandalous exhibitions
+of mental incapacity: and having sunk into disrepute, they died out
+before the accession of James II.
+
+The scandalous and beastly disorder of the Grand Day Feasts at the
+Middle Temple, during Francis North's tenure of the reader's office, was
+one of the causes that led to the discontinuance of Reader's Banquets at
+that house; and the other inns gladly followed the example of the Middle
+Temple in putting an end to a custom which had ceased to promote the
+dignity of the law. Of this feast, and his brother's part in it, Roger
+North says: "He (_i.e._ Francis North) sent out the officers with white
+staves (for so the way was) and a long list to invite; but he went
+himself to wait upon the Archbishop of Canterbury, Sheldon; for so also
+the ceremony required. The archbishop received him very honorably and
+would not part with him at the stairshead, as usually had been done;
+but, telling him he was no ordinary reader, went down, and did not part
+till he saw him past at his outward gate I cannot much commend the
+extravagance of the feasting used at these readings; and that of his
+lordship's was so terrible an example, that I think none hath ventured
+since to read publicly; but the exercise is turned into a revenue, and a
+composition is paid into the treasury of the society. Therefore one may
+say, as was said of Cleomenes, that, in this respect, his lordship was
+_ultimus herorum_, the last of the heroes. And the profusion of the best
+provisions, and wine, was to the worst of purposes--debauchery,
+disorder, tumult, and waste. I will give but one instance; upon the
+grand day, as it was called, a banquet was provided to be set upon the
+table, composed of pyramids, and smaller services in form. The first
+pyramid was at least four feet high, with stages one above another. The
+conveying this up to the table, through a crowd, that were in full
+purpose to overturn it, was no small work: but, with the friendly
+assistance of the gentlemen, it was set whole upon the table. But, after
+it was looked upon a little, all went, hand over hand, among the rout in
+the hall, and for the most part was trod under foot. The entertainment
+the nobility had out of this was, after they had tossed away the dishes,
+a view of the crowd in confusion, wallowing one over another, and
+contending for a dirty share of it."
+
+It would, however, be unfair to the ancient exercises of 'case-putting'
+and 'mooting' not to bear in mind that by habituating successful
+barristers to take personal interest in the professional capabilities of
+students, they helped to maintain a salutary intercourse betwixt the
+younger and older members of the profession. So long as 'moots' lasted,
+it was the fashion with eminent counsel to accost students in
+Westminster Hall, and gossip with them about legal matters. In Charles
+II.'s time, such eminent barristers as Sir Geoffrey Palmer daily gave
+practical hints and valuable suggestions to students who courted their
+favor; find accurate legal scholars, such as old 'Index Waller,' would,
+under judicious treatment, exhibit their learning to boys ambitious of
+following in their steps. Chief Justice Saunders, during the days of his
+pre-eminence at the bar, never walked through Westminster Hall without a
+train of lads at his heels. "I have seen him," says Roger North, "for
+hours and half-hours together, before the court sat, stand at the bar,
+with an audience of students over against him, putting of cases, and
+debating so as suited their capacities, and encouraged their industry.
+And so in the Temple, he seldom moved without a parcel of youths hanging
+about him, and he merry and jesting with them."
+
+Long after 'moots' had fallen into disuse, their influence in this
+respect was visible in the readiness of wigged veterans to extend a
+kindly and useful patronage to students. Even so late as the close of
+the last century, great black-letter lawyers used to accost students in
+Westminster Hall, and give them fair words, in a manner that would be
+misunderstood in the present day. Sergeant Hill--whose reputation for
+recondite legal erudition, resembled that of '_Index_ Waller,' or
+Maynard, in the seventeenth century--once accosted John Scott, as the
+latter, in his student days, was crossing Westminster Hall. "Pray, young
+gentleman," said the black-letter lawyer, "do you think herbage and
+pannage rateable to the poor's rate?" "Sir," answered the future Lord
+Eldon, with a courteous bow to the lawyer, whom he knew only by sight,
+"I cannot presume to give any opinion, inexperienced and unlearned as I
+am, to a person of your great knowledge, and high character in the
+profession." "Upon my word," replied the sergeant, eyeing the young man
+with unaffected delight, "you are a pretty sensible young gentleman; I
+don't often meet with such. If I had asked Mr. Burgess, a young man upon
+our circuit, the question, he would have told me that I was an old
+fool. You are an extraordinary sensible young gentleman."
+
+The period when 'readings,' 'mooting,' and 'case-putting' fell into
+disuse or contempt, is known with sufficient accuracy. Having noticed
+the decay of readings, Sir John Bramston writes, in Charles II.'s reign,
+"At this tyme readings are totally in all the Inns of Court layd aside;
+and to speak truth, with great reason, for it was a step at once to the
+dignity of a sergeant, but not soe now." Marking the time when moots
+became farcical forms, Roger North having stated that his brother
+Francis, when a student, was "an attendant (as well as exerciser) at the
+ordinary moots in the Middle Temple and at New Inn," goes on to say, "In
+those days, the moots were carefully performed, and it is hard to give a
+good reason (bad ones are prompt enough) why they are not so now." But
+it should be observed, that though for all practical purposes 'moots'
+and 'case-puttings' ceased in Charles II.'s time, they were not formally
+abolished. Indeed, they lingered on throughout the eighteenth century,
+and to the present time--when vestiges of them may still be observed in
+the usages and discipline of the Inns. Before the writer of this page
+was called to the bar by the Masters of the Society of Lincoln's Inn,
+he, like all other students of his time, had to go through the form of
+putting a case on certain days in the hall after dinner. The ceremony
+appeared to him alike ludicrous and interesting. To put his case, he was
+conducted by the steward of the inn to the top of the senior bar table,
+when the steward placed an open MS. book before him, and said, "Read
+that, sir;" whereupon this deponent read aloud something about "a femme
+sole," or some such thing, and was still reading the rest of the MS.,
+kindly opened under his nose by the steward, when that worthy officer
+checked him suddenly, saying, "That will do, sir; you have _put_ your
+case--and can sign the book." The book duly signed, this deponent bowed
+to the assembled barristers, and walked out of the hall, smiling as he
+thought how, by an ingenious fiction, he was credited with having put an
+elaborate case to a college of profound jurists, with having argued it
+before an attentive audience, and with having borne away the laurels of
+triumph. Recently this pleasant mockery of case-putting has been swept
+away.
+
+In Roger North's 'Discourse on the Study of the Laws,' and 'Life of the
+Lord Keeper Guildford,' the reader may see with clearness the course of
+an industrious law-student during the latter half of the seventeenth
+century, and it differs less from the ordinary career of an industrious
+Temple-student in our time, than many recent writers on the subject
+think.
+
+Under Charles II., James II., and William III. the law-student was
+compelled to muster the barbarous Law-French; but the books which he was
+required to read were few in comparison with those of a modern
+Inns-of-Court man. Roger North mentions between twenty and thirty
+authors, which the student should read in addition to Year-Books and
+more recent reports; and it is clear that the man who knew with any
+degree of familiarity such a body of legal literature was a very erudite
+lawyer two hundred years since. But the student was advised to read this
+small library again and again, "common-placing" the contents of its
+volumes, and also "common-placing" all new legal facts. The utility and
+convenience of common-place books were more apparent two centuries
+since, than in our time, when books of reference are always published
+with good tables of contents and alphabetical indexes. Roger North held
+that no man could become a good lawyer who did not keep a common-place
+book. He instructs the student to buy for a common-place register "a
+good large paper book, as big as a church bible;" he instructs him how
+to classify the facts which should be entered in the work; and for a
+model of a lucid and thoroughly lawyer-like common-place book he refers
+"to Lincoln's Inn library, where the Lord Hale's common-place book is
+conserved, and that may be a pattern, _instar omnium_."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+PUPILS IN CHAMBERS.
+
+
+But the most important part of an industrious law-student's labors in
+olden time, was the work of watching the practice of Westminster Hall.
+In the seventeenth century, the constant succession of political trials
+made the King's Bench Court especially attractive to students who were
+more eager for gossip than advancement of learning; but it was always
+held that the student, who was desirous to learn the law rather than to
+catch exciting news or hear exciting speeches, ought to frequent the
+Common Pleas, in which court the common law was said to be at home. At
+the Common Pleas, a student might find a seat vacant in the students'
+benches so late as ten o'clock; but it was not unusual for every place
+devoted to the accommodation of students in the Court of King's Bench,
+to be occupied by six o'clock, A.M. By dawn, and even before the sun had
+begun to break, students bent on getting good seats at the hearing of an
+important cause would assemble, and patiently wait in court till the
+judges made their appearance.
+
+One prominent feature in the advocate's education must always be
+elocutionary practice. "Talk; if you can, to the point, but anyhow
+talk," has been the motto of Advocacy from time immemorial. Heneage
+Finch, who, like every member of his silver-tongued family, was an
+authority on matters pertaining to eloquence, is said to have advised a
+young student "to study all the morning and talk all the afternoon."
+Sergeant Maynard used to express his opinion of the importance of
+eloquence to a lawyer by calling law the "ars bablativa." Roger North
+observes--"He whose trade is speaking must not, whatever comes out, fail
+to speak, for that is a fault in the main much worse than impertinence."
+And at a recent address to the students of the London University, Lord
+Brougham urged those of his auditors, who intended to adopt the
+profession of the bar, to habituate themselves to talk about everything.
+
+In past times law-students were proverbial for their talkativeness; and
+though the present writer has never seen any records of a Carolinian
+law-debating society, it is matter of certainty that in the seventeenth
+century the young students and barristers formed themselves into
+coteries, or clubs, for the practice of elocution and for legal
+discussions. The continual debates on 'mootable days,' and the incessant
+wranglings of the Temple cloisters, encouraged them to pay especial
+attention to such exercises. In Charles II.'s reign Pool's company, was
+a coterie of students and young barristers, who used to meet
+periodically for congenial conversation and debate. "There is seldom a
+time," says Roger North, speaking of this coterie, "but in every Inn of
+Court there is a studious, sober company that are select to each other,
+and keep company at meals and refreshments. Such a company did Mr. Pool
+find out, whereof Sergeant Wild was one, and every one of them proved
+eminent, and most of them are now preferred in the law; and Mr. Pool, at
+the latter end of his life, took such a pride in his company that he
+affected to furnish his chambers with their pictures." Amongst the
+benefits to be derived from such a club as that of which Mr. Pool was
+president, Roger North mentions "Aptness to speak;" adding: "for a man
+may be possessed of a book-case, and think he has it _ad unguem_
+throughout, and when he offers at it shall find himself at a loss, and
+his words will not be right and proper, or perhaps too many, and his
+expressions confused: _when he has once talked his case over, and, his
+company have tossed it a little to and fro, then he shall utter it more
+readily, with fewer words and much more force_."
+
+These words make it clear that Mr. Pool's 'company' was a select
+'law-debating society.' Far smaller as to number of members, something
+more festive in its arrangements, but not less bent on furthering the
+professional progress of its members, it was, some two hundred years
+since, all that the 'Hardwicke' and other similar associations are at
+the present.[29]
+
+To such fraternities--of which the Inns of Court had several in the last
+century--Murray and Thurlow, Law and Erskine had recourse: and besides
+attending strictly professional clubs, it was usual for the students, of
+their respective times, to practise elocution at the coffee-houses and
+public spouting-rooms of the town. Murray used to argue as well as
+'drink champagne' with the wits; Thurlow was the irrepressible talker of
+Nando's; Erskine used to carry his scarlet uniform from Lincoln's Inn
+Hall, to the smoke-laden atmosphere of Coachmakers' Hall, at which
+memorable 'discussion forum' Edward Law is known to have spoken in the
+presence of a closely packed assembly of politicians, idlers upon town,
+shop-men, and drunkards. Thither also Horne Tooke and Dunning used to
+adjourn after dining with Taffy Kenyon at the Chancery Lane
+eating-house, where the three friends were wont to stay their hunger for
+sevenpence halfpenny each. "Dunning and myself," Horne Tooke said
+boastfully, when he recalled these economical repasts, "were generous,
+for we gave the girl who waited on us a penny apiece; but Kenyon, who
+always knew the value of money, rewarded her with a halfpenny, and
+sometimes with a _promise_."
+
+Notwithstanding the recent revival of lectures and the institution of
+examinations, the actual course of the law-student has changed little
+since the author of the 'Pleader's Guide,' in 1706, described the career
+of John Surrebutter, Esq., Special Pleader and Barrister-at-Law. The
+labors of 'pupils in chambers, are thus noticed by Mr. Surrebutter:--
+
+   "And, better to improve your taste,
+   Are by your parents' fondness plac'd
+   Amongst the blest, the chosen few
+   (Blest, if their happiness they knew),
+   Who for three hundred guineas paid
+   To some great master of the trade,
+   Have at his rooms by _special_ favor
+   His leave to use their best endeavor,
+   By drawing pleas from nine till four,
+   To earn him twice three hundred more;
+   And after dinner may repair
+   To 'foresaid rooms, and then and there
+   Have 'foresaid leave from five till ten,
+   To draw th' aforesaid pleas again."
+
+Continuing to describe his professional career, Mr. Surrebutter mentions
+certain facts which show that so late as the close of last century
+professional etiquette did not forbid special pleaders and barristers to
+curry favor with solicitors and solicitors' clerks by attentions which
+would now-a-days be deemed reprehensible. He says:--
+
+   "Whoe'er has drawn a special plea
+   Has heard of old Tom Tewkesbury,
+   Deaf as a post, and thick as mustard,
+   He aim'd at wit, and bawl'd and bluster'd
+   And died a Nisi Prius leader--
+   That genius was my special pleader--
+   That great man's office I attended,
+   By Hawk and Buzzard recommended
+   Attorneys both of wondrous skill,
+   To pluck the goose and drive the quill.
+   Three years I sat his smoky room in,
+   Pens, paper, ink, and pounce consuming;
+   The fourth, when Epsom Day begun,
+   Joyful I hailed th' auspicious sun,
+   Bade Tewkesbury and Clerk adieu;
+   (Purification, eighty-two)
+   Of both I wash'd my hands; and though
+   With nothing for my cash to show,
+   But precedents so scrawl'd and blurr'd,
+   I scarce could read a single word,
+   Nor in my books of common-place
+   One feature, of the law could trace,
+   Save Buzzard's nose and visage thin,
+   And Hawk's deficiency of chin,
+   Which I while lolling at my ease
+   Was wont to draw instead of pleas.
+   My chambers I equipt complete,
+   Made friends, hired books, and gave to eat;
+   If haply to regale my friends on,
+   My mother sent a haunch of ven'son,
+   I most respectfully entreated
+   The choicest company to eat it;
+   _To wit_, old Buzzard, Hawk, and Crow;
+   _Item_, Tom Thornback, Shark, and Co.
+   Attorneys all as keen and staunch
+   As e'er devoured a client's haunch.
+   And did I not their clerks invite
+   To taste said ven'son hash'd at night?
+   For well I knew that hopeful fry
+   My rising merit would descry,
+   The same litigious course pursue,
+   And when to fish of prey they grew,
+   By love of food and contest led,
+   Would haunt the spot where once they fed.
+   Thus having with due circumspection
+   Formed my professional connexion,
+   My desks with precedents I strew'd,
+   Turned critic, danc'd, or penn'd an ode,
+   Suited the _ton_, became a free
+   And easy man of gallantry;
+   But if while capering at my glass,
+   Or toying with a favorite lass,
+   I heard the aforesaid Hawk a-coming,
+   Or Buzzard on the staircase humming,
+   At once the fair angelic maid
+   Into my coal-hole I convey'd;
+   At once with serious look profound,
+   Mine eyes commencing with the ground,
+   I seem'd like one estranged to sleep,
+   'And fixed in cogitation deep,'
+   Sat motionless, and in my hand I
+   Held my 'Doctrina Placitandi,'
+   And though I never read a page in't,
+   Thanks to that shrewd, well-judging agent,
+   My sister's husband, Mr. Shark,
+   Soon got six pupils and a clerk.
+   Five pupils were my stint, the other
+   I took to compliment his mother."
+
+Having fleeced pupils, and worked as a special pleader for a time, Mr.
+Surrebutter is called to the bar; after which ceremony his action
+towards 'the inferior branch' of the profession is not more dignified
+than it was whilst he practised as a Special Pleader.
+
+It appears that in Mr. Surrebutter's time (_circa_ 1780) it was usual
+for a student to spend three whole years in the same pleader's chambers,
+paying three hundred guineas for the course of study. Not many years
+passed before students saw it was not to their advantage to spend so
+long a period with the same instructor, and by the end of the century
+the industrious student who could command the fees wherewith to pay for
+such special tuition, usually spent a year or two in a pleader's
+chambers, and another year or two in the chambers of an equity
+draughtsman, or conveyancer. Lord Campbell, at the opening of the
+present century, spent three years in the chambers of the eminent
+Special Pleader, Mr. Tidd, of whose learning and generosity the
+biographer of the Chancellors makes cordial and grateful acknowledgment.
+Finding that Campbell could not afford to pay a second hundred guineas
+for a second year's instruction, Tidd not only offered him the run of
+his chambers without payment, but made the young Scotchman take back the
+£105 which he had paid for the first twelve months.
+
+In his later years Lord Campbell delighted to trace his legal pedigree
+to the great pleader and 'pupillizer' of the last century, Tom Warren.
+The chart ran thus: "Tom Warren had for pupil Sergeant Runnington, who
+instructed in the mysteries of special pleading the learned Tidd, who
+was the teacher of John Campbell." With honest pride and pleasant vanity
+the literary Chancellor maintained that he had given the genealogical
+tree another generation of forensic honor, as Solicitor General Dundas
+and Vaughan Williams, of the Common Pleas Bench, were his pupils.
+
+Though Campbell speaks of _Tom Warren_ as "the greater founder of the
+special pleading race," and maintains that "the voluntary discipline of
+the special pleader's office" was unknown before the middle of the last
+century, it is certain that the voluntary discipline of a legal
+instructor's office or chambers was an affair of frequent occurrence
+long before Warren's rise. Roger North, in his 'Discourse on the Study
+of the Laws,' makes no allusion to any such voluntary discipline as an
+ordinary feature of a law-student's career; but in his 'Life of Lord
+Keeper Guildford' he expressly informs us that he was a pupil in his
+brother's chambers. "His lordship," writes the biographer, "having taken
+that advanced post, and designing to benefit a relation (the Honorable
+Roger North), who was a student in the law, and kept him company, caused
+his clerk to put into his hands all his draughts, such as he himself had
+corrected, and after which conveyances had been engrossed, that, by a
+perusal of them, he might get some light into the formal skill of
+conveyancing. And that young gentleman instantly went to work, and first
+numbered the draughts, and then made an index of all the clauses,
+referring to that number and folio; so that, in this strict perusal and
+digestion of the various matters, he acquired, not only a formal style,
+but also apt precedents, and a competent notion of instruments of all
+kinds. And to this great condescension was owing that little progress he
+made, which afterwards served to prepare some matters for his lordship's
+own perusal and settlement." Here then is a case of a pupil in a
+barrister's chambers in Charles II.'s reign; and it is a case that
+suffers nothing from the fact that the teacher took no fee.
+
+In like manner, John Trevor (subsequently Master of the Rolls and
+Speaker of the Commons) about the same time was "bred a sort of clerk in
+old Arthur Trevor's chamber, an eminent and worthy professor of the law
+in the Inner Temple." On being asked what might be the name of the boy
+with such a hideous squint who sate at a clerk's desk in the outer room,
+Arthur Trevor answered, "A kinsman of mine that I have allowed to sit
+here, to learn the knavish part of the law." It must be observed that
+John Trevor was not a clerk, but merely a "sort of a clerk" in his
+kinsman's chamber.
+
+In the latter half of the seventeenth century, and in the earlier half
+of the eighteenth century, students who wished to learn the practice of
+the law usually entered the offices of attorneys in large practice. At
+that period, the division between the two branches of the profession was
+much less wide than it subsequently became; and no rule or maxim of
+professional etiquette forbade Inns-of-Court men to act as the
+subordinates of attorneys and solicitors. Thus Philip Yorke (Lord
+Hardwicke) in Queen Anne's reign acted as clerk in the office of Mr.
+Salkeld, an attorney residing in Brook Street, Holborn, whilst he kept
+his terms at the Temple; and nearly fifty years later, Ned Thurlow (Lord
+Thurlow), on leaving Cambridge, and taking up his residence in the
+Temple, became a pupil in the office of Mr. Chapman, a solicitor, whose
+place of business was in Lincoln's Inn. There is no doubt that it was
+customary for young men destined the bar thus to work in attorneys'
+offices; and they continued to do so without any sense of humiliation or
+thought of condescension, until the special pleaders superseded the
+attorneys as instructors.
+
+[29] The mention of 'the Hardwicke' brings a droll story to the writer's
+mind. Some few years since the members of that learned fraternity
+assembled at their customary plate of meeting--a large room in
+Anderton's Hotel, Fleet Street--to discuss a knotty point of law about
+anent Uses. The master of young men was strong; and amongst
+them--conspicuous for his advanced years, jovial visage, red nose, and
+air of perplexity--sate an old gentleman who was evidently a stranger to
+every lawyer present. Who was he? Who brought him? Was there any one in
+the room who knew him? Such were the whispers that floated about,
+concerning the portly old man, arrayed in blue coat and drab breeches
+and gaiters, who took his snuff in silence, and watched the proceedings
+with evident surprise and dissatisfaction. After listening to three
+speeches this antique, jolly stranger rose, and with much embarrassment
+addressed the chair. "Mr. President," he said--"excuse me; but may I
+ask,--is this 'The Convivial Rabbits?'" A roar of laughter followed this
+enquiry from a 'convivial rabbit,' who having mistaken the evening of
+the week, had wandered into the room in which his convivial
+fellow-clubsters had held a meeting on the previous evening. On
+receiving the President's assurance that the learned members of a
+law-debating society were not 'convivial rabbits,' the elderly stranger
+buttoned his blue coat and beat a speedy retreat.
+
+
+
+
+PART VIII.
+
+MIRTH.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+WIT OF LAWYERS.
+
+
+No lawyer has given better witticisms to the jest-books than Sir Thomas
+More. Like all legal wits, he enjoyed a pun, as Sir Thomas Manners, the
+mushroom Earl of Rutland discovered, when he winced under the cutting
+reproof of his insolence, conveyed in the translation of 'Honores mutant
+mores'--_Honors change manners_. But though he would condescend to play
+with words as a child plays with shells on a sea-beach, he could at will
+command the laughter of his readers without having recourse to mere
+verbal antics. He delighted in what may be termed humorous
+mystification. Entering Bruges at a time when his leaving had gained
+European notoriety, he was met by the challenge of a noisy fellow who
+proclaimed himself ready to dispute with the whole world--or any other
+man--"in omni scibili et de quolibet ente." Accepting the invitation,
+and entering the lists in the presence of all the scholastic magnates of
+Bruges, More gravely inquired, "An averia carucæ capta in vetitonamio
+sint irreplegibilia?" Not versed in the principles and terminology of
+the common law of England, the challenger could only stammer and
+blush--whilst More's eye twinkled maliciously, and his auditors were
+convulsed with laughter.
+
+Much of his humor was of the sort that is ordinarily called _quiet_
+humor, because its effect does not pass off in shouts of merriment. Of
+this kind of pleasantry he gave the Lieutenant of the Tower a specimen,
+when he said, with as much courtesy as irony, "Assure yourself I do not
+dislike my cheer; but whenever I do, then spare not to thrust me out of
+your doors!" Of the same sort were the pleasantries with which, on the
+morning of his execution, he with fine consideration for others strove
+to divert attention from the cruelty of his doom. "I see no danger," he
+observed, with a smile, to his friend Sir Thomas Pope, shaking his
+water-bottle as he spoke, "but that this man may live longer if it
+please the king." Finding in the craziness of the scaffold a good
+pretext for leaning in friendly fashion on his gaoler's arm, he extended
+his hand to Sir William Kingston, saying, "Master Lieutenant, I pray you
+see me safe up; for my coming down let me shift for myself." Even to the
+headsman he gave a gentle pleasantry and a smile from the block itself,
+as he put aside his beard so that the keen blade should not touch it.
+"Wait, my good friend, till I have removed my beard," he said, turning
+his eyes upwards to the official, "for it has never offended his
+highness."
+
+His wit was not less ready than brilliant, and on one occasion its
+readiness saved him from a sudden and horrible death. Sitting on the
+roof of his high gate-house at Chelsea, he was enjoying the beauties of
+the Thames and the sunny richness of the landscape, when his solitude
+was broken by the unlooked-for arrival of a wandering maniac. Wearing
+the horn and badge of a Bedlamite, the unfortunate creature showed the
+signs of his malady in his equipment as well as his countenance. Having
+cast his eye downwards from the parapet to the foot of the tower, he
+conceived a mad desire to hurl the Chancellor from the flat roof. "Leap,
+Tom! leap!" screamed the athletic fellow, laying a firm hand on More's
+shoulder. Fixing his attention with a steady look, More said, coolly,
+"Let us first throw my little dog down, and see what sport that will
+be." In a trice the dog was thrown into the air. "Good!" said More,
+feigning delight at the experiment: "now run down, fetch the dog, and
+we'll throw him off again." Obeying the command, the dangerous intruder
+left More free to secure himself by a bar, and to summon assistance with
+his voice.
+
+For a good end this wise and mirth-loving lawyer would play the part of
+a practical joker; and it is recorded that by a jest of the practical
+sort he gave a wholesome lesson to an old civic magistrate, who, at the
+Sessions of the Old Bailey, was continually telling the victims of
+cut-purses that they had only themselves to thank for their losses--that
+purses would never be cut if their wearers took proper care to retain
+them in their possession. These orations always terminated with, "I
+never lose _my_ purse; cut-purses never take _my_ purse; no, i'faith,
+because I take proper care of it." To teach his worship wisdom, and cure
+him of his self-sufficiency, More engaged a cut-purse to relieve the
+magistrate of his money-bag whilst he sat upon the bench. A story is
+recorded of another Old Bailey judge who became the victim of a thief
+under very ridiculous circumstances. Whilst he was presiding at the
+trial of a thief in the Old Bailey, Sir John Sylvester, Recorder of
+London, said incidentally that he had left his watch at home. The trial
+ended in an acquittal, the prisoner had no sooner gained his liberty
+than he hastened to the recorder's house, and sent in word to Lady
+Sylvester that he was a constable and had been sent from the Old Bailey
+to fetch her husband's watch. When the recorder returned home and found
+he had lost his watch, it is to be feared that Lady Sylvester lost her
+usual equanimity. _Apropos_ of these stories Lord Campbell tells--how,
+at the opening period of his professional career, soon after the
+publication of his 'Nisi Prius Reports,' he on circuit successfully
+defended a prisoner charged with a criminal offence; and how, whilst the
+success of his advocacy was still quickening his pulses, he discovered
+that his late client, with whom he held a confidential conversation, had
+contrived to relieve him of his pocket-book, full of bank-notes. As soon
+as the presiding judge, Lord Chief Baron Macdonald, heard of the mishap
+of the reporting barrister, he exclaimed, "What! does Mr. Campbell think
+that no one is entitled to _take notes_ in court except himself?"
+
+By the urbane placidity which marked the utterance of his happiest
+speeches, Sir Nicholas Bacon often recalled to his hearers the courteous
+easiness of More's _repartees_. Keeping his own pace in society, as well
+as in the Court of Chancery, neither satire nor importunity could ruffle
+or confuse him. When Elizabeth, looking disdainfully at his modest
+country mansion, told him that the place was too small, he answered with
+the flattery of gratitude, "Not so, madam, your highness has made me too
+great for my house." Leicester having suddenly asked him his opinion of
+two aspirants for court favor, he responded on the spur of the moment,
+"By my troth, my lord, the one is a grave councillor: the other is a
+proper young man, and so he will be as long as he lives." To the queen,
+who pressed him for his sentiments respecting the effect of
+monopolies--a delicate question for a subject to speak his mind
+upon--he answered, with conciliatory lightness, "Madam, will you have me
+speak the truth? _Licentiâ_ omnes deteriores sumus." In court he used to
+say, "Let us stay a little, that we may have done the sooner." But
+notwithstanding his deliberation and the stutter that hindered his
+utterances, he could be quicker than the quickest, and sharper than the
+most acrid, as the loquacious barrister discovered who was suddenly
+checked in a course of pert talkativeness by this tart remark from the
+stammering Lord Keeper: "There is a difference between you and me,--for
+me it is a pain to s-speak, for you a pain to hold your tongue." That
+the familiar story of his fatal attack of cold is altogether true one
+cannot well believe, for it seems highly improbable that the Lord
+Keeper, in his seventieth year, would have sat down to be shaved near an
+open window in the month of February. But though the anecdote may not be
+historically exact, it may be accepted as a faithful portraiture of his
+more stately and severely courteous humor. "Why did you suffer me to
+sleep thus exposed?" asked the Lord Keeper, waking in a fit of shivering
+from slumber into which his servant had allowed him to drop, as he sat
+to be shaved in a place where there was a sharp current of air. "Sir, I
+durst not disturb you," answered the punctilious valet, with a lowly
+obeisance. Having eyed him for a few seconds, Sir Nicholas rose and
+said, "By your civility I lose my life." Whereupon the Lord Keeper
+retired to the bed from which he never rose.
+
+Amongst Elizabethan Judges who aimed at sprightliness on the Bench,
+Hatton merits a place; but there is reason to think that the idlers, who
+crowded his court to admire the foppishness of his judicial costume, did
+not get one really good _mot_ from his lips to every ten bright sayings
+that came from the clever barristers practising before him. One of the
+best things attributed to him is a pun. In a case concerning the limits
+of certain land, the counsel on one side having remarked with
+explanatory emphasis, "We lie on this side, my Lord;" and the counsel on
+the other side having interposed with equal vehemence, "We lie on this
+side, my Lord,"--the Lord Chancellor leaned backwards, and dryly
+observed, "If you lie on both sides, whom am I to believe?" In
+Elizabethan England the pun was as great a power in the jocularity of
+the law-courts as it is at present; the few surviving witticisms that
+are supposed to exemplify Egerton's lighter mood on the bench, being for
+the most part feeble attempts at punning. For instance, when he was
+asked, during his tenure of the Mastership of the Rolls, to _commit_ a
+cause, _i.e._, to refer it to a Master in Chancery, he used to answer,
+"What has the cause done that it should be committed?" It is also
+recorded of him that, when he was asked for his signature to a petition
+of which he disapproved, he would tear it in pieces with both hands,
+saying, "You want my hand to this? You shall have it; aye, and both my
+hands, too."
+
+Of Egerton's student days a story is extant, which has merits,
+independent of its truth or want of truth. The hostess of a Smithfield
+tavern had received a sum of money from three graziers, in trust for
+them, and on engagement to restore it to them on their joint demand.
+Soon after this transfer, one of the co-depositors, fraudulently
+representing himself to be acting as the agent of the other two, induced
+the old lady to give him possession of the whole of the money--and
+thereupon absconded. Forthwith the other two depositors brought an
+action against the landlady, and were on the point of gaining a decision
+in their favor, when young Egerton, who had been taking notes of the
+trial, rose as _amicus curiæ_, and argued, "This money, by the contract,
+was to be returned to _three_, but _two_ only sue;--where is the
+_third_? let him appear with the others; till then the money cannot be
+demanded from her." Nonsuit for the plaintiffs--for the young student a
+hum of commendation.
+
+Many of the pungent sayings current in Westminster Hall at the present
+time, and attributed to eminent advocates who either are still upon the
+forensic stage, or have recently withdrawn from it, were common jests
+amongst the lawyers of the seventeenth century. What law-student now
+eating dinners at the Temple has not heard the story of Sergeant
+Wilkins, who, on drinking a pot of stout in the middle of the day,
+explained that, as he was about to appear in court, he thought it right
+to fuddle his brain down to the intellectual standard of a British jury.
+This merry thought, two hundred and fifty years since, was currently
+attributed to Sir John Millicent, of Cambridgeshire, of whom it is
+recorded--"being asked how he did conforme himselfe to the grave
+justices his brothers, when they met, 'Why, in faithe,' sayes he, 'I
+have no way but to drinke myself downe to the capacitie of the Bench.'"
+
+Another witticism, currently attributed to various recent celebrities,
+but usually fathered upon Richard Brinsley Sheridan--on whose reputation
+have been heaped the brilliant _mots_ of many a speaker whom he never
+heard, and the indiscretions of many a sinner whom he never knew--is
+certainly as old as Shaftesbury's bright and unprincipled career. When
+Charles II. exclaimed, "Shaftesbury, you are the most profligate man in
+my dominions," the reckless Chancellor answered, "Of a subject, sir, I
+believe I am." It is likely enough that Shaftesbury merely repeated the
+witticism of a previous courtier; but it is certain that Sheridan was
+not the first to strike out the pun.
+
+In this place let a contradiction be given to a baseless story, which
+exalts Sir William Follett's reputation for intellectual readiness and
+argumentative ability. The story runs, that early in the January of
+1845, whilst George Stephenson, Dean Buckland, and Sir William Follett
+were Sir Robert Peel's guests at Drayton Manor, Dean Buckland vanquished
+the engineer in a discussion on a geological question. The next morning,
+George Stephenson was walking in the gardens of Drayton Manor before
+breakfast, when Sir William Follett accosted him, and sitting down in an
+arbor asked for the facts of the argument. Having quickly 'picked up the
+case,' the lawyer joined Sir Robert Peel's guests at breakfast, and
+amused them by leading the dean back to the dispute of the previous day,
+and overthrowing his fallacies by a skilful use of the same arguments
+which the self-taught engineer had employed with such ill effect. "What
+do you say, Mr. Stephenson?" asked Sir Robert Peel, enjoying the dean's
+discomfiture. "Why," returned George Stephenson, "I only say this, that
+of all the powers above and under earth, there seems to me no power so
+great as the gift of the gab." This is the story. But there are facts
+which contradict it. The only visit paid by George Stephenson to Drayton
+Manor was made in the December of 1844, not the January of 1845. The
+guests (invited for Dec. 14, 1844), were Lord Talbot, Lord Aylesford,
+the Bishop of Lichfield, Dr. Buckland, Dr. Lyon Playfair, Professor
+Owen, George Stephenson, Mr. Smith of Deanston, and Professor
+Wheatstone. Sir William Follett was not of the party, and did not set
+foot within Drayton Manor during George Stephenson's visit there. Of
+this, Professor Wheatstone (who furnished the present writer with these
+particulars), is certain. Moreover, it is not to be believed that Sir
+William Follett, an overworked invalid (who died in the June of 1845 of
+the pulmonary disease under which he had suffered for years), would sit
+in an arbor before breakfast on a winter's morning to hold debate with
+a companion on any subject. The story is a revival of an anecdote first
+told long before George Stephenson was born.
+
+In lists of legal _facetiæ_ the habit of punning is not more noticeable
+than the prevalent unamiability of the jests. Advocates are intellectual
+gladiators, using their tongues as soldiers of fortune use their swords;
+and when they speak, it is to vanquish an adversary. Antagonism is an
+unavoidable condition of their existence; and this incessant warfare
+gives a merciless asperity to their language, even when it does not
+infuse their hearts with bitterness. Duty enjoins the barrister to leave
+no word unsaid that can help his client, and encourages him to perplex
+by satire, baffle by ridicule, or silence by sarcasm, all who may oppose
+him with statements that cannot be disproved, or arguments that cannot
+be upset by reason. That which duty bids him do, practice enables him to
+do with terrible precision and completeness; and in many a case the
+caustic tone, assumed at the outset as a professional weapon, becomes
+habitual, and, without the speaker's knowledge, gives more pain within
+his home than in Westminster Hall.
+
+Some of the well-known witticisms attributed to great lawyers are so
+brutally personal and malignant, that no man possessing any respect for
+human nature can read them without endeavoring to regard them as mere
+biographic fabrications. It is recorded of Charles Yorke that, after his
+election to serve as member for the University of Cambridge, he, in
+accordance with etiquette, made a round of calls on members of senate,
+giving them personal thanks for their votes; and that on coming to the
+presence of a supporter--an old 'fellow' known as the ugliest man in
+Cambridge--he addressed him thus, after smiling 'an aside' to a knot of
+bystanders--"Sir, I have reason to be thankful to my friends in
+general; but I confess myself under particular obligation to you for
+the very _remarkable countenance_ you have shown me on this occasion."
+There is no doubt that Charles Yorke could make himself unendurably
+offensive; it is just credible that without a thought of their double
+meaning he uttered the words attributed to him; but it is not to be
+believed that he--an English gentleman--thus intentionally insulted a
+man who had rendered him a service.
+
+A story far less offensive than the preceding anecdote, but in one point
+similar to it, is told of Judge Fortescue-Aland (subsequently Lord
+Fortescue), and a counsel. Sir John Fortescue-Aland was disfigured by a
+nose which was purple, and hideously misshapen by morbid growth. Having
+checked a ready counsel with the needlessly harsh observation, "Brother,
+brother, you are handling the case in a very lame manner," the angry
+advocate gave vent to his annoyance by saying, with a perfect appearance
+of _sang-froid_, "Pardon me, my lord; have patience with me, and I will
+do my best to make the case as plain as--as--the nose on your lordship's
+face." In this case the personality was uttered in hot blood, by a man
+who deemed himself to be striking the enemy of his professional
+reputation.
+
+If they were not supported by incontrovertible testimony, the admirers
+of the great Sir Edward Coke would reject as spurious many of the
+overbearing rejoinders which escaped his lips in courts of justice. His
+tone in his memorable altercation with Bacon at the bar of the Court of
+Exchequer speaks ill for the courtesy of English advocates in
+Elizabeth's reign; and to any student who can appreciate the dignified
+formality and punctilious politeness that characterized English
+gentlemen in the old time, it is matter of perplexity how a man of
+Coke's learning, capacity, and standing, could have marked his contempt
+for 'Cowells Interpreter,' by designating the author in open court Dr.
+Cowheel. Scarcely in better taste were the coarse personalities with
+which, as Attorney General, he deluged Garnet the Jesuit, whom he
+described as "a Doctor of Jesuits; that is, a Doctor of six D's--as
+Dissimulation, Deposing of princes, Disposing of kingdoms, Daunting and
+Deterring of Subjects, and Destruction."
+
+In comparatively recent times few judges surpassed Thurlow in
+overbearing insolence to the bar. To a few favorites, such as John Scott
+and Kenyon, he could be consistently indulgent, although even to them
+his patronage was often disagreeably contemptuous; but to those who
+provoked his displeasure by a perfectly independent and fearless bearing
+he was a malignant persecutor. For instance, in his animosity to Richard
+Pepper Arden (Lord Alvanley), he often forgot his duty as a judge and
+his manners as a gentleman. John Scott, on one occasion, rising in the
+Court of Chancery to address the court after Arden, who was his leader
+in the cause, and had made an unusually able speech, Lord Thurlow had
+the indecency to say, "Mr. Scott, I am glad to find that you are engaged
+in the cause, for I now stand some chance of knowing something about the
+matter." To the Chancellor's habitual incivility and insolence it is
+allowed that Arden always responded with dignity and self-command,
+humiliating his powerful and ungenerous adversary by invariable
+good-breeding. Once, through inadvertence, he showed disrespect to the
+surly Chancellor, and then he instantly gave utterance to a cordial
+apology, which Thurlow was not generous enough to accept with
+appropriate courtesy. In the excitement of professional altercation with
+counsel respecting the ages of certain persons concerned in a suit, he
+committed the indecorum of saying aloud, "I'll lay you a bottle of
+wine." Ever on the alert to catch his enemy tripping, Thurlow's eye
+brightened as his ear caught the careless words; and in another instant
+he assumed a look of indignant disgust. But before the irate judge could
+speak, Arden exclaimed, "My lord, I beg your lordship's pardon; I really
+forgot where I was." Had Thurlow bowed a grave acceptance of the
+apology, Arden would have suffered somewhat from the misadventure; but
+unable to keep his abusive tongue quiet, the 'Great Bear' growled out,
+in allusion to the offender's Welsh judgeship, "You thought you were in
+your own court, I presume."
+
+More laughable, but not more courteous, was the same Chancellor's speech
+to a solicitor who had made a series of statements in a vain endeavor to
+convince his lordship of a certain person's death. "Really, my lord," at
+last the solicitor exclaimed, goaded into a fury by Thurlow's repeated
+ejaculations of "That's no proof of the man's death;" "Really, my lord,
+it is very hard, and it is not right that you won't believe me. I saw
+the man dead in his coffin. My lord, I tell you he was my client, and he
+is dead." "No wonder," retorted Thurlow, with a grunt and a sneer,
+"_since he was your client_. Why did you not tell me that sooner? It
+would kill me to have such a fellow as you for my attorney." That this
+great lawyer could thus address a respectable gentleman is less
+astonishing when it is remembered, that he once horrified a party of
+aristocratic visitors at a country-house by replying to a lady who
+pressed him to take some grapes, "Grapes, madam, grapes! Did not I say a
+minute ago that I had the _gripes_!" Once this ungentle lawyer was
+fairly worsted in a verbal conflict by an Irish pavier. On crossing the
+threshold of his Ormond Street house one morning, the Chancellor was
+incensed at seeing a load of paving-stones placed before his door.
+Singling out the tallest of a score of Irish workmen who were repairing
+the thoroughfare, he poured upon him one of those torrents of curses
+with which his most insolent speeches were usually preluded, and then
+told the man to move the stones away instantly. "Where shall I take them
+to, your honor?" the pavier inquired. From the Chancellor another volley
+of blasphemous abuse, ending with, "You lousy scoundrel, take them to
+hell!--do you hear me?" "Have a care, your honor," answered the workman,
+with quiet drollery, "don't you think now that if I took 'em to the
+other place your honor would be less likely to fall over them?"
+
+Thurlow's incivility to the solicitor reminds us of the cruel answer
+given by another great lawyer to a country attorney, who, through fussy
+anxiety for a client's interests, committed a grave breach of
+professional etiquette. Let this attorney be called Mr. Smith, and let
+it be known that Mr. Smith, having come up to London from a secluded
+district of a remote country, was present at a consultation of
+counsellors learned in the law upon his client's cause. At this
+interview, the leading counsel in the cause, the Attorney General of the
+time, was present and delivered his final opinion with characteristic
+clearness and precision. The consultation over, the country attorney
+retreated to the Hummums Hotel, Covent Garden, and, instead of sleeping
+over the statements made at the conference, passed a wretched and
+wakeful night, harassed by distressing fears, and agitated by a
+conviction that the Attorney General had overlooked the most important
+point of the case. Early next day, Mr. Smith, without appointment, was
+at the great counsellor's chambers, and by vehement importunity, as well
+as a liberal donation to the clerk, succeeded in forcing his way to the
+advocate's presence. "Well, Mis-ter Smith," observed the Attorney
+General to his visitor, turning away from one of his devilling juniors,
+who chanced to be closeted with him at the moment of the intrusion,
+"what may you want to say? Be quick, for I am pressed for time."
+Notwithstanding the urgency of his engagements, he spoke with a slowness
+which, no less than the suspicious rattle of his voice, indicated the
+fervor of displeasure. "Sir Causticus Witherett, I trust you will excuse
+my troubling you; but, sir, after our yesterday's interview, I went to
+my hotel, the Hummums, in Covent Garden, and have spent the evening and
+all night turning over my client's case in my mind, and the more I turn
+the matter over in my mind, the more reason I see to fear that you have
+not given one point due consideration." A pause, during which Sir
+Causticus steadily eyed his visitor, who began to feel strangely
+embarrassed under the searching scrutiny: and then--"State the point,
+Mis-ter Smith, but be brief." Having heard the point stated, Sir
+Causticus Witherett inquired, "Is that all you wish to say?" "All,
+sir--all," replied Mr. Smith; adding nervously, "And I trust you will
+excuse me for troubling you about the matter; but, sir, I could not
+sleep a wink last night; all through the night I was turning this matter
+over in my mind." A glimpse of silence. Sir Causticus rose and standing
+over his victim made his final speech--"Mis-ter Smith, if you take my
+advice, given with sincere commiseration for your state, you will
+without delay return to the tranquil village in which you habitually
+reside. In the quietude of your accustomed scenes you will have leisure
+to _turn this matter over in what you are pleased to call your mind_.
+And I am willing to hope that _your mind_ will recover its usual
+serenity. Mr. Smith, I wish you a very good morning."
+
+Legal biography abounds with ghastly stories that illustrate the
+insensibility with which the hanging judges in past generations used to
+don the black cap jauntily, and smile at the wretched beings whom they
+sentenced to death. Perhaps of all such anecdotes the most thoroughly
+sickening is that which describes the conduct of Jeffreys, when, as
+Recorder of London, he passed sentence of death on his old and familiar
+friend, Richard Langhorn, the Catholic barrister--one of the victims of
+the Popish Plot phrensy. It is recorded that Jeffreys, not content with
+consigning his friend to a traitor's doom, malignantly reminded him of
+their former intercourse, and with devilish ridicule admonished him to
+prepare his soul for the next world. The authority which gives us this
+story adds, that by thus insulting a wretched gentleman and personal
+associate, Jeffreys, instead of rousing the disgust of his auditors,
+elicited their enthusiastic applause.
+
+In a note to a passage in one of the Waverley Novels, Scott tells a
+story of an old Scotch judge, who, as an enthusiastic chess-player, was
+much mortified by the success of an ancient friend, who invariably beat
+him when they tried their powers at the beloved game. After a time the
+humiliated chess-player had his day of triumph. His conqueror happened
+to commit murder, and it became the judge's not altogether painful duty
+to pass upon him the sentence of the law. Having in due form and with
+suitable solemnity commended his soul to the divine mercy, he, after a
+brief pause, assumed his ordinary colloquial tone of voice, and nodding
+humorously to his old friend, observed--"And noo, Jammie, I think ye'll
+alloo that I hae checkmated you for ance."
+
+Of all the bloodthirsty wearers of the ermine, no one, since the opening
+of the eighteenth century, has fared worse than Sir Francis Page--the
+virulence of whose tongue and the cruelty of whose nature were marks for
+successive satirists. In one of his Imitations of Horace, Pope says--
+
+   "Slanderer, poison dread from Delia's rage,
+   Hard words or hanging, if your judge be Page."
+
+In the same spirit the poet penned the lines of the 'Dunciad'--
+
+   "Mortality, by her false guardians drawn,
+   Chicane in furs, and Casuistry in lawn,
+   Gasps, as they straighten at each end the cord,
+   And dies, when Dulness gives her----the Sword."
+
+Powerless to feign insensibility to the blow, Sir Francis openly fitted
+this _black_ cap to his dishonored head by sending his clerk to
+expostulate with the poet. The ill-chosen ambassador performed his
+mission by showing that, in Sir Francis's opinion, the whole passage
+would be sheer nonsense, unless 'Page' were inserted in the vacant
+place. Johnson and Savage took vengeance on the judge for the judicial
+misconduct which branded the latter poet a murderer; and Fielding, in
+'Tom Jones,' illustrating by a current story the offensive levity of the
+judge's demeanor at capital trials, makes him thus retort on a
+horse-stealer: "Ay! thou art a lucky fellow; I have traveled the circuit
+these forty years, and never found a horse in my life; but I'll tell
+thee what, friend, thou wast more lucky than thou didst know of; for
+thou didst not only find a horse, but a halter too, I promise thee."
+This scandal to his professional order was permitted to insult the
+humane sentiments of the nation for a long period. Born in 1661, he died
+in 1741, whilst he was still occupying a judicial place; and it is said
+of him, that in his last year he pointed the ignominious story of his
+existence by a speech that soon ran the round of the courts. In answer
+to an inquiry for his health, the octogenarian judge observed, "My dear
+sir--you see how it fares with me; I just manage to keep _hanging on,
+hanging on_." This story is ordinarily told as though the old man did
+not see the unfavorable significance of his words; but it is probable
+that, he uttered them wittingly and with, a sneer--in the cynicism and
+shamelessness of old age.
+
+A man of finer stuff and of various merits, but still famous as a
+'hanging judge,' was Sir Francis Buller, who also made himself odious to
+the gentler sex by maintaining that husbands might flog their wives, if
+the chastisement were administered with a stick not thicker than the
+operator's thumb. But the severity to criminals, which gave him a place
+amongst hanging judges, was not a consequence of natural cruelty.
+Inability to devise a satisfactory system of secondary punishments, and
+a genuine conviction that ninety-nine out of every hundred culprits were
+incorrigible, caused him to maintain that the gallows-tree was the most
+efficacious as well as the cheapest instrument that could be invented
+for protecting society against malefactors. Another of his stern _dicta_
+was, that previous good character was a reason for increasing rather
+than a reason for lessening a culprit's punishment; "For," he argued,
+"the longer a prisoner has enjoyed the good opinion of the world, the
+less are the excuses for his misdeeds, and the more injurious is his
+conduct to public morality."
+
+In contrast to these odious stories of hanging judges are some anecdotes
+of great men, who abhorred the atrocities of our penal system, long
+before the worst of them were swept away by reform. Lord Mansfield has
+never been credited with lively sensibilities, but his humanity was so
+shocked by the bare thought of killing a man for committing a trifling
+theft, that he on one occasion ordered a jury to find that a stolen
+trinket was of less value than forty shillings--in order that the thief
+might escape the capital sentence. The prosecutor, a dealer in jewelry,
+was so mortified by the judge's leniency, that he exclaimed, "What, my
+lord, my golden trinket not worth forty shillings? Why, the fashion
+alone cost me twice the money!" Removing his glance from the vindictive
+tradesman, Lord Mansfield turned towards the jury, and said, with solemn
+gravity, "As we stand in need of God's mercy, gentlemen, let us not hang
+a man for fashion's sake."
+
+Tenderness of heart was even less notable in Kenyon than in Murray; but
+Lord Mansfield's successor was at least on one occasion stirred by
+apathetic consequence of the bloody law against persons found guilty of
+trivial theft. On the Home Circuit, having passed sentence of death on a
+poor woman who had stolen property to the value of forty shillings in a
+dwelling-house, Lord Kenyon saw the prisoner drop lifeless in the dock,
+just as he ceased to speak. Instantly the Chief Justice sprang to his
+feet, and screamed in a shrill tone, "I don't mean to hang you--do you
+hear!--don't you hear?--Good----will nobody tell her that I don't mean
+to hang her?"
+
+One of the humorous aspects of a repulsive subject is seen in the
+curiosity and fastidiousness of prisoners on trial for capital offences
+with regard to the professional _status_ of the judges who try them. A
+sheep-stealer of the old bloody days liked that sentence should be
+passed upon him by a Chief Justice; and in our own time murderers
+awaiting execution, sometimes grumble at the unfairness of their trials,
+because they have been tried by judges of inferior degree. Lord Campbell
+mentions the case of a sergeant, who, whilst acting as Chief Justice
+Abbott's deputy, on the Oxford circuit, was reminded that he was 'merely
+a temporary' by the prisoner in the dock. Being asked in the usual way
+if he had aught to say why sentence of death should not be passed upon
+him, the prisoner answered--"_Yes; I have been tried before a journeyman
+judge._"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+HUMOROUS STORIES.
+
+
+Alike commendable for its subtlety and inoffensive humor was the
+pleasantry with which young Philip Yorke (afterwards Lord Hardwicke),
+answered Sir Lyttleton Powys's banter on the Western Circuit. An amiable
+and upright, but far from brilliant judge, Sir Lyttleton had a few pet
+phrases---amongst them, "I humbly conceive," and "Look, do you
+see"--which he sprinkled over his judgments and colloquial talk with
+ridiculous profuseness. Surprised at Yorke's sudden rise into lucrative
+practice, this most gentlemanlike worthy was pleased to account for the
+unusual success by maintaining that young Mr. Yorke must have written a
+law-book, which had brought him early into favor with the inferior
+branch of the profession. "Mr. Yorke," said the venerable justice,
+whilst the barristers were sitting over their wine at a 'judges'
+dinner,' "I cannot well account for your having so much business,
+considering how short a time you have been at the bar: I humbly conceive
+you must have published something; for look you, do you see, there is
+scarcely a cause in court but you are employed in it on one side or the
+other. I should therefore be glad to know, Mr. Yorke, do you see,
+whether this be the case." Playfully denying that he possessed any
+celebrity as a writer on legal matters, Yorke, with an assumption of
+candor, admitted that he had some thoughts of lightening the labors of
+law-students by turning Coke upon Littleton into verse. Indeed, he
+confessed that he had already begun the work of versification. Not
+seeing the nature of the reply, Sir Lyttleton Powys treated the droll
+fancy as a serious project, and insisted that the author should give a
+specimen of the style of his contemplated work. Whereupon the young
+barrister--not pausing to remind a company of lawyers of the words of
+the original. "Tenant in fee simple is he which hath lands or tenements
+to hold to him and his heirs for ever"--recited the lines--
+
+   "He that holdeth his lands in fee
+     Need neither to quake nor quiver,
+   _I humbly conceive: for look, do you see_
+     They are his and his heirs' forever."
+
+The mimicry of voice being not less perfect than the verbal imitation,
+Yorke's hearers were convulsed with laughter, but so unconscious was Sir
+Lyttleton of the ridicule which he had incurred, that on subsequently
+encountering Yorke in London, he asked how "that translation of Coke
+upon Littleton was getting on." Sir Lyttleton died in 1732, and exactly
+ten years afterwards appeared the first edition of 'The Reports of Sir
+Edward Coke, Knt., in Verse'--a work which its author may have been
+inspired to undertake by Philip Yorke's proposal to versify 'Coke on
+Littleton.'
+
+Had Yorke's project been carried out, lawyers would have a large supply
+of that comic but sound literature of which Sir James Burrow's Reports
+contain a specimen in the following poetical version of Chief Justice
+Pratt's memorable decision with regard to a woman of English birth, who
+was the widow of a foreigner:
+
+   "A woman having settlement
+     Married a man with none,
+   The question was, he being dead,
+     If what she had was gone.
+
+   "Quoth Sir John Pratt, 'The settlement
+     Suspended did remain,
+   Living the husband; but him dead
+     It doth revive again.'
+
+   (_Chorus of Puisne Judges._)
+
+   "Living the husband; but him dead
+     It doth revive again."
+
+Chief Justice Pratt's decision on this point having been reversed by his
+successor, Chief Justice Ryder's judgment was thus reported:
+
+   "A woman having a settlement,
+     Married a man with none,
+   He flies and leaves her destitute;
+     What then is to be done?
+
+   "Quoth Ryder, the Chief Justice,
+     'In spite of Sir John Pratt,
+   You'll send her to the parish
+     In which she was a brat.
+
+   "'_Suspension of a settlement_
+     Is not to be maintained;
+   That which she had by birth subsists
+     Until another's gained.'
+
+   (_Chorus of Puisne Judges._)
+
+   "That which she had by birth subsists
+     Until another's gained."
+
+In the early months of his married life, whilst playing the part of an
+Oxford don, Lord Eldon was required to decide in an important action
+brought by two undergraduates against the cook of University College.
+The plaintiffs declared that the cook had "sent to their rooms an
+apple-pie _that could not be eaten_." The defendant pleaded that he had
+a remarkably fine fillet of veal in the kitchen. Having set aside this
+plea on grounds obvious to the legal mind, and not otherwise then
+manifest to unlearned laymen, Mr. John Scott ordered the apple-pie to be
+brought in court; but the messenger, dispatched to do the judge's
+bidding, returned with the astounding intelligence that during the
+progress of the litigation a party of undergraduates had actually
+devoured the pie--fruit and crust. Nothing but the pan was left.
+Judgment: "The charge here is, that the cook has sent up an apple-pie
+that cannot be eaten. Now that cannot be said to have been uneatable
+which has been eaten; and as this apple-pie has been eaten, it was
+eatable. Let the cook be absolved."
+
+But of all the judicial decisions on record, none was delivered with
+more comical effect than Lord Loughborough's decision not to hear a
+cause brought on a wager about a point in the game of 'Hazard.' A
+constant frequenter of Brookes's and White's, Lord Loughborough was well
+known by men of fashion to be fairly versed in the mysteries of
+gambling, though no evidence has ever been found in support of the
+charge that he was an habitual dicer. That he ever lost much by play is
+improbable; but the scandal-mongers of Westminster had some plausible
+reasons for laughing at the virtuous indignation of the spotless
+Alexander Wedderburn, who, whilst sitting at _Nisi Prius_, exclaimed,
+"Do not swear the jury in this case, but let it be struck out of the
+paper. I will not try it. The administration of justice is insulted by
+the proposal that I should try it. To my astonishment I find that the
+action is brought on a wager as to the mode of playing an illegal,
+disreputable, and mischievous game called 'Hazard;' whether, allowing
+seven to be the main, and eleven to be a nick to seven, there are more
+ways than six of nicking seven on the dice? Courts of justice are
+constituted to try rights and redress injuries, not to solve the
+problems of the gamesters. The gentlemen of the jury and I may have
+heard of 'Hazard' as a mode of dicing by which sharpers live, and young
+men of family and fortune are ruined; but what do any of us know of
+'seven being the main,' or 'eleven being the nick to seven?' Do we come
+here to be instructed in this lore, and are the unusual crowds (drawn
+hither, I suppose, by the novelty of the expected entertainment) to take
+a lesson with us in these unholy mysteries, which they are to practice
+in the evening in the low gaming-houses in St. James Street, pithily
+called by a name which should inspire a salutary terror of entering
+them? Again, I say, let the cause be struck out of the paper. Move the
+court, if you please, that it may be restored, and if my brethren think
+that I do wrong in the course that I now take, I hope that one of them
+will officiate for me here, and save me from the degradation of trying
+'whether there be more than six ways of nicking seven on the dice,
+allowing seven to be the main and eleven to be a nick to seven'--a
+question, after all, admitting of no doubt, and capable of mathematical
+demonstration."
+
+With equal fervor Lord Kenyon inveighed against the pernicious usage of
+gambling, urging that the hells of St. James's should, be indicted as
+common nuisances. The 'legal monk,' as Lord Carlisle stigmatized him for
+his violent denunciations of an amusement countenanced by women of the
+highest fashion, even went so far as to exclaim--"If any such
+prosecutions are fairly brought before me, and the guilty parties are
+convicted, whatever may be their rank or station in the country, though
+they may be the first ladies in the land, they shall certainly exhibit
+themselves in the pillory."
+
+The same considerations, which decided Lord Loughborough not to try an
+action brought by a wager concerning chicken-hazard, made Lord
+Ellenborough decline to hear a cause where the plaintiff sought to
+recover money wagered on a cock-fight. "There is likewise," said Lord
+Ellenborough, "another principle on which I think an action on such
+wagers cannot be maintained. They tend to the degradation of courts of
+justice. It is impossible to be engaged in ludicrous inquiries of this
+sort consistently with that dignity which it is essential to the public
+welfare that a court of justice should always preserve. I will not try
+the plaintiff's right to recover the four guineas, which might involve
+questions on the weight of the cocks and the construction of their steel
+spurs."
+
+It has already been remarked that in all ages the wits of Westminster
+Hall have delighted in puns; and it may be here added, with the
+exception of some twenty happy verbal freaks, the puns of lawyers have
+not been remarkable for their excellence. L'Estrange records that when a
+stone was hurled by a convict from the dock at Charles I.'s Chief
+Justice Richardson, and passed just over the head of the judge, who
+happened to be sitting at ease and lolling on his elbow, the learned man
+smiled, and observed to those who congratulated him on his escape, "You
+see now, if I had been an _upright judge_ I had been slaine." Under
+George III. Joseph Jekyll[30] was at the same time the brightest wit and
+most shameless punster of Westminster Hall; and such pride did he take
+in his reputation as a punster, that after the fashion of the wits of an
+earlier period he was often at considerable pains to give a pun a
+well-wrought epigrammatic setting. Bored with the long-winded speech of
+a prosy sergeant, he wrote on a slip of paper, which was in due course
+passed along the barristers' benches in the court where he was
+sitting--
+
+   "The sergeants are a grateful race,
+     Their dress and language show it;
+   Their purple garments come from _Tyre_,
+     Their arguments go to it."
+
+When Garrow, by a more skilful than successful cross-examination, was
+endeavoring to lure a witness (an unmarried lady of advanced years) into
+an acknowledgment that payment of certain money in dispute had been
+tendered, Jekyll threw him this couplet--
+
+   "Garrow, forbear; that tough old jade
+   Will never prove a _tender maid_."
+
+So also, when Lord Eldon and Sir Arthur Pigott each made a stand in
+court for his favorite pronunciation of the word 'lien;' Lord Eldon
+calling the word _lion_ and Sir Arthur maintaining that it was to be
+pronounced like _lean_, Jekyll, with an allusion to the parsimonious
+arrangements of the Chancellor's kitchen, perpetrated the _jeu
+d'esprit_--
+
+   "Sir Arthur, Sir Arthur, why what do you mean
+   By saying the Chancellor's _lion_ is _lean_?
+   D'ye think that his kitchen's so bad as all that,
+   That nothing within it can ever get fat?"
+
+By this difference concerning the pronunciation of a word the present
+writer is reminded of an amicable contest that occurred in Westminster
+Hall between Lord Campbell and a Q.C. who is still in the front rank of
+court-advocates. In an action brought to recover for damages done to a
+carriage, the learned counsel repeatedly called, the vehicle in question
+a broug-ham, pronouncing both syllables of the word _brougham_.
+Whereupon, Lord Campbell with considerable pomposity observed, "_Broom_
+is the more usual pronunciation; a carriage of the kind you mean is
+generally and not incorrectly called a _broom_--that pronunciation is
+open to no grave objection, and it has the great advantage of saving the
+time consumed by uttering an extra syllable." Half an hour later in the
+same trial Lord Campbell, alluding to a decision given in a similar
+action, said, "In that case the carriage which had sustained injury was
+an _omnibus_----" "Pardon me, my lord," interposed the Queen's Counsel,
+with such promptitude that his lordship was startled into silence, "a
+carriage of the kind, to which you draw attention is usually termed
+'bus;' that pronunciation is open to no grave objection, and it has the
+great advantage of saving the time consumed by uttering two extra
+syllables." The interruption was followed by a roar of laughter, in
+which Lord Campbell joined more heartily than any one else.
+
+One of Jekyll's happy sayings was spoken at Exeter, when he defended
+several needlemen who were charged with raising a riot for the purpose
+of forcing the master-tailors to give higher wages. Whilst Jekyll was
+examining a witness as to the number of tailors present at the alleged
+riot, Lord Eldon--then Chief Justice of the Common Pleas--reminded him
+that three persons can make that which the law regards as a riot;
+whereupon the witty advocate answered, "Yes, my lord, Hale and Hawkins
+lay down the law as your lordship states it, and I rely on their
+authority; for if there must be three men to make a riot, the rioters
+being _tailors_, there must be nine times three present, and unless the
+prosecutor make out that there were twenty-seven joining in this breach
+of the peace, my clients are entitled to an acquittal." On Lord Eldon
+enquiring whether he relied on common-law or statute-law, the counsel
+for the defence answered firmly, "My lord, I rely on a well-known maxim,
+as old as Magna Charta, _Nine Tailors make a Man_." Finding themselves
+unable to reward a lawyer for so excellent a jest with an adverse
+verdict, the jury acquitted the prisoners. Towards the close of his
+career Eldon made a still better jest than this of Jekyll's concerning
+tailors. In 1829, when Lyndhurst was occupying the woolsack for the
+first time, and Eldon was longing to recover the seals, the latter
+presented a petition from the Tailors' Company at Glasgow against
+Catholic Belief.
+
+"What!" asked Lord Lyndhurst from the woolsack, in a low voice, "do the
+_tailors_ trouble themselves about such _measures_?" Whereto, with
+unaccustomed quickness, the old Tory of the Tories retorted, "No wonder;
+you can't suppose that _tailors_ like _turncoats_."
+
+As specimens of a kind of pleasantry becoming more scarce every year,
+some of Sir George Rose's court witticisms are excellent. When Mr.
+Beams, the reporter, defended himself against the _friction_ of passing
+barristers by a wooden bar, the flimsiness of which was pointed out to
+Sir George (then Mr. Rose), the wit answered--
+
+   "Yes--the partition is certainly thin--
+   Yet thick enough, truly, the Beams within."
+
+The same originator of happy sayings pointed to Eldon's characteristic
+weakness in the lines--
+
+   "Mr. Leach made a speech,
+     Pithy, clear, and strong;
+   Mr. Hart, on the other part,
+     Was prosy, dull, and long;
+   Mr. Parker made that darker
+     Which was dark enough without;
+   Mr. Bell spoke so well,
+     That the Chancellor said--'I doubt.'"
+
+Far from being offended by this allusion to his notorious mental
+infirmity, Lord Eldon, shortly after the verses had floated into
+circulation, concluded one of his decisions by saying, with a
+significant smile, "And here _the Chancellor does not doubt_."
+
+Not less remarkable for precipitancy than Eldon for procrastination, Sir
+John Leach, Vice-Chancellor, was said to have done more mischief by
+excessive haste in a single term than Eldon in his whole life wrought
+through extreme caution. The holders of this opinion delighted to repeat
+the poor and not perspicuous lines--
+
+   "In equity's high court there are
+     Two sad extremes, 'tis clear;
+   Excessive slowness strikes us there,
+     Excessive quickness here.
+
+   "Their source, 'twixt good and evil, brings
+     A difficulty nice;
+   The first from Eldon's _virtue_, springs,
+     The latter from his _vice_."
+
+It is needless to remark that this attempt to gloss the Chancellor's
+shortcomings is an illustration of the readiness with which censors
+apologize for the misdeeds of eminently fortunate offenders. Whilst
+Eldon's procrastination and Leach's haste were thus put in contrast, an
+epigram also placed the Chancellor's frailty in comparison with the
+tedious prolixity of the Master of the Rolls--
+
+   "To cause delay in Lincoln's Inn
+     Two diff'rent methods tend:
+   His lordship's judgments ne'er begin,
+     His honors never end."
+
+A mirth-loving judge, Justice Powell, could be as thoroughly humorous in
+private life as he was fearless and just upon the bench. Swift describes
+him as a surpassingly merry old gentleman, laughing heartily at all
+comic things, and his own droll stories more than aught else. In court
+he could not always refrain from jocularity. For instance, when he
+tried Jane Wenham for witch-craft, and she assured him that she could
+fly, his eye twinkled as he answered, "Well, then you may; there is no
+law against flying." When Fowler, Bishop of Gloucester--a thorough
+believer in what is now-a-days called spiritualism--was persecuting his
+acquaintance with silly stories about ghosts, Powell gave him a telling
+reproof for his credulity by describing a horrible apparition which was
+represented as having disturbed the narrator's rest on the previous
+night. At the hour of midnight, as the clocks were striking twelve, the
+judge was roused from his first slumber by a hideous sound. Starting up,
+he saw at the foot of his uncompanioned bed a figure--dark, gloomy,
+terrible, holding before its grim and repulsive visage a lamp that shed
+an uncertain light. "May Heaven have mercy on us!" tremulously
+ejaculated the bishop at this point of the story. The judge continued
+his story: "Be calm, my lord bishop; be calm. The awful part of this
+mysterious interview has still to be told. Nerving myself to fashion the
+words of inquiry, I addressed the nocturnal visitor thus--'Strange
+being, why hast thou come at this still hour to perturb a sinful
+mortal?' You understand, my lord, I said this in hollow tones--in what I
+may almost term a sepulchral voice." "Ay--ay," responded the bishop,
+with intense excitement; "go on--I implore you to go on. What did _it_
+answer?" "It answered in a voice not greatly different from the voice of
+a human creature--'Please, sir, _I am the watchman on beat, and your
+street-door is open_.'" Readers will remember the use which Barham has
+made of this story in the Ingoldsby Legends.
+
+As a Justice of the King's Bench, Powell had in Chief Justice Holt an
+associate who could not only appreciate the wit of others, but could
+himself say smart things. When Lacy, the fanatic, forced his way into
+Holt's house in Bedford Row, the Chief Justice was equal to the
+occasion. "I come to you," said Lacy, "a prophet from the Lord God, who
+has sent me to thee and would have thee grant a _nolle prosequi_ for
+John Atkins, his servant, whom thou hast sent to prison." Whereto the
+judge answered, with proper emphasis, "Thou art a false prophet and a
+lying knave. If the Lord God had sent thee, it would have been to the
+Attorney General, for the Lord God knows that it belongeth not to the
+Chief Justice, to grant a _nolle prosequi_; but I, as Chief Justice, can
+grant a warrant to commit thee to John Atkins's company." Whereupon the
+false prophet, sharing the fate of many a true one, was forthwith
+clapped in prison.
+
+Now that so much has been said of Thurlow's brutal sarcasms, justice
+demands for his memory an acknowledgment that he possessed a vein of
+genuine humor that could make itself felt without wounding. In his
+undergraduate days at Cambridge he is said to have worried the tutors of
+Caius with a series of disorderly pranks and impudent _escapades_, but
+on one occasion he unquestionably displayed at the university the quick
+wit that in after life rescued him from many an embarrassing position.
+"Sir," observed a tutor, giving the unruly undergraduate a look of
+disapproval, "I never come to the window without seeing you idling in
+the court." "Sir," replied young Thurlow, imitating the don's tone, "I
+never come into the court without seeing you idling at the window."
+Years later, when he had become a great man, and John Scott was paying
+him assiduous court, Thurlow said, in ridicule of the mechanical
+awkwardness of many successful equity draughtsmen, "Jack Scott, don't
+you think we could invent a machine to draw bills and answers in
+Chancery?" Having laughed at the suggestion when it was made, Scott put
+away the droll thought in his memory; and when he had risen to be
+Attorney General reminded Lord Thurlow of it under rather awkward
+circumstances. Macnamara, the conveyancer, being concerned as one of the
+principals in a Chancery suit, Lord Thurlow advised him to submit the
+answer to the bill filed against him to the Attorney General. In due
+course the answer came under Scott's notice, when he found it so
+wretchedly drawn, that he advised Macnamara to have another answer drawn
+by some one who understood pleading. On the same day he was engaged at
+the bar of the House of Lords, when Lord Thurlow came to him, and said,
+"So I understand you don't think my friend Mac's answer will do?" "Do!"
+Scott replied, contemptuously. "My Lord, it won't do at all! it must
+have been drawn by that wooden machine which you once told me might be
+invented to draw bills and answers." "That's very unlucky," answered
+Thurlow, "and impudent too, if you had known--_that I drew the answer
+myself_."
+
+Lord Lyndhurst used to maintain that it was one of the chief duties of a
+judge to render it disagreeable to counsel to talk nonsense. Jeffreys in
+his milder moments no doubt salved his conscience with the same
+doctrine, when he recalled how, after elating him with a compliment, he
+struck down the rising junior with "Lord, sir! you must be cackling too.
+We told you, Mr. Bradbury, your objection was very ingenious; that must
+not make you troublesome: you cannot lay an egg, but you must be
+cackling over it." Doubtless, also, he felt it one of the chief duties
+of a judge to restrain attorneys from talking nonsense when--on hearing
+that the solicitor from whom he received his first brief had boastfully
+remarked, in allusion to past services, "My Lord Chancellor! I _made_
+him!"--he exclaimed, "Well, then, I'll lay my maker by the heels," and
+forthwith committed his former client and patron to the Fleet prison. If
+this bully of the bench actually, as he is said to have done,
+interrupted the venerable Maynard by saying, "You have lost your
+knowledge of law; your memory, I tell you, is failing through old age,"
+how must every hearer of the speech have exulted when Maynard quietly
+answered, "Yes, Sir George, I have forgotten more law than you ever
+learned; but allow me to say, I have not forgotten much."
+
+On the other hand it should be remembered that Maynard was a man
+eminently qualified to sow violent animosities, and that he was a
+perpetual thorn in the flesh of the political barristers, whose
+principles he abhorred. A subtle and tricky man, he was constantly
+misleading judges by citing fictitious authorities, and then smiling at
+their professional ignorance when they had swallowed his audacious
+fabrications. Moreover, the manner of his speech was sometimes as
+offensive as its substance was dishonest. Strafford spoke a bitter
+criticism not only with regard to Maynard and Glyn, but with regard to
+the prevailing tone of the bar, when, describing the conduct of the
+advocates who managed his prosecution, he said: "Glynne and Maynard used
+me _like advocates_, but Palmer and Whitelock _like gentlemen_; and yet
+the latter left out nothing against me that was material to be urged
+against me." As a Devonshire man Maynard is one of the many cases which
+may be cited against the smart saying of Sergeant Davy, who used to
+observe: "The further I journey toward the West, the more convinced I am
+that the wise men come from the East." But shrewd, observant, liberal
+though he was in most respects, he was on one matter so far behind the
+spirit of the age that, blinded and ruled by an unwise sentiment, he
+gave his parliamentary support to an abortive measure "to prevent
+further building in London and the neighborhood." In support of this
+measure he observed, "This building is the ruin of the gentry and ruin
+of religion, as leaving many good people without churches to go to.
+This enlarging of London makes it filled with lacqueys and pages. In St.
+Giles's parish scarce the fifth part come to church, and we shall have
+no religion at last."
+
+Whilst justice has suffered something in respect of dignity from the
+overbearing temper of judges to counsel, from collisions of the bench
+with the bar, and from the mutual hostility of rival advocates, she has
+at times sustained even greater injury from the jealousies and
+altercations of judges. Too often wearers of the ermine, sitting on the
+same bench, nominally for the purpose of assisting each other, have
+roused the laughter of the bar, and the indignation of suitors, by their
+petty squabbles. "It now comes to my turn," an Irish judge observed,
+when it devolved on him to support the decision of one or the other of
+two learned coadjutors, who had stated with more fervor than courtesy
+altogether irreconcilable opinions--"It now comes to my turn to declare
+my view of the case, and fortunately I can be brief. I agree with my
+brother A, from the irresistible force of my brother B's arguments."
+Extravagant as this case may appear, the King's Bench of Westminster
+Hall, under Mansfield and Kenyon, witnessed several not less scandalous
+and comical differences. Taking thorough pleasure in his work, Lord
+Mansfield was not less industrious than impartial in the discharge of
+his judicial functions; so long as there was anything for him to learn
+with regard to a cause, he not only sought for it with pains but with a
+manifest pleasure similar to that delight in judicial work which caused
+the French Advocate, Cottu, to say of Mr. Justice Bayley: "Il s'amuse à
+juger:" but notwithstanding these good qualities, he was often culpably
+deficient in respect for the opinions of his subordinate coadjutors. At
+times a vain desire to impress on the minds of spectators that his
+intellect was the paramount power of the bench; at other times a
+personal dislike to one of his _puisnes_ caused him to derogate from the
+dignity of his court, in cases where he was especially careful to
+protect the interests of suitors. With silence more disdainful than any
+words could have been, he used to turn away from Mr. Justice Willes, at
+the moment when the latter expected his chief to ask his opinion; and on
+such occasions the indignant _puisne_ seldom had the prudence and nerve
+to conceal his mortification. "I have not been consulted, and I will be
+heard!" he once shrieked forth in a paroxysm of rage caused by
+Mansfield's contemptuous treatment; and forty years afterwards Jeremy
+Bentham, who was a witness of the insult and its effect, observed: "At
+this distance of time--five-and-thirty or forty years--the feminine
+scream issuing out of his manly frame still tingles in my ears."
+Mansfield's overbearing demeanor to his _puisnes_ was reproduced with
+less dignity by his successor; but Buller, the judge who wore ermine
+whilst he was still in his thirty-third year, and who confessed that his
+"idea of heaven was to sit at Nisi Prius all day, and to play whist all
+night," seized the first opportunity to give Taffy Kenyon a lesson in
+good manners by stating, with impressive self-possession and convincing
+logic, the reasons which induced him to think the judgment delivered by
+his chief to be altogether bad in law and argument.
+
+[30] One of Jekyll's best displays of brilliant impudence was
+perpetrated on a Welsh judge, who was alike notorious for his greed of
+office and his want of personal cleanliness. "My dear sir," Jekyll
+observed in his most amiable manner to this most unamiable personage,
+"you have asked the minister for almost everything else, why _don't_ you
+ask him for a piece of soap and a nail-brush?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+WITS IN 'SILK' AND PUNSTERS IN 'ERMINE.'
+
+
+Whilst Lord Camden held the chiefship of the Common Pleas, he was
+walking with his friend Lord Dacre on the outskirts of an Essex village,
+when they passed the parish stocks. "I wonder," said the Chief Justice,
+"whether a man in the stocks endures a punishment that is physically
+painful? I am inclined to think that, apart from the sense of
+humiliation and other mental anguish, the prisoner suffers nothing,
+unless the populace express their satisfaction at his fate by pelting
+him with brick-bats." "Suppose you settle your doubts by putting your
+feet into the holes," rejoined Lord Dacre, carelessly. In a trice the
+Chief Justice was sitting on the ground with his feet some fifteen
+inches above the level of his seat, and his ankles encircled by hard
+wood. "Now, Dacre!" he exclaimed, enthusiastically, "fasten the bolts,
+and leave me for ten minutes." Like a courteous host Lord Dacre complied
+with the whim of his guest, and having placed it beyond his power to
+liberate himself bade him 'farewell' for ten minutes. Intending to
+saunter along the lane and return at the expiration of the stated
+period, Lord Dacre moved away, and falling into one of his customary
+fits of reverie, soon forgot all about the stocks, his friend's freak,
+and his friend. In the meantime the Chief Justice went through every
+torture of an agonizing punishment--acute shootings along the confined
+limbs, aching in the feet, angry pulsations under the toes, violent
+cramps in the muscles and thighs, gnawing pain at the point where his
+person came in immediate contact with the cold ground, pins-and-needles
+everywhere. Amongst the various forms of his physical discomfort,
+faintness, fever, giddiness, and raging thirst may be mentioned. He
+implored a peasant to liberate him, and the fellow answered with a shout
+of derision; he hailed a passing clergyman, and explained that he was
+not a culprit, but Lord Camden, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and
+one of Lord Dacre's guests. "Ah!" observed the man of cloth, not so much
+answering the wretched culprit as passing judgment on his case, "mad
+with liquor. Yes, drunkenness is sadly on the increase; 'tis droll,
+though, for a drunkard in the stocks to imagine himself a Chief
+Justice!" and on he passed. A farmer's wife jogged by on her pillion,
+and hearing the wretched man exclaim that he should die of thirst, the
+good creature gave him a juicy apple, and hoped that his punishment
+would prove for the good of his soul. Not ten minutes, but ten hours did
+the Chief Justice sit in the stocks, and when at length he was carried
+into Lord Dacre's house, he was in no humor to laugh at his own
+miserable plight. Not long afterwards he presided at a trial in which a
+workman brought an action against a magistrate who had wrongfully placed
+him in the stocks. The counsel for the defence happening to laugh at the
+statement of the plaintiff, who maintained that he had suffered intense
+pain during his confinement, Lord Camden leaned forwards and inquired in
+a whisper, "Brother were you ever in the stocks?" "Never, my lord,"
+answered the advocate, with a look of lively astonishment "I have been,"
+was the whispered reply; "and let me assure you that the agony inflicted
+by the stocks is--_awful_!"
+
+Of a different sort, but scarcely less intense, was the pain endured by
+Lord Mansfield whenever a barrister pronounced a Latin word with a false
+quantity. "My lords," said the Scotch advocate, Crosby, at the bar of
+the House of Lords, "I have the honor to appear before your lordships as
+counsel for the Curators." "Ugh!" groaned the Westminster Oxford
+law-lord, softening his reproof by an allusion to his Scotch
+nationality, "Curators, Mr. Crosby, Curators: I wish _our_ countrymen
+would pay a little more attention to prosody." "My Lord," replied Mr.
+Crosby, with delightful readiness and composure, "I can assure you that
+_our_ countrymen are very proud of your lordship as the greatest
+senator and orator of the present age." The barrister who made Baron
+Alderson shudder under his robes by applying for a 'nolle prosequi,' was
+not equally quick at self-defence, when that judge interposed, "Stop,
+sir--consider that this is the last day of term, and don't make things
+unnecessarily long." It was Baron Alderson who, in reply to the
+juryman's confession that he was deaf in one ear, observed, "Then leave
+the box before the trial begins; for it is necessary that jurymen should
+_hear both sides_."
+
+Amongst legal wits, Lord Ellenborough enjoys a high place; and though in
+dealing out satire upon barristers and witnesses, and even on his
+judicial coadjutors, he was often needlessly severe, he seldom
+perpetrated a jest the force of which lay solely in its cruelty. Perhaps
+the most harsh and reprehensible outburst of satiric humor recorded of
+him is the crushing speech by which he ruined a young man for life. "The
+_unfortunate_ client for whom it is my privilege to appear," said a
+young barrister, making his first essay in Westminster Hall--"the
+unfortunate client, my lord, for whom I appear--hem! hem!--I say, my
+lord, my _unfortunate client_----" Leaning forwards, and speaking in a
+soft, cooing voice, that was all the more derisive, because it was so
+gentle, Lord Ellenborough said, "you may go on, sir--so far the court is
+with you." One would have liked his lordship better had he sacrificed
+his jest to humanity, and acted as long afterwards that true gentleman,
+Mr. Justice Talfourd, acted, who, seeing a young barrister overpowered
+with nervousness, gave him time to recover himself by saying, in the
+kindest possible manner, "Excuse me for interrupting you--but for a
+minute I am not at liberty to pay you attention." Whereupon the Judge
+took up his pen and wrote a short note to a friend. Before the note was
+finished, the young barrister had completely recovered his
+self-possession, and by an admirable speech secured a verdict for his
+client. A highly nervous man, he might on that day have been broken for
+life, like Ellenborough's victim, by mockery; but fortunate in appearing
+before a judge whose witty tongue knew not how to fashion unkind words,
+he triumphed over his temporary weakness, and has since achieved well
+deserved success in his profession. Talfourd might have made a jest for
+the thoughtless to laugh at; but he preferred to do an act, on which
+those who loved him like to think.
+
+When Preston, the great conveyancer, gravely informed the judges of the
+King's Bench that "an estate in fee simple was the highest estate known
+to the law of England," Lord Ellenborough checked the great Chancery
+lawyer, and said with politest irony, "Stay, stay, Mr. Preston, let me
+take that down. An estate" (the judge writing as he spoke) "in fee
+simple is--the highest estate--known to--the law of England. Thank you,
+Mr. Preston! The court, sir, is much indebted to you for the
+information." Having inflicted on the court an unspeakably dreary
+oration, Preston, towards the close of the day, asked when it would be
+their lordship's pleasure to hear the remainder of his argument;
+whereupon Lord Ellenborough uttered a sigh of resignation, and answered,
+'We are bound to hear you, and we will endeavor to give you our
+undivided attention on Friday next; but as for _pleasure_, that, sir,
+has been long out of the question.'
+
+Probably mistelling an old story, and taking to himself the merit of
+Lord Ellenborough's reply to Preston, Sir Vicary Gibbs (Chief of the
+Common Pleas) used to tell his friends that Sergeant Vaughan--the
+sergeant who, on being subsequently raised to the bench through the
+influence of his elder brother, Sir Henry Halford, the court physician,
+was humorously described by the wits of Westminster Hall as a judge _by
+prescription_--once observed in a grandiose address to the Judges of the
+Common Pleas, "For though our law takes cognizance of divers different
+estates, I may be permitted to say, without reserve or qualification of
+any kind, that the highest estate known to the law of England is an
+estate in fee simple." Whereupon Sir Vicary, according to his own
+account, interrupted the sergeant with an air of incredulity and
+astonishment. "What is your proposition, brother Vaughan? Perhaps I did
+not hear you rightly!" Flustered by the interruption, which completely
+effected its object, the sergeant explained, "My lord, I mean to contend
+that an estate in fee simple is _one of the highest estates_ known to
+the law of England, that is, my lord, that it may be under certain
+circumstances--and sometimes is so."
+
+Notwithstanding his high reputation for wit, Lord Ellenborough would
+deign to use the oldest jests. Thus of Mr. Caldecott, who over and over
+again, with dull verbosity, had said that certain limestone quarries,
+like lead and copper mines, "were not rateable, because the limestone
+could only be reached by boring, which was matter of science," he
+gravely inquired, "Would you, Mr. Caldecott, have us believe that every
+kind of _boring_ is matter of science?" With finer humor he nipped in
+the bud one of Randle Jackson's flowery harangues. "My lords," said the
+orator, with nervous intonation, "in the book of nature it is
+written----" "Be kind enough, Mr. Jackson," interposed Lord
+Ellenborough, "to mention the page from which you are about to quote."
+This calls to mind the ridicule which, at an earlier period of his
+career, he cast on Sheridan for saying at the trial of Warren Hastings,
+"The treasures in the Zenana of the Begum are offerings laid by the
+hand of piety on the altar of a saint." To this not too rhetorical
+statement, Edward Law, as leading counsel for Warren Hastings, replied
+by asking, "how the lady was to be considered a saint, and how the
+camels were to be laid upon the altar?" With greater pungency, Sheridan
+defended himself by saying, "This is the first time in my life that I
+ever heard of special pleading on a metaphor, or a bill of indictment
+against a trope; but such is the turn of the learned gentleman's mind,
+that when he attempts to be humorous no jest can be found, and when
+serious no fact is visible."[31] To the last Law delighted to point the
+absurdities of orators who in aiming at the sublime only achieved the
+ridiculous. "My lords," said Mr. Gaselee, arguing that mourning coaches
+at a funeral were not liable to post-horse duty, "it never could have
+been the intention of a Christian legislature to aggravate the grief
+which mourners endure whilst following to the grave the remains of their
+dearest relatives, by compelling them at the same time to pay the
+horse-duty." Had Mr. Gaselee been a humorist, Lord Ellenborough would
+have laughed; but as the advocate was well known to have no turn for
+raillery, the Chief Justice gravely observed, "Mr. Gaselee, you incur
+danger by sailing in high sentimental latitudes."
+
+To the surgeon in the witness-box who said, "I employ myself as a
+surgeon," Lord Ellenborough retorted, "But does anybody else employ you
+as a surgeon?"
+
+The demand to be examined _on affirmation_ being preferred by a Quaker
+witness, whose dress was so much like the costume of an ordinary
+_conformist_ that the officer of the court had begun to administer the
+usual oath, Lord Ellenborough inquired of the 'friend,' "Do you really
+mean to impose upon the court by appearing here in the disguise of a
+reasonable being?" Very pungent was his ejaculation at a cabinet dinner
+when he heard that Lord Kenyon was about to close his penurious old age
+by dying. "Die!--why should he die?--what would he get by that?"
+interposed Lord Ellenborough, adding to the pile of jests by which men
+have endeavored to keep a grim, unpleasant subject out of sight--a pile
+to which the latest _mot_ was added the other day by Lord Palmerston,
+who during his last attack of gout exclaimed playfully. "_Die_, my dear
+doctor! That's the _last_ thing I think of doing." Having jested about
+Kenyon's parsimony, as the old man lay _in extremis_, Ellenborough
+placed another joke of the same kind upon his coffin. Hearing that
+through the blunder of an illiterate undertaker the motto on Kenyon's
+hatchment in Lincoln's Inn Fields had been painted '_Mors Janua Vita_,'
+instead of 'Mors Janua Vitæ,' he exclaimed, "Bless you, there's no
+mistake; Kenyon's will directed that it should be 'Vita,' so that his
+estate might be saved the expense of _a diphthong._" Capital also was
+his reply when Erskine urged him to accept the Great Seal. "How can
+you," he asked, in a tone of solemn entreaty, "wish me to accept the
+office of Chancellor, when you know, Erskine, that I am as ignorant of
+its duties as you are yourself?" At the time of uttering these words,
+Ellenborough was well aware that if he declined them Erskine would take
+the seals. Some of his puns were very poor. For instance, his
+exclamation, "Cite to me the decisions of the judges of the land: not
+the judgments of the Chief Justice of Ely, who is fit only to _rule_ a
+copybook."
+
+One of the best 'legal' puns on record is unanimously attributed by the
+gossipers of Westminster Hall to Lord Chelmsford. As Sir Frederick
+Thesiger he was engaged in the conduct of a cause, and objected to the
+irregularity of a learned sergeant who in examining his witnesses
+repeatedly put leading questions. "I have a right," maintained the
+sergeant, doggedly, "to _deal_ with my witnesses as I please." "To that
+I offer no objection," retorted Sir Frederick; "you may _deal_ as you
+like, but you shan't _lead_." Of the same brilliant conversationalist
+Mr. Grantley Berkeley has recorded a good story in 'My Life and
+Recollections.' Walking down St. James's Street, Lord Chelmsford was
+accosted by a stranger, who exclaimed "Mr. Birch I believe?" "If you
+believe that, sir, you'll believe anything," replied the ex-Chancellor,
+as he passed on.
+
+When Thelwall, instead of regarding his advocate with grateful silence,
+insisted on interrupting him with vexatious remarks and impertinent
+criticisms, Erskine neither threw up his brief nor lost his temper, but
+retorted with an innocent flash of merriment. To a slip of paper on
+which the prisoner had written, "I'll be hanged if I don't plead my own
+cause," he contented himself with returning answer, "You'll be hanged if
+you do." His _mots_ were often excellent, but it was the tone and joyous
+animation of the speaker that gave them their charm. It is said that in
+his later years, when his habitual loquaciousness occasionally sank into
+garrulity, he used to repeat his jests with imprudent frequency,
+shamelessly giving his companions the same pun with each course of a
+long dinner. There is a story that after his retirement from public life
+he used morning after morning to waylay visitors on their road through
+the garden to his house, and, pointing to his horticultural attire and
+the spade in his hand assure them that he was 'enjoying his otium cum
+_digging a tatie_.' Indeed the tradition lives that before his fall from
+the woolsack, pert juniors used to lay bets as to the number of times he
+could fire off a favorite old pun in the course of a sitting in the
+Court of Chancery, and that wily leaders habitually strove to catch his
+favor by giving him opportunities for facetious interruptions during
+their arguments. If such traditions be truthful, it is no matter for
+surprise that Erskine's court-jokes have come down to us with so many
+variations. For instance, it is recorded with much circumstantiality
+that on circuit, accosting a junior who had lost his portmanteau from
+the back of a post-chaise, he said, with mock gravity, "Young gentlemen,
+henceforth imitate the elephant, the wisest of animals, who always
+_carries his trunk before him_;" and on equally good authority it is
+stated that when Polito, the keeper of the Exeter 'Change Menagerie, met
+with a similar accident and brought an action for damages against the
+proprietor of the coach from the hind-boot of which his property had
+disappeared, Erskine, speaking for the defence, told the jury that they
+would not be justified in giving a verdict favorable to the man, who,
+though he actually possessed an elephant, had neglected to imitate its
+prudent example and carry his trunk before him.
+
+As a _littérateur_ Erskine met with meagre success; but some of his
+squibs and epigrams are greatly above the ordinary level of '_vers de
+société_.' For instance this is his:--
+
+   "DE QUODAM REGE.
+
+   "I may not do right, though I ne'er can do wrong;
+   I never can die, though I can not live long;
+   My jowl it is purple, my hand it is fat--
+   Come, riddle my riddle. What is it? _What? What?_"
+
+The liveliest illustrations of Erskine's proverbial egotism are the
+squibs of political caricaturists; and from their humorous
+exaggerations it is difficult to make a correct estimate of the lengths
+of absurdity to which his intellectual vanity and self-consciousness
+sometimes carried him. From what is known of his disposition it seems
+probable that the sarcasms aimed by public writers at his infirmity
+inclined him to justify their attacks rather than to disprove them by
+his subsequent demeanor, and that some of his most extravagant outbursts
+of self-assertion were designed in a spirit of bravado and reckless
+good-nature to increase the laughter which satirists had raised against
+him. However this may be, his conduct drew upon him blows that would
+have ruffled the composure of any less self-complacent or less amiable
+man. The Tory prints habitually spoke of him as Counsellor Ego whilst he
+was at the bar; and when it was known that he had accepted the seals,
+the opposition journals announced that he would enter the house as
+"Baron Ego, of Eye, in the county of Suffolk." Another of his nicknames
+was _Lord Clackmannan_; and Cobbett published the following notice of an
+harangue made by the fluent advocate in the House of Commons:--"Mr.
+Erskine delivered a most animated speech in the House of Commons on the
+causes and consequences of the late war, which lasted thirteen hours,
+eighteen minutes, and a second, by Mr. John Nichol's stop-watch. Mr.
+Erskine closed his speech with a dignified climax: 'I was born free,
+and, by G-d, I'll remain so!'--[A loud cry of '_Hear! hear_' in the
+gallery, in which were citizens Tallien and Barrère.] On Monday three
+weeks we shall have the extreme satisfaction of laying before the public
+a brief analysis of the above speech, our letter-founder having entered
+into an engagement to furnish a fresh font of I's."[32]
+
+From the days of Wriothesley, who may be regarded as the most
+conspicuous and unquestionable instance of judicial incompetency in the
+annals of English lawyers, the multitudes have always delighted in
+stories that illustrate the ignorance and incapacity of men who are
+presumed to possess, by right of their office, an extraordinary share of
+knowledge and wisdom. What law-student does not rub his hands as he
+reads of Lord St. John's trouble during term whilst he held the seals,
+and of the impatience with which he looked forward to the long vacation,
+when he would not be required to look wise and speak authoritatively
+about matters concerning which he was totally ignorant. Delicious are
+the stories of Francis Bacon's clerical successor, who endeavored to get
+up a _quantum suff_. of Chancery law by falling on his knees and asking
+enlightenment of Heaven. Gloomily comical are the anecdotes of Chief
+Justice Fleming, whose most famous and disastrous blunder was his
+judgment in Bates's case. Great fun may be gathered from the tales that
+exemplify the ignorance of law which characterized the military, and
+also the non-military laymen, who helped to take care of the seals
+during the civil troubles of the seventeenth century. Capital is Roger
+North's picture of Bob Wright's ludicrous shiftlessness whenever the
+influence of his powerful relations brought the loquacious, handsome,
+plausible fellow a piece of business. "He was a comely fellow," says
+Roger North, speaking of the Chief Justice Wright's earlier days, "airy
+and flourishing both in his habits and way of living; and his relation
+Wren (being a powerful man in those parts) set him in credit with the
+country; but withal, he was so poor a lawyer that he used to bring such
+cases as came to him to his friend Mr. North, and he wrote the opinion
+on the paper, and the lawyer copied it, and signed under the case as if
+it had been his own. It ran so low with him that when Mr. North was at
+London he sent up his cases to him, and had opinions returned by the
+post; and, in the meantime he put off his clients on pretence of taking
+the matter into serious consideration." Perhaps some readers of this
+page can point to juniors of the present date whose professional
+incapacity closely resembles the incompetence of this gay young
+barrister of Charles II.'s time. Laughter again rises at the thought of
+Lord Chancellor Bathurst and the judicial perplexities and blunders
+which caused Sir Charles Williams to class him with those who
+
+   "Were cursed and stigmatized by power,
+     And rais'd to be expos'd."
+
+Much more than an average or altogether desirable amount of amiability
+has fallen to the reader who can refrain from a malicious smile, when he
+is informed by reliable history that Lord Loughborough (no mean lawyer
+or inefficient judge), gave utterance to so much bad law, as Chairman of
+Quarter Sessions in canny Yorkshire, that when on appeal his decisions
+were reversed with many polite expressions of _sincere_ regret by the
+King's Bench, all Westminster Hall laughed in concert at the mistakes of
+the sagacious Chief of the Common Pleas.
+
+But no lawyer, brilliant or dull, has been more widely ridiculed for
+incompetence than Erskine. Sir Causticus Witherett, being asked some
+years since why a certain Chancellor, unjustly accused of intellectual
+dimness by his political adversaries and by the uninformed public,
+preferred his seat amongst the barons to his official place on the
+woolsack, is said to have replied: "The Lord Chancellor usually takes
+his seat amongst the peers whenever he can do so with propriety, because
+he is a highly nervous man, and when he is on the woolsack, he is apt to
+be frightened at finding himself all alone--_in the dark_." As soon as
+Erskine was mentioned as a likely person to be Lord Chancellor, rumors
+began to circulate concerning his total unfitness for the office; and no
+sooner had he mounted the woolsack than the wits declared him to be
+alone and in the dark. Lord Ellenborough's sarcasm was widely repeated,
+and gave the cue to the advocate's detractors, who had little difficulty
+in persuading the public that any intelligent law-clerk would make as
+good a Chancellor as Thomas Erskine. With less discretion than
+good-humor, Erskine gave countenance to the representations of his
+enemies by ridiculing his own unfitness for the office. During the
+interval between his appointment and his first appearance as judge in
+the Court of Chancery, he made a jocose pretence of 'reading up' for his
+new duties: and whimsically exaggerating his deficiencies, he
+represented himself as studying books with which raw students have some
+degree of familiarity. Caught with 'Cruise's Digest' of the laws
+relating to real property, open in his hand, he observed to the visitor
+who had interrupted his studies, "You see, I am taking a little from my
+_cruise_ daily, without any prospect of coming to the end of it."
+
+In the autumn of 1819 two gentlemen of the United States having differed
+in opinion concerning his incompetence in the Court of Chancery--the one
+of them maintaining that the greater number of his decrees had been
+reversed, and the other maintaining that so many of his decisions had
+not endured reversal--the dispute gave rise to a bet of three dozen of
+port. With comical bad taste one of the parties to the bet--the one who
+believed that the Chancellor's judgments had been thus frequently
+upset--wrote to Erskine for information on the point. Instead of giving
+the answer which his correspondent desired, Erskine informed him in the
+following terms that he had lost his wine:--
+
+   "Upper Berkley Street, Nov. 13, 1819.
+
+   "SIR:--I certainly was appointed Chancellor under the administration
+   in which Mr. Fox was Secretary of State, in 1806, and could have been
+   Chancellor under no administration in which he had not a post; nor
+   would have accepted without him any office whatsoever. I believe the
+   administration was said, by all the _Blockheads_, to be made up of
+   all the _Talents_ in the country.
+
+   "But you have certainly lost your bet on the subject of my decrees.
+   None of them were appealed against, except one, upon a branch of Mr.
+   Thellusson's will--but it was affirmed without a dissentient voice,
+   on the motion of Lord Eldon, then and now Lord Chancellor. If you
+   think I was no lawyer, you may continue to think so. It is plain you
+   are no lawyer yourself; but I wish every man to retain his opinion,
+   though at the cost of three dozen of port.
+
+   "Your humble servant,
+
+   "ERSKINE.
+
+   "To save you from spending your money on bets which you are sure to
+   lose, remember that no man can be a great advocate who is no lawyer.
+   The thing is impossible."
+
+Of the many good stories current about chiefs of the law who are still
+alive, the present writer, for obvious reasons, abstains from taking
+notice; but one humorous anecdote concerning a lively judge may with
+propriety be inserted in these pages, since it fell from his own lips
+when he was making a speech from the chair at a public dinner. Between
+sixty-five and seventy years from the present time, when Sir Frederick
+Pollock was a boy at St. Paul's school, he drew upon himself the
+displeasure of Dr. Roberts, the somewhat irascible head-master of the
+school, who frankly told Sir Frederick's father, "Sir, you'll live to
+see that boy of yours hanged." Years afterwards, when the boy of whom
+this dismal prophecy was made had distinguished himself at Cambridge and
+the bar, Dr. Roberts, meeting Sir Frederick's mother in society,
+overwhelmed her with congratulations upon her son's success, and
+fortunately oblivious of his former misunderstanding with his pupil,
+concluded his polite speeches by saying--"Ah! madam, I always said he'd
+fill an _elevated_ situation." Told by the venerable judge at a recent
+dinner of 'Old Paulines,' this story was not less effective than the
+best of those post-prandial sallies with which William St. Julien
+Arabin--the Assistant Judge of Old Bailey notoriety--used to convulse
+his auditors something more than thirty years since. In the 'Arabiniana'
+it is recorded how this judge, in sentencing an unfortunate woman to a
+long term of transportation, concluded his address with--"You must go
+out of the country. You have disgraced _even_ your own sex."
+
+Let this chapter close with a lawyer's testimony to the moral qualities
+of his brethren. In the garden of Clement's Inn may still be seen the
+statue of a negro, supporting a sun-dial, upon which a legal wit
+inscribed the following lines:--
+
+   "In vain, poor sable son of woe,
+     Thou seek'st the tender tear;
+   From thee in vain with pangs they flow,
+     For mercy dwells not here.
+   From cannibals thou fled'st in vain;
+     Lawyers less quarter give;
+   The _first_ won't eat you till you're _slain_,
+     The _last_ will do't _alive_."
+
+Unfortunately these lines have been obliterated.
+
+[31] Robert Dallas--one of Edward Law's coadjutors in the defence of
+Hastings--gave another 'manager' a more telling blow. Indignant with
+Burke for his implacable animosity to Hastings, Dallas (subsequently
+Chief Justice of the Common Pleas) wrote the stinging lines--
+
+"Oft have we wondered that on Irish ground No poisonous reptile has e'er
+yet been found; Reveal'd the secret stands of nature's work--She saved
+her venom to produce her Burke."
+
+[32] In the 'Anti-Jacobin,' Canning, in the mock report of an imaginary
+speech, represented Erskine as addressing the 'Whig Club' thus:--"For
+his part he should only say that, having been, as he had been, both a
+soldier and a sailor, if it had been his fortune to have stood in either
+of these relations to the Directory--as _a_ man and a major-general he
+should not have scrupled to direct his artillery against the national
+representatives:--as a naval officer he would undoubtedly have
+undertaken for the removal of the exiled deputies; admitting the
+exigency, under all its relations, as it appeared to him to exist, and
+the then circumstances of the times with all their bearings and
+dependencies, branching out into an infinity of collateral
+considerations and involving in each a variety of objects, political,
+physical, and moral; and these, again, under their distinct and separate
+heads, ramifying into endless subdivisions, which it was foreign to his
+purpose to consider, Mr. Erskine concluded by recapitulating, in a
+strain of agonizing and impressive eloquence, the several more prominent
+heads of his speech; he had been a soldier and a sailor, and had a son
+at Winchester school--he had been called by special retainers, during
+the summer, into many different and distant parts of the
+country--traveling chiefly in post-chaises. He felt himself called upon
+to declare that his poor faculties were at the service of his
+country--of the free and enlightened part of it at least. He stood there
+as a man--he stood in the eye, indeed, in the hand of God--to whom (in
+the presence of the company and the waiters), he solemnly appealed. He
+was of noble, perhaps royal, blood--he had a house at Hampsted--was
+convinced of the necessity of a thorough and radical reform. His
+pamphlets had gone through thirty editions, skipping alternately the odd
+and even numbers. He loved the Constitution, to which he would cling and
+grapple--and he was clothed with the infirmities of man's nature."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+WITNESSES.
+
+
+In the days when Mr. Davenport Hill, the Recorder of Birmingham, made a
+professional reputation for himself in the committee-rooms of the Houses
+of Parliament, he had many a sharp tussle with one of those venal
+witnesses who, during the period of excitement that terminated in the
+disastrous railway panic, were ready to give scientific evidence on
+engineering questions, with less regard to truth than to the interests
+of the persons who paid for their evidence. Having by mendacious
+evidence gravely injured a cause in which Mr. Hill was interested as
+counsel, and Mr. Tite, the eminent architect, and present member for
+Bath, was concerned as a projector, this witness was struck with
+apoplexy and died--before he could complete the mischief which he had so
+adroitly begun. Under the circumstances, his sudden withdrawal from the
+world was not an occasion for universal regret. "Well, Hill, have you
+heard the news?" inquired Mr. Tite of the barrister, whom he encountered
+in Middle Temple Lane on the morning after the engineer's death. "Have
+you heard that ---- died yesterday of apoplexy?" "I can't say," was the
+rejoinder, "that I shall shed many tears for his loss. He was an arrant
+scoundrel." "Come, come," replied the architect, charitably, "you have
+always been too hard on that man. He was by no means so bad a fellow as
+you would make him out. I do verily believe that in the whole course of
+his life that man never told a lie--_out of the witness-box_." Strange
+to say, this comical testimony to character was quite justified by the
+fact. This man, who lied in public as a matter of business, was
+punctiliously honorable in private life.
+
+Of the simplest method of tampering with witnesses an instance is found
+in a case which occurred while Sir Edward Coke was Chief Justice of the
+King's Bench. Loitering about Westminster Hall, one of the parties in an
+action stumbled upon the witness whose temporary withdrawal from the
+ways of men he was most anxious to effect. With a perfect perception of
+the proper use of hospitality, he accosted this witness (a staring,
+open-mouthed countryman), with suitable professions of friendliness, and
+carrying him into an adjacent tavern, set him down before a bottle of
+wine. As soon as the sack had begun to quicken his guest's circulation,
+the crafty fellow hastened into court with the intelligence that the
+witness, whom he had left drinking in a room not two hundred yards
+distant, was in a fit and lying at death's door. The court being asked
+to wait, the impudent rascal protested that to wait would be useless;
+and the Chief Justice, taking his view of the case, proceeded to give
+judgment without hearing the most important evidence in the cause.
+
+In badgering a witness with noisy derision, no barrister of Charles
+II.'s time could surpass George Jeffreys; but on more than one occasion
+that gentleman, in his most overbearing moments, met with his master in
+the witness whom he meant to brow-beat. "You fellow in the leathern
+doublet," he is said to have exclaimed to a countryman whom he was about
+to cross-examine, "Pray, what are you paid for swearing?" "God bless
+you, sir, and make you an honest man," answered the farmer, looking the
+barrister full in the face, and speaking with a voice of hearty
+good-humor; "if you had no more for lying than I have for swearing, you
+would wear a leather doublet as well as I."
+
+Sometimes Erskine's treatment of witnesses was very jocular, and
+sometimes very unfair; but his jocoseness was usually so distinct from
+mere flippant derisiveness, and his unfairness was redeemed by such
+delicacy of wit and courtesy of manner, that his most malicious _jeux
+d'esprit_ seldom raised the anger of the witnesses at whom they were
+aimed. A religious enthusiast objecting to be sworn in the usual manner,
+but stating that though he would not "kiss the book," he would "hold up
+his hand" and swear, Erskine asked him to give his reason for preferring
+so eccentric a way to the ordinary mode of giving testimony. "It is
+written in the book of Revelations," answered the man, "that the angel
+standing on the sea _held up his hand_." "But that does not apply to
+your case," urged the advocate; "for in the first place, you are no
+angel; secondly, you cannot tell how the angel would have sworn if he
+had stood on dry ground, as you do." Not shaken by this reply, which
+cannot be called unfair, and which, notwithstanding its jocoseness, was
+exactly the answer which the gravest divine would have made to such
+scruples, the witness persisted in his position; and on being permitted
+to give evidence in his own peculiar way, he had enough influence with
+the jury to induce them to give a verdict adverse to Erskine's wishes.
+
+Less fair but more successful was Erskine's treatment of the commercial
+traveller, who appeared in the witness box dressed in the height of
+fashion, and wearing a starched white necktie folded with the 'Brummel
+fold.' In an instant reading the character of the man, on whom he had
+never before set eyes, and knowing how necessary it was to put him in a
+state of extreme agitation and confusion, before touching on the facts
+concerning which he had come to give evidence, Erskine rose, surveyed
+the coxcomb, and said, with an air of careless amusement, "You were born
+and bred in Manchester, _I perceive_." Greatly astonished at this
+opening remark, the man answered, nervously, that he was "a Manchester
+man--born and bred in Manchester." "Exactly," observed Erskine, in a
+conversational tone, and as though he were imparting information to a
+personal friend--"exactly so; I knew it from the absurd tie of your
+neckcloth." The roars of laughter which followed this rejoinder so
+completely effected the speaker's purpose that the confounded bagman
+could not tell his right hand from his left. Equally effective was
+Erskine's sharp question, put quickly to the witness, who, in an action
+for payment of a tailor's bill, swore that a certain dress-coat was
+badly made--one of the sleeves being longer than the other. "You will,"
+said Erskine, slowly, having risen to cross-examine, "swear--that one of
+the sleeves was--longer--than the other?" _Witness._ "I do swear it."
+_Erskine_, quickly, and with a flash of indignation, "Then, sir, I am to
+understand that you positively deny that one of the sleeves was
+_shorter_ than the other?" Startled into a self-contradiction by the
+suddenness and impetuosity of this thrust, the witness said, "I do deny
+it." _Erskine_, raising his voice as the tumultuous laughter died away,
+"Thank you, sir; I don't want to trouble you with another question." One
+of Erskine's smartest puns referred to a question of evidence. "A case,"
+he observed, in a speech made during his latter years, "being laid
+before me by my veteran friend, the Duke of Queensbury--better known as
+'old Q'--as to whether he could sue a tradesman for breach of contract
+about the painting of his house; and the evidence being totally
+insufficient to support the case, I wrote thus: 'I am of opinion that
+this action will not _lie_ unless the witnesses _do_.'" It is worthy of
+notice that this witticism was but a revival (with a modification) of a
+pun attributed to Lord Chancellor Hatton in Bacon's 'Apophthegmes.'
+
+In this country many years have elapsed since duels have taken place
+betwixt gentlemen of the long robe, or between barristers and witnesses
+in consequence of words uttered in the heat of forensic strife; but in
+the last century, and in the opening years of the present, it was no
+very rare occurrence for a barrister to be called upon for
+'satisfaction' by a person whom he had insulted in the course of his
+professional duty. During George II.'s reign, young Robert Henley so
+mercilessly badgered one Zephaniah Reeve, whom he had occasion to
+cross-examine in a trial at Bristol, that the infuriated witness--Quaker
+and peace-loving merchant though he was--sent his persecutor a challenge
+immediately upon leaving court. Rather than incur the ridicule of 'going
+out with a Quaker,' and the sin of shooting at a man whom he had
+actually treated with unjustifiable freedom, Henley retreated from an
+embarrassing position by making a handsome apology; and years
+afterwards, when he had risen to the woolsack, he entertained his old
+acquaintance, Zephaniah Reeve, at a fashionable dinner-party, when he
+assembled guests were greatly amused by the Lord Chancellor's account of
+the commencement of his acquaintance with his Quaker friend.
+
+Between thirty and forty years later Thurlow was 'called out' by the
+Duke of Hamilton's agent, Mr. Andrew Stewart, whom he had grievously
+offended by his conduct of the Great Douglas Case. On Jan. 14,
+1769-1770, Thurlow and his adversary met in Hyde Park. On his way to the
+appointed place, the barrister stopped at a tavern near Hyde Park
+Corner, and "ate an enormous breakfast," after which preparation for
+business, he hastened to the field of action. Accounts agree in saying
+that he behaved well upon the ground. Long after the bloodless
+_rencontre_, the Scotch agent, not a little proud of his 'affair' with a
+future Lord Chancellor, said, "Mr. Thurlow advanced and stood up to me
+like an elephant." But the elephant and the mouse parted without hurting
+each other; the encounter being thus faithfully described in the 'Scots'
+Magazine:' "On Sunday morning, January 14, the parties met with swords
+and pistols, in Hyde Park, one of them having for his second his
+brother, Colonel S----, and the other having for his Mr. L----, member
+for a city in Kent. Having discharged pistols, at ten yards' distance,
+without effect, they drew their swords, but the seconds interposed, and
+put an end to the affair."
+
+One of the best 'Northern Circuit stories' pinned upon Lord Eldon
+relates to a challenge which an indignant suitor is said to have sent to
+Law and John Scott. In a trial at York that arose from a horse-race, it
+was stated in evidence that one of the conditions of the race required
+that "each horse should be ridden by a gentleman." The race having been
+run, the holders refused to pay the stakes to the winner on the ground
+that he was not a gentleman; whereupon the equestrian whose gentility
+was thus called in question brought an action for the money. After a
+very humorous inquiry, which terminated in a verdict for the defendants,
+the plaintiff _was said_ to have challenged the defendants' counsel.
+Messrs. Scott and Law, for maintaining that he was no gentleman; to
+which invitation, it also averred, reply was made that the challengees
+"could not think of fighting one who had been found _no gentleman_ by
+the solemn verdict of twelve of his countrymen." Inquiry, however, has
+deprived this delicious story of much of its piquancy. Eldon had no part
+in the offence; and Law, who was the sole utterer of the obnoxious
+words, received no invitation to fight. "No message was sent," says a
+writer, supposed to be Lord Brougham, in the 'Law Magazine,' "and no
+attempt was made to provoke a breach of the peace. It is very possible
+Lord Eldon may have said, and Lord Ellenborough too, that they were not
+bound to treat one in such a predicament as a gentleman, and hence the
+story has arisen in the lady's mind. The fact was as well known on the
+Northern Circuit as the answer of a witness to a question, whether the
+party had a right by his circumstances to keep a pack of fox-hounds; 'No
+more right than I to keep a pack of archbishops.'"
+
+Curran is said to have received a call, before he left his bed one
+morning, from a gentleman whom he had cross-examined with needless
+cruelty and unjustifiable insolence on the previous day. "Sir!" said
+this irate man, presenting himself in Curran's bedroom, and rousing the
+barrister from slumber to a consciousness that he was in a very awkward
+position, "I am the gintleman whom you insulted yesterday in His
+Majesty's court of justice, in the presence of the whole county, and I
+am here to thrash you soundly!" Thus speaking, the Herculean intruder
+waved a horsewhip over the recumbent lawyer. "You don't mean to strike a
+man when he is lying down?" inquired Curran. "No, bedad; I'll just wait
+till you've got out of bed and then I'll give it to you sharp and fast."
+Curran's eye twinkled mischievously as he rejoined: "If that's the case,
+by ---- I'll lie here all day." So tickled was the visitor with this
+humorous announcement, that he dropped his horsewhip, and dismissing
+anger with a hearty roar of laughter, asked the counsellor to shake
+hands with him.
+
+In the December of 1663, Pepys was present at a trial in Guildhall
+concerning the fraud of a merchant-adventurer, who having insured his
+vessel for £2400 when, together with her cargo, she was worth no more
+than £500, had endeavored to wreck her off the French coast. From
+Pepys's record it appears that this was a novel piece of rascality at
+that time, and consequently created lively sensation in general society,
+as well as in legal and commercial coteries. "All the great counsel in
+the kingdom" were employed in the cause; and though maritime causes
+then, as now, usually involved much hard swearing, the case was notable
+for the prodigious amount of perjury which it elicited. For the most
+part the witnesses were sailors, who, besides swearing with stolid
+indifference to truth, caused much amusement by the incoherence of their
+statements and by their free use of nautical expressions, which were
+quite unintelligible to Chief Justice (Sir Robert) Hyde. "It was," says
+Pepys, "pleasant to see what mad sort of testimonys the seamen did give,
+and could not be got to speak in order; and then their terms such as the
+judge could not understand, and to hear how sillily the counsel and
+judge would speak as to the terms necessary in the matter, would make
+one laugh; and above all a Frenchman, that was forced to speak in
+French, and took an English oath he did not understand, and had an
+interpreter sworn to tell us what he said, which was the best testimony
+of all." A century later Lord Mansfield was presiding at a trial
+consequent upon a collision of two ships at sea, when a common sailor,
+whilst giving testimony, said, "At the time I was standing abaft the
+binnacle;" whereupon his lordship, with a proper desire to master the
+facts of the case, observed, "Stay, stay a minute, witness: you say
+that at the time in question you were _standing abaft the binnacle_; now
+tell me, where is abaft the binnacle?" This was too much for the gravity
+of 'the salt,' who immediately before climbing into the witness-box had
+taken a copious draught of neat rum. Removing his eyes from the bench,
+and turning round upon the crowded court with an expression of intense
+amusement, he exclaimed at the top of his voice, "He's a pretty fellow
+for a judge! Bless my jolly old eyes!--[the reader may substitute a
+familiar form of 'imprecation on eye-sight']--you have got a pretty sort
+of a land-lubber for a judge! He wants me to tell him where _abaft the
+binnacle is_!" Not less amused than the witness, Lord Mansfield
+rejoined, "Well, my friend, you must fit me for my office by telling me
+where _abaft the binnacle_ is; you've already shown me the meaning of
+_half seas over_."
+
+With less good-humor the same Chief Justice revenged himself on Dr.
+Brocklesby, who, whilst standing in the witness-box of the Court of King's
+Bench, incurred the Chief Justice's displeasure by referring to their
+private intercourse. Some accounts say that the medical witness merely
+nodded to the Chief Justice, as he might have done with propriety had they
+been taking seats at a convivial table; other accounts, with less
+appearance of probability, maintain that in a voice audible to the bar, he
+reminded the Chief Justice of certain jolly hours which they had spent
+together during the previous evening. Anyhow, Lord Mansfield was hurt, and
+showed his resentment in his 'summing-up' by thus addressing the Jury:
+"The next witness is one _R_ocklesby, or _B_rocklesby--_B_rocklesby or
+_R_ocklesby, I am not sure which; and first, _he swears that he is a
+physician_."
+
+On one occasion Lord Mansfield covered his retreat from an untenable
+position with a sparkling pleasantry. An old witness named _Elm_ having
+given his evidence with remarkable clearness, although he was more than
+eighty years of age, Lord Mansfield examined him as to his habitual mode
+of living, and found that he had throughout life been an early riser and
+a singularly temperate man. "Ay," observed the Chief Justice, in a tone
+of approval, "I have always found that without temperance and early
+habits, longevity is never attained." The next witness, the _elder_
+brother of this model of temperance, was then called, and he almost
+surpassed his brother as an intelligent and clear-headed utterer of
+evidence. "I suppose," observed Lord Mansfield, "that you also are an
+early riser." "No, my lord," answered the veteran, stoutly; "I like my
+bed at all hours, and special-_lie_ I like it of a morning." "Ah; but,
+like your brother, you are a very temperate man?" quickly asked the
+judge, looking out anxiously for the safety of the more important part
+of his theory. "My lord," responded this ancient Elm, disdaining to
+plead guilty to a charge of habitual sobriety, "I am a very old man, and
+my memory is as clear as a bell, but I can't remember the night when
+I've gone to bed without being more or less drunk." Lord Mansfield was
+silent. "Ah, my lord," Mr. Dunning exclaimed, "this old man's case
+supports a theory upheld by many persons, that habitual intemperance is
+favorable to longevity." "No, no," replied the Chief Justice, with a
+smile, "this old man and his brother merely teach us what every
+carpenter knows--that Elm, whether it be wet or dry, is a very tough
+wood." Another version of this excellent story makes Lord Mansfield
+inquire of the elder Elm, "Then how do you account for your prolonged
+tenure of existence?" to which question Elm is made to respond, more
+like a lawyer than a simple witness, "I account for it by the terms of
+the original lease."
+
+Few stories relating to witnesses are more laughable than that which
+describes the arithmetical process by which Mr. Baron Perrot arrived at
+the value of certain conflicting evidence. "Gentlemen of the jury," this
+judge is reported to have said, in summing up the evidence in a trial
+where the witnesses had sworn with noble tenacity of purpose, "there are
+fifteen witnesses who swear that the watercourse used to flow in a ditch
+on the north side of the hedge. On the other hand, gentlemen, there are
+nine witnesses who swear that the watercourse used to flow on the south
+side of the hedge. Now, gentlemen, if you subtract nine from fifteen,
+there remain six witnesses wholly uncontradicted; and I recommend you to
+give your verdict for the party who called those six witnesses."
+
+Whichever of the half-dozen ways in which it is told be accepted as the
+right one, the following story exemplifies the difficulty which
+occasionally arises in courts of justice, when witnesses use provincial
+terms with which the judge is not familiar. Mr. William Russell, in past
+days deputy-surveyor of 'canny Newcastle,' and a genuine Northumbrian in
+dialect, brogue, and shrewdness, was giving his evidence at an important
+trial in the Newcastle court-house, when he said--"As I was going along
+the quay, I saw a hubbleshew coming out of a chare-foot." Not aware that
+on Tyne-side the word 'hubbleshew' meant 'a concourse of riotous
+persons;' that the narrow alleys or lanes of Newcastle 'old town' were
+called by their inhabitants 'chares;' and that the lower end of each
+alley, where it opened upon quay-side, was termed a 'chare-foot;' the
+judge, seeing only one part of the puzzle, inquired the meaning of the
+word 'hubbleshew.' "A crowd of disorderly persons," answered the
+deputy-surveyor. "And you mean to say," inquired the judge of assize,
+with a voice and look of surprise, "that you saw a crowd of people come
+out of a chair-foot?" "I do, my lord," responded the witness.
+"Gentlemen of the jury," said his lordship, turning to the 'twelve good
+men' in the box, "it must be needless for me to inform you--_that this
+witness is insane_!"
+
+The report of a trial which occurred at Newcastle Assizes towards the
+close of the last century gives the following succession of questions
+and answers:--_Barrister._--"What is your name?" _Witness._--"Adam,
+sir--Adam Thompson." _Barrister._--"Where do you live?" _Witness._--"In
+Paradise." _Barrister_ (with facetious tone).--"And pray, Mr. Adam, how
+long have you dwelt in Paradise?" _Witness._--"Ever since the flood."
+Paradise is the name of a village in the immediate vicinity of
+Newcastle; and 'the flood' referred to by the witness was the inundation
+(memorable in local annals) of the Tyne, which in the year 1771 swept
+away the old Tyne Bridge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+CIRCUITEERS.
+
+
+Exposed to some of the discomforts, if not all the dangers,[33] of
+travel; required to ride over black and cheerless tracts of moor and
+heath: now belated in marshy districts, and now exchanging shots with
+gentlemen of the road; sleeping, as luck favored them, in way-side
+taverns, country mansions, or the superior hotels of provincial
+towns--the circuiteers of olden time found their advantage in
+cultivating social hilarity and establishing an etiquette that
+encouraged good-fellowship in their itinerant societies. At an early
+date they are found varying the monotony of cross-country rides with
+racing-matches and drinking bouts, cock-fights and fox-hunting; and
+enlivening assize towns and country houses with balls and plays, frolic
+and song. A prodigious amount of feasting was perpetrated on an ordinary
+circuit-round of the seventeenth century; and at circuit-messes, judges'
+dinners, and sheriffs' banquets, saucy juniors were allowed a license of
+speech to staid leaders and grave dignitaries that was altogether
+exceptional to the prevailing tone of manners.
+
+In the days when Chief Justice Hyde, Clarendon's cousin, used to ride
+the Norfolk Circuit, old Sergeant Earl was the leader, or, to use the
+slang of the period, 'cock of the round'. A keen, close-fisted, tough
+practitioner, this sergeant used to ride from town to town, chuckling
+over the knowledge that he was earning more and spending less than any
+other member of the circuit. One biscuit was all the refreshment which
+he permitted himself on the road from Cambridge to Norwich; although he
+consented to dismount at the end of every ten miles to stretch his
+limbs. Sidling up to Sergeant Earl, as there was no greater man for him
+to toady, Francis North offered himself as the old man's travelling
+companion from the university to the manufacturing town; and when Earl
+with a grim smile accepted the courteous suggestion, the young man
+congratulated himself. On the following morning, however, he had reason
+to question his good fortune when the sergeant's clerk brought him a
+cake, and remarked, significantly, "Put it in your pocket, sir; you'll
+want it; for my master won't draw bit till he comes to Norwich." It was
+a hard day's work; but young Frank North was rewarded for his civility
+to the sergeant, who condescended to instruct his apt pupil in the
+tricks and chicaneries of their profession. "Sir," inquired North at the
+close of the excursion, emboldened by the rich man's affability, "by
+what system do you keep your accounts, which must be very complex, as
+you have lands, securities, and great comings-in of all kinds?"
+"Accounts! boy," answered the grey-headed curmudgeon; "I get as much as
+I can, and I spend as little as I can; that's how I keep my accounts."
+
+When North had raised himself to the Chiefship of the Common Pleas he
+chose the Western Circuit, "not for the common cause, it being a long
+circuit, and beneficial for the officers and servants, but because he
+knew the gentlemen to be loyal and conformable, and that he should have
+fair quarter amongst them;" and so much favor did he win amongst the
+loyal and conformable gentry that old Bishop Mew--the prelate of
+Winchester, popularly known as Bishop _Patch_, because he always wore a
+patch of black court-plaster over the scar of a wound which he received
+on one of his cheeks, whilst fighting as a trooper for Charles I.--used
+to term him the "Deliciæ occidentis, or Darling of the West." On one
+occasion this Darling of the West was placed in a ludicrous position by
+the alacrity with which he accepted an invitation from "a busy fanatic,"
+a Devonshire gentleman, of good family, and estate, named Duke. This
+"busy fanatic" invited the judges on circuit and their officers to dine
+and sleep at his mansion on their way to Exeter, and subsequently
+scandalized his guests--all of them of course zealous defenders of the
+Established Church--by reading family-prayers before supper. "The
+gentleman," says the historian, "had not the manners to engage the
+parish minister to come and officiate with any part of the evening
+service before supper: but he himself got behind the table in his hall,
+and read a chapter, and then a long-winded prayer, after the
+Presbyterian way." Very displeased were the Chief Justice and the other
+Judge of Assize; and their dissatisfaction was not diminished on the
+following day when on entering Exeter a rumor met them, that "the judges
+had been at a conventicle, and the grand jury intended to present them
+and all their retinue for it."
+
+Not many years elapsed before this Darling of the West was replaced, by
+another Chief Justice who asserted the power of constituted authorities
+with an energy that roused more fear than gratitude in the breasts of
+local magistrates. That grim, ghastly, hideous progress, which Jeffreys
+made in the plenitude of civil and military power through the Western
+Counties, was not without its comic interludes; and of its less
+repulsive scenes none was more laughable than that which occurred in
+Bristol Courthouse when the terrible Chief Justice upbraided the Bristol
+magistrates for taking part in a slave-trade of the most odious sort.
+The mode in which the authorities of the western port carried on their
+iniquitous traffic deserves commemoration, for no student can understand
+the history of any period until he has acquainted himself with its
+prevailing morality. At a time when by the wealth of her merchants and
+the political influence of her inhabitants Bristol was the second city
+of England, her mayor and aldermen used daily to sit in judgment on
+young men and growing boys, who were brought before them and charged
+with trivial offences. Some of the prisoners had actually broken the
+law: but in a large proportion of the cases the accusations were totally
+fictitious--the arrests having been made in accordance with the
+directions of the magistrates, on charges which the magistrates
+themselves knew to be utterly without foundation. Every morning the
+Bristol tolsey or court-house saw a crowd of those wretched
+captives--clerks out of employment, unruly apprentices, street boys
+without parents, and occasionally children of honest birth, ay, of
+patrician lineage, whose prompt removal from their native land was
+desired by brutal fathers or vindictive guardians; and every morning a
+mockery of judicial investigation was perpetrated in the name of
+justice. Standing in a crowd the prisoners were informed of the offences
+charged against them; huddled together in the dock, like cattle in a
+pen, they caught stray sentences from the lips of the perjured rascals
+who had seized them in the public ways; and whilst they thus in a frenzy
+of surprise and fear listened to the statements of counsel for the
+prosecution, and to the fabrications of lying witnesses, agents of the
+court whispered to them that if they wished to save their lives they
+must instantly confess their guilt, and implore the justices to
+transport them to the plantations. Ignorant, alarmed, and powerless, the
+miserable victims invariably acted on this perfidious counsel; and
+forthwith the magistrates ordered their shipment to the West Indies,
+where they were sold as slaves--the money paid for them by West India
+planters in due course finding its way into the pockets of the Bristol
+justices. It is asserted that the wealthier aldermen, through caution,
+or those few grains of conscience which are often found in the breasts
+of consummate rogues, forbore to share in the gains of this abominable
+traffic; but it cannot be gainsaid that the least guilty magistrates
+winked at the atrocious conduct of their brother-justices.
+
+Vowing vengeance on the Bristol kidnappers Jeffreys entered their
+court-house, and opened proceedings by crying aloud that "he had brought
+a broom to sweep them with." The Mayor of Bristol was in those days no
+common mayor; in Assize Commissions his name was placed before the
+names of Judges of Assize; and even beyond the limits of his
+jurisdiction he was a man of mark and influence. Great therefore was
+this dignitary's astonishment when Jeffreys ordered him--clothed as he
+was in official scarlet and furs--to stand in the dock. For a few
+seconds the local potentate demurred; but when the Chief Justice poured
+upon him a cataract of blasphemy, and vowed to hang him instantly over
+the entrance to the tolsey unless he complied immediately, the
+humiliated chief magistrate of the ancient borough took his place at the
+felon's bar, and received such a rating as no thief, murderer or rebel
+had ever heard from George Jeffrey's abusive mouth. Unfortunately the
+affair ended with the storm. Until the arrival of William of Orange the
+guilty magistrates were kept in fear of criminal prosecution; but the
+matter was hushed up and covered with amnesty by the new government; so
+that "the fright only, which was no small one, was all the punishment
+which these judicial kidnappers underwent; and the gains," says Roger
+North, "acquired by so wicked a trade, rested peacefully in their
+pockets." It should be remembered that the kidnapping justices whom the
+odious Jeffreys so indignantly denounced were tolerated and courted by
+their respectable and prosperous neighbors; and some of the worst
+charges, by which the judge's fame has been rendered odious to
+posterity, depend upon the evidence of men who, if they were not
+kidnappers themselves, saw nothing peculiarly atrocious in the conduct
+of magistrates who systematically sold their fellow-countrymen into a
+most barbarous slavery.
+
+Amongst old circuit stories of questionable truthfulness there is a
+singular anecdote recorded by the biographers of Chief Justice Hale,
+who, whilst riding the Western Circuit, tried a half-starved lad on a
+charges of burglary. The prisoner had been shipwrecked upon the Cornish
+coast, and on his way through an inhospitable district had endured the
+pangs of extreme hunger. In his distress, the famished wanderer broke
+the window of a baker's shop and stole a loaf of bread. Under the
+circumstances, Hale directed the jury to acquit the prisoner: but, less
+merciful than the judge, the gentlemen of the box returned a verdict of
+'Guilty'--a verdict which the Chief Justice stoutly refused to act upon.
+After much resistance, the jurymen were starved into submission; and the
+youth was set at liberty. Several years elapsed; and Chief Justice Hale
+was riding the Northern Circuit, when he was received with such costly
+and excessive pomp by the sheriff of a northern county, that he
+expostulated with his entertainer on the lavish profuseness of his
+conduct. "My lord," answered the sheriff, with emotion, "don't blame me
+for showing my gratitude to the judge who saved my life when I was an
+outcast. Had it not been for you, I should have been hanged in Cornwall
+for stealing a loaf, instead of living to be the richest landowner of my
+native county."
+
+A sketch of circuit-life in the middle of the last century may be found
+in 'A Northern Circuit, Described in a Letter to a Friend: a Poetical
+Essay. By a Gentleman of the Middle Temple. 1751.'--a piece of doggrel
+that will meet with greater mercy from the antiquary than the poetical
+critic.
+
+In seeking to avoid the customary exactions of their office, the
+sheriffs of the present generation were only following in the steps of
+sheriffs who, more than a century past, exerted themselves to reduce the
+expenses of shrievalties, and whose economical reforms were defended by
+reference to the conduct of sheriffs under the last of the Tudors.--In
+the days of Elizabeth, the sheriffs demanded and obtained relief from an
+obligation to supply judges on circuit, with food and lodging; under
+Victoria they have recently exclaimed against the custom which required
+them to furnish guards of javelin-bearers for the protection of Her
+Majesty's representatives; when George II. was king, they grumbled
+against lighter burdens--for instance, the cost of white kid-gloves and
+payments to bell-ringers. The sheriff is still required by custom to
+present the judges with white gloves whenever an assize has been held
+without a single capital conviction; but in past times, on every
+_maiden_ assize, he was expected to give gloves not only to the judges,
+but to the entire body of circuiteers--barristers as well as officers of
+court.[34] Wishing to keep his official expenditure down to the lowest
+possible sum, a certain sheriff for Cumberland--called in 'A Northern
+Circuit,' Sir Frigid Gripus Knapper--directed his under-sheriff not to
+give white gloves on the occasion of a maiden assize at Carlisle, and
+also through the mouth of his subordinate, declined to pay the officers
+of the circuit certain customary fees. To put the innovator to shame,
+Sir William Gascoigne, the judge before whom the case was laid, observed
+in open court, "Though I can compel an immediate payment, it being a
+demand of right, and not a mere gift, yet I will set him an example by
+gifts which I might refuse, but will not, because they are customary,"
+and forthwith addressing the steward, added--"Call the sheriff's
+coachman, his pages, and musicians, singing-boys, and vergers, and give
+them the accustomed gifts as soon as the sheriff comes." From this
+direction, readers may see that under the old system of presents a judge
+was compelled to give away with his left hand much of that which he
+accepted with his right. It appears that Sir William Gascoigne's conduct
+had the desired effect; for as soon as the sheriff made his appearance,
+he repudiated the parsimonious conduct of the under-sheriff--though it
+is not credible that the subordinate acted without the direction or
+concurrence of his superior. "I think it," observed the sheriff, in
+reference to the sum of the customary payments, "as much for the honor
+of my office, and the country in general, as it is justice to those to
+whom it is payable; and if any sheriff has been of a different opinion
+it shall never bias me."
+
+From the days when Alexander Wedderburn, in his new silk gown, to the
+scandal of all sticklers for professional etiquette, made a daring but
+futile attempt to seize the lead of the circuit which seventeen years
+later he rode as judge, 'The Northern' had maintained the _prestige_ of
+being the most important of the English circuits. Its palmiest and most
+famous days belong to the times of Norton and Wallace, Jack Lee and John
+Scott, Edward Law and Robert Graham; but still amongst the wise white
+heads of the upper house may be seen at times the mobile features of an
+aged peer who, as Mr. Henry Brougham, surpassed in eloquence and
+intellectual brilliance the brightest and most celebrated of his
+precursors on the great northern round. But of all the great men whose
+names illustrate the annals of the circuit, Lord Eldon is the person
+most frequently remembered in connexion with the jovial ways of
+circuiteers in the old time. In his later years the port-loving earl
+delighted to recall the times when as Attorney General of the Circuit
+Grand Court he used to prosecute offenders 'against the peace of our
+Lord the Junior,' devise practical jokes for the diversion of the bar,
+and over bowls of punch at York, Lancaster, or Kirkby Lonsdale, argue
+perplexing questions about the morals of advocacy. Just as John
+Campbell, thirty years later, used to recount with glee how in the mock
+courts of the Oxford Circuit he used to officiate as crier, "holding a
+fire-shovel in his hand as the emblem of his office;" so did old Lord
+Eldon warm with mirth over recollections of his circuit revelries and
+escapades. Many of his stories were apocryphal, some of them
+unquestionably spurious; but the least truthful of them contained an
+element of pleasant reality. Of course Jemmy Boswell, a decent lawyer,
+though better biographer, was neither duped by the sham brief, nor
+induced to apply in court for the writ of 'quare adhaesit pavimento;'
+but it is quite credible that on the morning after his removal in a
+condition of vinous prostration from the Lancaster flagstones, his
+jocose friends concocted the brief, sent it to him with a bad guinea,
+and proclaimed the success of their device. When the chimney-sweeper's
+boy met his death by falling from a high gallery to the floor of the
+court-house at the York Assizes, whilst Sir Thomas Davenport was
+speaking, it was John Scott who--arguing that the orator's dullness had
+sent the boy to sleep, and so caused his fatal fall--prosecuted Sir
+Thomas for murder in the High Court, alleging in the indictment that the
+death was produced by a "certain blunt instrument of _no value_, called
+a _long speech_." The records of the Northern Circuit abound with
+testimony to the hearty zeal with which the future Chancellor took part
+in the proceedings of the Grand Court--paying fines and imposing them
+with equal readiness, now upholding with mock gravity the high and
+majestic character of the presiding judge, and at another time
+inveighing against the levity and indecorum of a learned brother who had
+maintained in conversation that "no man would be such a----fool as to go
+to a lawyer for advice who knew how to get on without it." The monstrous
+offender against religion and propriety who gave utterance to this
+execrable sentiment was Pepper Arden (subsequently Master of the Rolls
+and Lord Alvanley), and his punishment is thus recorded in the archives
+of the circuit:--"In this he was considered as doubly culpable, in the
+first place as having offended, against the laws of Almighty God by his
+profane cursing; for which, however, he made a very sufficient atonement
+by paying a bottle of claret; and secondly, as having made use of an
+expression which, if it should become a prevailing opinion, might have
+the most alarming consequences to the profession, and was therefore
+deservedly considered in a far more hideous light. For the last offence
+he was fin'd 3 bottles. Pd."
+
+One of the most ridiculous circumstances over which the Northern Circuit
+men of the last generation delighted to laugh occurred at Newcastle,
+when Baron Graham--the poor lawyer, but a singularly amiable and placid
+man, of whom Jeckyll observed, "no one but his sempstress could ruffle
+him"--rode the circuit, and was immortalized as 'My Lord 'Size,' in Mr.
+John Shield's capital song--
+
+   "The jailor, for trial had brought up a thief,
+     Whose looks seemed a passport for Botany Bay;
+   The lawyers, some with and some wanting a brief,
+     Around the green table were seated so gay;
+   Grave jurors and witnesses waiting a call;
+     Attorneys and clients, more angry than wise;
+   With strangers and town-people, throng'd the Guildhall,
+     All watching and gaping to see my Lord 'Size.
+
+   "Oft stretch'd were their necks, oft erected their ears,
+     Still fancying they heard of the trumpets the sound,
+   When tidings arriv'd, which dissolv'd them in tears,
+     That my lord at the dead-house was then lying drown'd.
+   Straight left _tête-a-tête_ were the jailor and thief;
+     The horror-struck crowd to the dead-house quick hies;
+   Ev'n the lawyers, forgetful of fee and of brief,
+     Set off helter-skelter to view my Lord 'Size.
+
+   "And now the Sandhill with the sad tidings rings,
+     And the tubs of the taties are left to take care;
+   Fishwomen desert their crabs, lobsters, and lings,
+     And each to the dead-house now runs like a hare;
+   The glassmen, some naked, some clad, heard the news,
+     And off they ran, smoking like hot mutton pies;
+   Whilst Castle Garth tailors, like wild kangaroos,
+     Came tail-on-end jumping to see my Lord 'Size.
+
+   "The dead-house they reach'd, where his lordship they found,
+     Pale, stretch'd on a plank, like themselves out of breath,
+   The coroner and jury were seated around,
+     Most gravely enquiring the cause of his death.
+   No haste did they seem in, their task to complete,
+     Aware that from hurry mistakes often rise;
+   Or wishful, perhaps, of prolonging the treat
+     Of thus sitting in judgment upon my Lord 'Size.
+
+   "Now the Mansion House butler, thus gravely deposed:--
+     'My lord on the terrace seem'd studying his charge
+   And when (as I thought) he had got it compos'd,
+     He went down the stairs and examined the barge;
+   First the stem he surveyed, then inspected the stern,
+     Then handled the tiller, and looked mighty wise;
+   But he made a false step when about to return,
+     And souse in the river straight tumbled Lord 'Size.'
+
+   "'Now his narrative ended, the butler retir'd,
+     Whilst Betty Watt, muttering half drunk through her teeth,
+   Declar'd 'in her breast great consarn it inspir'd,
+     That my lord should sae cullishly come by his death;'
+   Next a keelman was called on, Bold Airchy by name,
+     Who the book as he kissed showed the whites of his eyes,
+   Then he cut an odd caper attention to claim,
+     And this evidence gave them respecting Lord 'Size;--
+
+   "Aw was settin' the keel, wi' Dick Slavers an' Matt,
+     An' the Mansion House stairs we were just alongside,
+   When we a' three see'd somethin', but didn't ken what,
+     That was splashin' and labberin', aboot i' the tide.
+   'It's a fluiker,' ki Dick; 'No,' ki Matt, 'its owre big,
+     It luik'd mair like a skyet when aw furst seed it rise;'
+   Kiv aw--for aw'd getten a gliff o' the wig--
+     'Ods marcy! wey, marrows, becrike, it's Lord 'Size.
+
+   "'Sae aw huik'd him, an' haul'd him suin into the keel,
+     An' o' top o' the huddock aw rowl'd him aboot;
+   An' his belly aw rubb'd, an' aw skelp'd his back weel,
+     But the water he'd druck'n it wadn't run oot;
+   So aw brought him ashore here, an' doctor's, in vain,
+     Furst this way, then that, to recover him tries;
+   For ye see there he's lyin' as deed as a stane,
+     An' that's a' aw can tell ye aboot my Lord 'Size.'
+
+   "Now the jury for close consultation retir'd:
+     Some '_Death Accidental_' were willing to find;
+   'God's Visitation' most eager requir'd;
+     And some were for 'Fell in the River' inclin'd;
+   But ere on their verdict they all were agreed,
+     My Lord gave a groan, and wide opened his eyes;
+   Then the coach and the trumpeters came with great speed,
+     And back to the Mansion House carried Lord 'Size."
+
+Amongst memorable Northern Circuit worthies was George Wood, the
+celebrated Special Pleader, in whose chambers Law, Erskine, Abbott and a
+mob of eminent lawyers acquired a knowledge of their profession. It is
+on record that whilst he and Mr. Holroyde were posting the Northern
+round, they were accosted on a lonely heath by a well-mounted horseman,
+who reining in his steed asked the barrister "What o'clock it was?"
+Favorably impressed by the stranger's appearance and tone of voice, Wood
+pulled out his valuable gold repeater, when the highwayman presenting a
+pistol, and putting it on the cock, said coolly, "_As you have_ a watch,
+be kind enough to give it me, so that I may not have occasion to trouble
+you again about the time." To demur was impossible; the lawyer,
+therefore, who had met his disaster by _going to the country_, meekly
+submitted to circumstances and surrendered the watch. For the loss of an
+excellent gold repeater he cared little, but he winced under the banter
+of his professional brethren, who long after the occurrence used to
+smile with malicious significance as they accosted him with--"What's the
+time, Wood?"
+
+Another of the memorable Northern circuiteers was John Hullock, who,
+like George Wood, became a baron of the Exchequer, and of whom the
+following story is told on good authority. In an important cause tried
+upon the Northern Circuit, he was instructed by the attorney who
+retained him as leader on one side not to produce a certain deed unless
+circumstances made him think that without its production his client
+would lose the suit. On perusing the deed entrusted to him with this
+remarkable injunction, Hullock saw that it established his client's
+case, and wishing to dispatch the business with all possible
+promptitude, he produced the parchment before its exhibition was
+demanded by necessity. Examination instantly detected the spurious
+character of the deed, which had been fabricated by the attorney. Of
+course the presiding judge (Sir John Bayley) ordered the deed to be
+impounded; but before the order was carried out, Mr. Hullock obtained
+permission to inspect it again. Restored to his hands, the deed was
+forthwith replaced in his bag. "You must surrender that deed instantly,"
+exclaimed the judge, seeing Hullock's intention to keep it. "My lord,"
+returned the barrister, warmly, "no power on earth shall induce me to
+surrender it. I have incautiously put the life of a fellow-creature in
+peril; and though I acted to the best of my discretion, I should never
+be happy again were a fatal result to ensue." At a loss to decide on the
+proper course of action, Mr. Justice Bayley retired from court to
+consult with his learned brother. On his lordship's reappearance in
+court, Mr. Hullock--who had also left the court for a brief period--told
+him that during his absence the forged deed had been destroyed. The
+attorney escaped; the barrister became a judge.
+
+[33] Lord Eldon, when he was handsome Jack Scott of the Northern
+Circuit, was about to make a short cut over the sands from Ulverstone to
+Lancaster at the of the tide, when he was restrained from acting on his
+rash resolve by the representations of an hotel keeper. "Danger,
+danger," asked Scott, impatiently--"have you ever _lost_ anybody there?"
+Mine host answered slowly, "Nae, sir, nae body has been _lost_ on the
+sands, _the puir bodies have been found at low water_."
+
+[34] With regard to the customary gifts of white gloves Mr. Foss
+says:--"Gloves were presented to the judges on some occasions: viz.,
+when a man, convicted for murder, or manslaughter, came and pleaded the
+king's pardon; and, till the Act of 4 & 5 William and Mary c. 18, which
+rendered personal appearance unnecessary, an outlawry could not be
+reversed, unless the defendant came into court, and with a present of
+gloves to the judges implored their favor to reverse it. The custom of
+giving the judge a pair of white gloves upon a maiden assize has
+continued till the present time." An interesting chapter might be
+written on the ancient ceremonies and usages obsolete and extant, of our
+courts of law. Here are a few of the practices which such a chapter
+would properly notice:--The custom, still maintained, which forbids the
+Lord Chancellor to utter any word or make any sign, when on Lord Mayor's
+Day the Lord Mayor of London enters the Court of Chancery, and by the
+mouth of the Recorder prays his lordship to honor the Guildhall banquet
+with his presence; the custom--extant so late as Lord Brougham's
+Chancellorship--which required the Holder of the Seals, at the
+installation of a new Master of Chancery, to install the new master by
+placing a cap or hat on his head; the custom which in Charles II.'s
+time, on motion days at the Chancellor's, compelled all barristers
+making motions to contribute to his lordship's 'Poor's Box'--barristers
+within the bar paying two shillings, and outer barristers one
+shilling--the contents of which box were periodically given to
+magistrates, for distribution amongst the deserving poor of London; the
+custom which required a newly-created judge to present his colleagues
+with biscuits and wine; the barbarous custom which compelled prisoners
+to plead their defence, standing in fetters, a custom enforced by Chief
+Justice Pratt at the trial of the Jacobite against Christopher Layer,
+although at the of trial of Cranburne for complicity in the
+'Assassination Plot,' Holt had enunciated the merciful maxim, "When the
+prisoners are tried they should stand at ease;" the custom which--in
+days when forty persons died of gaol fever caught at the memorable Black
+Sessions (May, 1759) at the Old Bailey, when Captain Clark was tried for
+killing Captain Innes in a duel--strewed rue, fennel, and other herbs on
+the ledge of the dock, in the faith that the odor of the herbage would
+act as a barrier to the poisonous exhalations from prisoners sick of
+gaol distemper, and would protect the assembly in the body of the court
+from the contagion of the disease.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+LAWYERS AND SAINTS.
+
+
+Notwithstanding the close connexion which in old times existed between
+the Church and the Law, popular sentiment holds to the opinion that the
+ways of lawyers are far removed from the ways of holiness, and that the
+difficulties encountered by wealthy travellers on the road to heaven are
+far greater with rich lawyers than with any other class of rich men. An
+old proverb teaches that wearers of the long robe never reach paradise
+_per saltum_, but 'by slow degrees;' and an irreverent ballad supports
+the vulgar belief that the only attorney to be found on the celestial
+rolls gained admittance to the blissful abode more by artifice than
+desert. The ribald broadside runs in the following style:---
+
+   "Professions will abuse each other;
+   The priests won't call the lawyer brother;
+   While _Salkeld_ still beknaves the parson,
+   And says he cants to keep the farce on.
+   Yet will I readily suppose
+   They are not truly bitter foes,
+   But only have their pleasant jokes,
+   And banter, just like other folks.
+   And thus, for so they quiz the law,
+   Once on a time th' Attorney Flaw,
+   A man to tell you, as the fact is,
+   Of vast chicane, of course of practice;
+   (But what profession can we trace
+   Where none will not the corps disgrace?
+   Seduced, perhaps, by roguish client,
+   Who tempt him to become more pliant),
+   A notice had to quit the world,
+   And from his desk at once was hurled.
+   Observe, I pray, the plain narration:
+   'Twas in a hot and long vacation,
+   When time he had but no assistance.
+   Tho' great from courts of law the distance,
+   To reach the court of truth and justice
+   (Where I confess my only trust is);
+   Though here below the special pleader
+   Shows talents worthy of a leader,
+   Yet his own fame he must support,
+   Be sometimes witty with the court
+   Or word the passion of a jury
+   By tender strains, or full of fury;
+   Misleads them all, tho' twelve apostles,
+   While with the new law the judge he jostles,
+   And makes them all give up their powers
+   To speeches of at least three hours--
+   But we have left our little man,
+   And wandered from our purpos'd plan:
+   'Tis said (without ill-natured leaven)
+   "If ever lawyers get to heaven,
+   It surely is by slow degrees"
+   (Perhaps 'tis slow they take their fees).
+   The case, then, now I fairly state:
+   Flaw reached at last to heaven's high gate;
+   Quite short he rapped, none did it neater;
+   The gate was opened by St. Peter,
+   Who looked astonished when he saw,
+   All black, the little man of law;
+   But charity was Peter's guide.
+   For having once himself denied
+   His master, he would not o'erpass
+   The penitent of any class;
+   Yet never having heard there entered
+   A lawyer, nay, nor ever ventured
+   Within the realms of peace and love,
+   He told him mildly to remove,
+   And would have closed the gate of day,
+   Had not old Flaw, in suppliant way,
+   Demurring to so hard a fate,
+   Begg'd but a look, tho' through the gate.
+   St. Peter, rather off his guard,
+   Unwilling to be thought too hard,
+   Opens the gate to let him peep in.
+   What did the lawyer? Did he creep in?
+   Or dash at once to take possession?
+   Oh no, he knew his own profession:
+   He took his hat off with respect,
+   And would no gentle means neglect;
+   But finding it was all in vain
+   For him admittance to obtain,
+   Thought it were best, let come what will,
+   To gain an entry by his skill.
+   So while St. Peter stood aside,
+   To let the door be opened wide,
+   He skimmed his hat with all his strength
+   Within the gate to no small length.
+   St. Peter stared; the lawyer asked him
+   "Only to fetch his hat," and passed him;
+   But when he reached the jack he'd thrown,
+   Oh, then was all the lawyer shown;
+   He clapt it on, and arms akembo
+   (As if he had been the gallant Bembo),
+   Cry'd out--'What think you of my plan?
+   Eject me, Peter, if you can.'"
+
+The celestial courts having devised no process of ejectment that could
+be employed in this unlooked-for emergency, St. Peter hastily withdrew
+to take counsel's opinion; and during his absence Mr. Flaw firmly
+established himself in the realms of bliss, where he remains to this day
+the black sheep of the saintly family.
+
+But though a flippant humorist in these later times could deride the
+lawyer as a character who had better not force his way into heaven,
+since he would not find a single personal acquaintance amongst its
+inhabitants, in more remote days lawyers achieved the honors of
+canonization, and our forefathers sought their saintly intercession with
+devout fervor. Our calendars still regard the 15th of July as a sacred
+day, in memory of the holy Swithin, who was tutor to King Ethelwulf and
+King Alfred, and Chancellor of England, and who certainly deserved his
+elevation to the fellowship of saints, even had his title to the honor
+rested solely on a remarkable act which he performed in the exercise of
+his judicial functions. A familiar set of nursery rhymes sets forth the
+utter inability of all the King's horses and men to reform the shattered
+Humpty-Dumpty, when his rotund highness had fallen from a wall; but when
+a wretched market-woman, whose entire basketful of new-laid eggs had
+been wilfully smashed by an enemy, sought in her trouble the aid of
+Chancery, the holy Chancellor Swithin miraculously restored each broken
+shell to perfect shape, each yolk to soundness. Saith William of
+Malmesbury, recounting this marvellous achievement--"statimque porrecto
+crucis signo, fracturam omnium ovorum consolidat."
+
+Like Chancellor Swithin before him, and like Chancellor Wolsey in a
+later time, Chancellor Becket was a royal tutor;[35] and like Swithin,
+who still remains the pluvious saint of humid England, and unlike
+Wolsey, who just missed the glory of canonization, Becket became a
+widely venerated saint. But less kind to St. Thomas of Canterbury than
+to St. Swithin, the Reformation degraded Becket from the saintly rank by
+the decision which terminated the ridiculous legal proceedings
+instituted by Henry VIII. against the holy reputation of St. Thomas.
+After the saint's counsel had replied to the Attorney-General, who, of
+course, conducted the cause for the crown, the court declared that
+"Thomas, sometime Archbishop of Canterbury, had been guilty of
+contumacy, treason and rebellion; that his bones should be publicly
+burnt, to admonish the living of their duty by the punishment of the
+dead; and that the offerings made at his shrine should be forfeited to
+the crown."
+
+After the conclusion of the suit for the saint's degradation--a suit
+which was an extravagant parody of the process for establishing at Rome
+a holy man's title to the honors of canonization--proclamation was made
+that "forasmuch as it now clearly appeared that Thomas Becket had been
+killed in a riot excited by his own obstinacy and intemperate language,
+and had been afterwards canonized by the Bishop of Rome as the champion
+of his usurped authority, the king's majesty thought it expedient to
+declare to his loving subjects that he was no saint, but rather a rebel
+and traitor to his prince, and therefore strictly charged and commanded
+that he should not be esteemed or called a saint; that all images and
+pictures of him should be destroyed, the festivals in his honor be
+abolished, and his name and remembrance be erased out of all books,
+under pain of his majesty's indignation and imprisonment at his grace's
+pleasure."
+
+But neither St. Swithin nor St. Thomas of Canterbury, lawyers though
+they were, deigned to take the legal profession under especial
+protection, and to mediate with particular officiousness between the
+long robe and St. Peter. The peculiar saint of the profession was St.
+Evona, concerning whom Carr, in his 'Remarks of the Government of the
+Severall Parts of Germanie, Denmark, &c.,' has the following passage:
+And now because I am speaking of Petty-foggers, give me leave to tell
+you a story I mett with when I lived in Rome. Goeing with a Romane to
+see some antiquityes, he showed me a chapell dedicated to St. Evona, a
+lawyer of Brittanie, who, he said, came to Rome to entreat the Pope to
+give the lawyers of Brittanie a patron, to which the Pope replied, that
+he knew of no saint but what was disposed to other professions. At which
+Evona was very sad, and earnestly begd of the Pope to think of one for
+him. At last the Pope proposed to St. Evona that he should go round the
+church of St. John de Latera blindfold, and after he had said so many
+Ave Marias, that the first saint he laid hold of should be his patron,
+which the good old lawyer willingly undertook, and at the end of his Ave
+Maryes he stopt at St. Michael's altar, where he layed hold of the
+Divell, under St. Michael's feet, and cry'd out, this is our saint, let
+him be our patron. So being unblindfolded, and seeing what a patron he
+had chosen, he went to his lodgings so dejected, that a few moneths
+after he died, and coming to heaven's gates knockt hard. Whereupon St.
+Peter asked who it was that knockt so bouldly. He replied that he was
+St. Evona the advocate. Away, away, said St. Peter, here is but one
+advocate in Heaven; here is no room for you lawyers. O but, said St.
+Evona, I am that honest lawyer who never tooke fees on both sides, or
+pleaded in a bad cause, nor did I ever set my Naibours together by the
+ears, or lived by the sins of the People. Well, then, said St. Peter,
+come in. This newes coming down to Rome, a witty poet wrote on St.
+Evona's tomb these words:--
+
+   'St. Evona un Briton,
+   Advocat non Larron.
+             Hallelujah.'
+
+This story put me in mind of Ben Jonson goeing throw a church in Surrey,
+seeing poore people weeping over a grave, asked one of the women why
+they wept. Oh, said shee, we have lost our pretious lawyer, Justice
+Randall; he kept us all in peace, and always was so good as to keep us
+from goeing to law; the best man ever lived. Well, said Ben Jonson, I
+will send you an epitaph to write upon his tomb, which was--
+
+   'God works wonders now and then,
+   Here lies a lawyer an honest man.'
+
+An important vestige of the close relations which formerly existed
+between the Law and the Church is still found in the ecclesiastical
+patronage of the Lord Chancellor; and many are the good stories told of
+interviews that took place between our more recent chancellors and
+clergymen suing for preferment. "Who sent you, sir?" Thurlow asked
+savagely of a country curate, who had boldly forced his way into the
+Chancellor's library in Great Ormond Street, in the hope of winning the
+presentation to a vacant living. "In whose _name_ do you come, that you
+venture to pester me about your private affairs? I say, sir--what great
+lords sent you to bother me in my house?" "My Lord," answered the
+applicant, with a happy combination of dignity and humor, "no great man
+supports my entreaty; but I may say with honesty, that I come to you in
+the name of the Lord of Hosts." Pleased by the spirit and wit of the
+reply, Thurlow exclaimed, "The Lord of Hosts! the Lord of Hosts! you are
+the first parson that ever applied to me in that Lord's name; and though
+his title can't be found in the Peerage, by ---- you shall have the
+living." On another occasion the same Chancellor was less benign, but
+not less just to a clerical applicant. Sustained by Queen Charlotte's
+personal favor and intercession with Thurlow, the clergyman in question
+felt so sure of obtaining the valuable living which was the object of
+his ambition, that he regarded his interview with the Chancellor as a
+purely formal affair. "I have, sir," observed Lord Thurlow, "received a
+letter from the curate of the parish to which it is my intention to
+prefer you, and on inquiry I find him to be a very worthy man. The
+father of a large family, and a priest who has labored zealously in the
+parish for many years, he has written to me--not asking for the living,
+but modestly entreating me to ask the new rector to retain him as
+curate. Now, sir, you would oblige me by promising me to employ the poor
+man in that capacity." "My lord," replied Queen Charlotte's pastor, "it
+would give me great pleasure to oblige your lordship in this matter, but
+unfortunately I have arranged to take a personal friend for my curate."
+His eyes flashing angrily, Thurlow answered, "Sir, I cannot force you to
+take this worthy man for your curate, but I can make him the rector; and
+by ---- he shall have the living, and be in a position to offer you the
+curacy."
+
+Of Lord Loughborough a reliable biographer records a pleasant and
+singular story. Having pronounced a decision in the House of Lords,
+which deprived an excellent clergyman of a considerable estate and
+reduced him to actual indigence, the Chancellor, before quitting the
+woolsack, addressed the unfortunate suitor thus:--"As a judge I have
+decided against you, whose virtues are not unknown to me; and in
+acknowledgment of those virtues I beg you to accept from me a
+presentation to a living now vacant, and worth £600 per annum."
+
+Capital also are the best of many anecdotes concerning Eldon and his
+ecclesiastical patronage. Dating the letter from No. 2, Charlotte
+Street, Pimlico, the Chancellor's eldest son sent his father the
+following anonymous epistle:--
+
+   "Hear, generous lawyer! hear my prayer,
+   Nor let my freedom make, you stare,
+             In hailing you Jack Scott!
+   Tho' now upon the woolsack placed,
+   With wealth, with power, with title graced,
+             _Once_ nearer was our lot.
+
+   "Say by what name the hapless bard
+   May best attract your kind regard--
+             Plain Jack?--Sir John?--or Eldon?
+   Give from your ample store of giving,
+   A starving priest some little living--
+             The world will cry out 'Well done.'
+
+   "In vain, without a patron's aid,
+   I've prayed and preached, and preached and prayed--
+             _Applauded_ but _ill-fed_.
+   Such vain _éclat_ let others share;
+   Alas, I cannot feed on air--
+             I ask not _praise_, but _bread_."
+
+Satisfactorily hoaxed by the rhymer, the Chancellor went to Pimlico in
+search of the clerical poetaster, and found him not.
+
+Prettier and less comic is the story of Miss Bridge's morning call upon
+Lord Eldon. The Chancellor was sitting in his study over a table of
+papers when a young and lovely girl--slightly rustic in her attire,
+slightly embarrassed by the novelty of her position, but thoroughly in
+command of her wits--entered the room, and walked up to the lawyer's
+chair. "My dear," said the Chancellor, rising and bowing with old-world
+courtesy, "who _are_ you?" "Lord Eldon," answered the blushing maiden,
+"I am Bessie Bridge of Weobly, the daughter of the Vicar of Weobly, and
+papa has sent me to remind you of a promise which you made him when I
+was a little baby, and you were a guest in his house on the occasion of
+your first election as member of Parliament for Weobly." "A promise, my
+dear young lady?" interposed the Chancellor, trying to recall how he had
+pledged himself. "Yea, Lord Eldon, a promise. You were standing over my
+cradle when papa said to you, 'Mr. Scott, promise me that if ever you
+are Lord Chancellor, when my little girl is a poor clergyman's wife, you
+will give her husband a living;' and you answered, 'Mr. Bridge, my
+promise is not worth half-a-crown, but I give it to you, wishing it were
+worth more.'" Enthusiastically the Chancellor exclaimed, "You are quite
+right. I admit the obligation. I remember all about it;" and, then,
+after a pause, archly surveying the damsel, whose graces were the
+reverse of matronly, he added, "But surely the time for keeping my
+promise has not yet arrived? You cannot be any one's wife at present?"
+For a few seconds Bessie hesitated for an answer, and then, with a blush
+and a ripple of silver laughter she replied, "No, but I do so wish to be
+_somebody's_ wife. I am engaged to a young clergyman; and there's a
+living in Herefordshire near my old home that has recently fallen
+vacant, and if you'll give it to Alfred, why then, Lord Eldon, we shall
+marry before the end of the year." Is there need to say that the
+Chancellor forthwith summoned his Secretary, that the secretary
+forthwith made out the presentation to Bessie's lover, and that having
+given the Chancellor a kiss of gratitude, Bessie made good speed back to
+Herefordshire, hugging the precious document the whole way home?
+
+A bad but eager sportsman, Lord Eldon used to blaze away at his
+partridges and pheasants with such uniform want of success that Lord
+Stowell had truth as well as humor on his side when he observed, "My
+brother has done much execution this shooting season; with his gun he
+has _killed a great deal of time_." Having ineffectually discharged two
+barrels at a covey of partridges, the Chancellor was slowly walking to
+the gate of one of his Encome turnip-fields when a stranger of clerical
+garb and aspect hailed him from a distance, asking, "Where is Lord
+Eldon?" Not anxious to declare himself to the witness of his ludicrously
+bad shot, the Chancellor answered evasively, and with scant courtesy,
+"Not far off." Displeased with the tone of this curt reply, the
+clergyman rejoined, "I wish you'd use your tongue to better purpose than
+you do your gun, and tell me civily where I can find the Chancellor."
+"Well," responded the sportsman, when he had slowly approached his
+questioner, "here you see the Chancellor--I am Lord Eldon." It was an
+untoward introduction to the Chancellor for the strange clergyman who
+had traveled from the North of Lancashire to ask for the presentation to
+a vacant living. Partly out of humorous compassion for the applicant who
+had offered rudeness, if not insult to the person whom he was most
+anxious to propitiate; partly because on inquiry he ascertained the
+respectability of the applicant; and partly because he wished to seal by
+kindness the lips of a man who could report on the authority of his own
+eyes that the best lawyer was also the worst shot in all England, Eldon
+gave the petitioner the desired preferment. "But now," the old
+Chancellor used to add in conclusion, whenever he told the story, "see
+the ingratitude of mankind. It was not long before a large present of
+game reached me, with a letter from my new-made rector, purporting that
+he had sent it to me, because _from what he had seen of my shooting he_
+supposed I must be badly off for game. Think of turning upon me in this
+way, and wounding me in my tenderest point."
+
+Amongst Eldon's humorous answers to applications for preferment should
+be remembered his letter to Dr. Fisher of the Charterhouse: on one side
+of a sheet of paper, "Dear Fisher, I cannot, to-day, give you the
+preferment for which you ask.--I remain your sincere friend,
+ELDON.--_Turn over_;" and on the other side, "I gave it to you
+yesterday." This note reminds us of Erskine's reply to Sir John
+Sinclair's solicitation for a subscription to the testimonial which Sir
+John invited the nation to present to himself. On the one side of a
+sheet of paper it ran, "My dear Sir John, I am certain there are few in
+this kingdom who set a higher value on your services than myself, and I
+have the honor to subscribe," and on the other side it concluded,
+"myself your obedient faithful servant, ERSKINE."
+
+[35] Swithin was tutor to Ethelwulf and Alfred. Becket was tutor to
+Henry II.'s eldest son. Wolsey--who took delight in discharging
+scholastic functions from the days when he birched schoolboys at
+Magdalen College, Oxford, till the time when in the plenitude of his
+grandeur he framed regulations for Dean Colet's school of St. Paul's and
+wrote an introduction to a Latin Grammar for the use of children--acted
+as educational director to the Princess Mary, and superintended the
+studies of Henry VIII.'s natural son, the Earl of Richmond. Amongst
+pedagogue-chancellors, by license of fancy, may be included the Earl of
+Clarendon, whose enemies used to charge him with 'playing the
+schoolmaster to his king,' and in their desire to bring him into
+disfavor at court used to announce his approach to Charles II. by
+saying, "Here comes your schoolmaster."
+
+
+
+
+PART IX.
+
+AT HOME: IN COURT: AND IN SOCIETY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV.
+
+LAWYERS AT THEIR OWN TABLES.
+
+
+A long list, indeed, might be made of abstemious lawyers; but their
+temperance is almost invariably mentioned by biographers as matter for
+regret and apology, and is even made an occasion for reproach in cases
+where it has not been palliated by habits of munificent hospitality. In
+the catalogue of Chancellor Warham's virtues and laudable usages,
+Erasmus takes care to mention that the primate was accustomed to
+entertain his friends, to the number of two hundred at a time: and when
+the man of letters notices the archbishop's moderation with respect to
+wines and dishes--a moderation that caused his grace to eschew suppers,
+and never to sit more than an hour at dinner--he does not omit to
+observe that though the great man "made it a rule to abstain entirely
+from supper, yet if his friends were assembled at that meal he would sit
+down along with them and promote their conviviality."
+
+Splendid in all things, Wolsey astounded envious nobles by the
+magnificence of his banquets, and the lavish expenses of his kitchens,
+wherein his master-cooks wore raiment of richest materials--the _chef_
+of his private kitchen daily arraying himself in a damask-satin or
+velvet, and wearing on his neck a chain of gold. Of a far other kind
+were the tastes of Wolsey's successor, who, in the warmest sunshine of
+his power, preferred a quiet dinner with Erasmus to the pompous display
+of state banquets, and who wore a gleeful light in his countenance when,
+after his fall, he called his children and grandchildren about him, and
+said: "I have been brought up at Oxford, at an Inn of Chancery, at
+Lincoln's Inn, and in the King's Court--from the lowest degree to the
+highest, and yet have I in yearly revenues at this present, little left
+me above a hundred pounds by the year; so that now, if we wish to live
+together, you must be content to be contributaries together. But my
+counsel is that we fall not to the lowest fare first; we will not,
+therefore, descend to Oxford fare, nor to the fare of New Inn, but we
+will begin with Lincoln's Inn diet, where many right worshipful men of
+great account and good years do live full well; which if we find
+ourselves the first year not able to maintain, then will we in the next
+year come down to Oxford fare, where many great, learned, and ancient
+fathers and doctors are continually conversant; which if our purses
+stretch not to maintain neither, then may we after, with bag and wallet,
+go a-begging together, hoping that for pity some good folks will give us
+their charity and at every man's door to sing a _Salve Regina_, whereby
+we shall keep company and be merry together."
+
+Students recalling the social life of England should bear in mind the
+hours kept by our ancestors in the fourteenth and two following
+centuries. Under the Plantagenets noblemen used to sup at five P.M., and
+dine somewhere about the breakfast hour of Mayfair in a modern London
+season. Gradually hours became later; but under the Tudors the ordinary
+dinner hour for gentlepeople was somewhere about eleven A.M., and their
+usual time for supping was between five P.M. and six P.M., tradesmen,
+merchants and farmers dining and supping at later hours than their
+social superiors. "With us," says Hall the chronicler, "the nobility,
+gentry, and students, do ordinarily go to dinner at eleven before noon,
+and to supper at five, or between five and six, at afternoon. The
+merchants dine and sup seldom before twelve at noon and six at night.
+The husbandmen also dine at high noon as they call it, and sup at seven
+or eight; but out of term in our universities the scholars dine at ten."
+Thus whilst the idlers of society made haste to eat and drink, the
+workers postponed the pleasures of the table until they had made a good
+morning's work. In the days of morning dinners and afternoon suppers,
+the law-courts used to be at the height of their daily business at an
+hour when Templars of the present generation have seldom risen from bed.
+Chancellors were accustomed to commence their daily sittings in
+Westminster at seven A.M. in summer, and at eight A.M. in winter months.
+Lord Keeper Williams, who endeavored to atone for want of law by
+extraordinarily assiduous attention to the duties of his office, used
+indeed to open his winter sittings by candlelight between six and seven
+o'clock.
+
+Many were the costly banquets of which successive Chancellors invited
+the nobility, the judges, and the bar, to partake at old York House; but
+of all the holders of the Great Seal who exercised pompous hospitality
+in that picturesque palace, Francis Bacon was the most liberal,
+gracious, and delightful entertainer. Where is the student of English
+history who has not often endeavored to imagine the scene when Ben
+Jonson sat amongst the honored guests of
+
+   "England's high Chancellor, the destin'd heir,
+   In his soft cradle, to his father's chair,"
+
+and little prescient of the coming storm, spoke of his host as one
+
+   "Whose even thread the Fates spin round and full,
+   Out of their choicest and their whitest wool."
+
+Even at the present day lawyers have reason to be grateful to Bacon for
+the promptitude with which, on taking possession of the Marble Chair, he
+revived the ancient usages of earlier holders of the seal, and set an
+example of courteous hospitality to the bar, which no subsequent
+Chancellor has been able to disregard without loss of respect and
+_prestige_. Though a short attack of gout qualified the new pleasure of
+his elevation--an attack attributed by the sufferer to his removal "from
+a field air to a Thames air," _i.e._, from Gray's Inn to the south side
+of the Strand--Lord Keeper Bacon lost no time in summoning the judges
+and most eminent barristers to his table; and though the gravity of his
+indisposition, or the dignity of his office, forbade him to join in the
+feast, he sat and spoke pleasantly with them when the dishes had been
+removed. "Yesterday," he wrote to Buckingham, "which was my weary day, I
+bid all the judges to dinner, which was not used to be, and entertained
+them in a private withdrawing chamber with the learned counsel. When the
+feast was past I came amongst them and sat me down at the end of the
+table, and prayed them to think I was one of them, and but a foreman."
+Nor let us, whilst recalling Bacon's bounteous hospitalities, fail in
+justice to his great rival, Sir Edward Coke---who, though he usually
+held himself aloof from frivolous amusements, and cared but little for
+expensive repasts, would with a liberal hand place lordly dishes before
+lordly guests; and of whom it is recorded in the 'Apophthegmes,' that
+when any great visitor dropped in upon him for pot-luck without notice
+he was wont to say, "Sir, since you sent me no notice of your coming,
+you must dine with me; but if I had known of it in due time I would have
+dined with you."
+
+From such great men as Lord Nottingham and Lord Guildford, who
+successively kept high state in Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, to
+fat _puisnes_ occupying snug houses in close proximity to the Inns of
+Court, and lower downwards to leaders of the bar and juniors sleeping as
+well as working in chambers, the Restoration lawyers were conspicuous
+promoters of the hilarity which was one of the most prominent and least
+offensive characteristics of Charles II.'s London. Lord Nottingham's
+sumptuous hospitalities were the more creditable, because he voluntarily
+relinquished his claim to £4000 per annum, which the royal bounty had
+assigned him as a fund to be expended in official entertainments.
+Similar praise cannot be awarded to Lord Guildford; but justice compels
+the admission that, notwithstanding his love of money, he maintained the
+_prestige_ of his place, so far as a hospitable table and profuse
+domestic expenditure could support it.
+
+Contrasting strongly with the lawyers of this period, who copied in
+miniature the impressive state of Clarendon's princely establishments,
+were the jovial, catch-singing, three-bottle lawyers--who preferred
+drunkenness to pomp; an oaken table, surrounded by jolly fellows, to
+ante-rooms crowded with obsequious courtiers; a hunting song with a
+brave chorus to the less stormy diversion of polite conversation. Of
+these free-living lawyers, George Jeffreys was a conspicuous leader. Not
+averse to display, and not incapable of shining in refined society, this
+notorious man loved good cheer and jolly companions beyond all other
+sources of excitement; and during his tenure of the seals, he was never
+more happy than when he was presiding over a company of sharp-witted
+men-about-town whom he had invited to indulge in wild talk and choice
+wine at his mansion that overlooked the lawns, the water, and the trees
+of St. James's Park. On such occasions his lordship's most valued boon
+companion was Mountfort, the comedian, whom he had taken from the stage
+and made a permanent officer of the Duke Street household. Whether the
+actor was required to discharge any graver functions in the Chancellor's
+establishment is unknown; but we have Sir John Reresby's testimony that
+the clever mimic and brilliant libertine was employed to amuse his
+lordship's guests by ridiculing the personal and mental peculiarities of
+the judges and most eminent barristers. "I dined," records Sir John,
+"with the Lord Chancellor, where the Lord Mayor of London was a guest,
+and some other gentlemen. His lordship having, according to custom,
+drunk deep at dinner, called for one Mountfort, a gentleman of his, who
+had been a comedian, an excellent mimic; and to divert the company, as
+he was pleased to term it, he made him plead before him in a feigned
+cause, during which he aped the judges, and all the great lawyers of the
+age, in tone of voice and in action and gesture of body, to the very
+great ridicule, not only of the lawyers, but of the law itself, which to
+me did not seem altogether prudent in a man in his lofty station in the
+law; diverting it certainly was, but prudent in the Lord Chancellor I
+shall never think it." The fun of Mountfort's imitations was often
+heightened by the presence of the persons whom they held up to
+derision--some of whom would see and express natural displeasure at the
+affront; whilst others, quite unconscious of their own peculiarities,
+joined loudly in the laughter that was directed against themselves.
+
+As pet buffoon of the tories about town, Mountfort was followed, at a
+considerable distance of time, by Estcourt--an actor who united wit and
+fine humor with irresistible powers of mimicry; and who contrived to
+acquire the respect and affectionate regard of many of those famous
+Whigs whom it was alike his pleasure and his business to render
+ridiculous. In the _Spectator_ Steele paid him a tribute of cordial
+admiration; and Cibber, noticing the marvellous fidelity of his
+imitations, has recorded, "This man was so amazing and extraordinary a
+mimic, that no man or woman, from the coquette to the privy counsellor,
+ever moved or spoke before him, but he could carry their voice, look,
+mien, and motion instantly into another company. I have heard him make
+long harangues, and form various arguments, even in the manner of
+thinking of an eminent pleader at the bar, with every the least article
+and singularity of his utterance so perfectly imitated, that he was the
+very _alter ipse_, scarce to be distinguished from the original."
+
+With the exception of Kenyon and Eldon, and one or two less conspicuous
+instances of judicial penuriousness, the judges of the Georgian period
+were hospitable entertainers. Chief Justice Lee, who died in 1754,
+gained credit for an adequate knowledge of law by the sumptuousness and
+frequency of the dinners with which he regaled his brothers of the bench
+and learned counsellors. Chief Justice Mansfield's habitual temperance
+and comparative indifference to the pleasures of the table did not cause
+him to be neglectful of hospitable duties. Notwithstanding the cold
+formality of Lord Hardwicke's entertainments, and the charges of
+niggardliness preferred against Lady Hardwicke's domestic system by
+Opposition satirists, Philip Yorke used to entertain the chiefs of his
+profession with pomp, if not with affability. Thurlow entertained a
+somewhat too limited circle of friends with English fare and a
+superabundance of choice port in Great Ormond Street. Throughout his
+public career, Alexander Wedderburn was a lavish and delightful host,
+amply atoning in the opinion of frivolous society for his political
+falsity by the excellence and number of his grand dinners. On entering
+the place of Solicitor-General, he spent £8000 on a service of plate;
+and as Lord Loughborough he gratified the bar and dazzled the
+fashionable world by hospitality alike sumptuous and brilliant.
+
+Several of the Georgian lawyers had strong predilections for particular
+dishes or articles of diet. Thurlow was very fanciful about his fruit;
+and in his later years he would give way to ludicrous irritability, if
+inferior grapes or faulty peaches were placed before him. At Brighton,
+in his declining years, the ex-Chancellor's indignation at a dish of
+defective wall-fruit was so lively that--to the inexpressible
+astonishment of Horne Tooke and other guests--he caused the whole of a
+very fine dessert to be thrown out of the window upon the Marine Parade.
+Baron Graham's weakness was for oysters, eaten as a preparatory whet to
+the appetite before dinner; and it is recorded of him that on a certain
+occasion, when he had been indulging in this favorite pre-prandial
+exercise, he observed with pleasant humor--"Oysters taken before dinner
+are said to sharpen the appetite; but I have just consumed half-a-barrel
+of fine natives--and speaking honestly, I am bound to say that I don't
+feel quite as hungry as when I began." Thomas Manners Button's peculiar
+_penchant_ was for salads; and in a moment of impulsive kindness he gave
+Lady Morgan the recipe for his favorite salad--a compound of rare merit
+and mysterious properties. Bitterly did the old lawyer repent his unwise
+munificence when he read 'O'Donnell.' Warmly displeased with the
+political sentiments of the novel, he ordered it to be burnt in the
+servants' hall, and exclaimed, peevishly, to Lady Manners, "I wish I
+had not given her the secret of my salad." In no culinary product did
+Lord Ellenborough find greater delight than lobster-sauce; and he gave
+expression to his high regard for that soothing and delicate compound
+when he decided that persons engaged in lobster-fishery were exempt from
+legal liability to impressment. "Then is not," inquired his lordship,
+with solemn pathos, "the lobster-fishery a fishery, and a most important
+fishery, of this kingdom, though carried on in shallow water? The
+framers of the law well knew that the produce of the deep sea, without
+the produce of the shallow water, would be of comparatively small value,
+and intended that turbot, when placed upon our tables, should be flanked
+by good lobster-sauce." Eldon's singular passion for fried 'liver and
+bacon' was amongst his most notorious and least pleasant peculiarities.
+Even the Prince Regent condescended to humor this remarkable taste by
+ordering a dish of liver and bacon to be placed on the table when the
+Chancellor dined with him at Brighton. Sir John Leach, Master of the
+Rolls, was however less ready to pander to a depraved appetite. Lord
+Eldon said, "It will give me great pleasure to dine with you, and since
+you are good enough to ask me to order a dish that shall test your new
+_chef's_ powers--I wish you'd tell your Frenchman to fry some liver and
+bacon for me." "Are you laughing at me or my cook?" asked Sir John
+Leach, stiffly, thinking that the Chancellor was bent on ridiculing his
+luxurious mode of living. "At neither," answered Eldon, with equal
+simplicity and truth; "I was only ordering the dish which I enjoy beyond
+all other dishes."
+
+Although Eldon's penuriousness was grossly exaggerated by his
+detractors, it cannot be questioned that either through indolence, or
+love of money, or some other kind of selfishness, he was very neglectful
+of his hospitable duties to the bench and the bar. "Verily he is
+working off the arrears of the Lord Chancellor," said Romilly, when Sir
+Thomas Plummer, the Master of the Rolls, gave a succession of dinners to
+the bar; and such a remark would not have escaped the lips of the
+decorous and amiable Romilly had not circumstances fully justified it.
+Still it is unquestionable that Eldon's Cabinet dinners were suitably
+expensive; and that he never grudged his choicest port to the old
+attorneys and subordinate placemen who were his obsequious companions
+towards the close of his career. For the charges of sordid parsimony so
+frequently preferred against Kenyon it is to be feared there were better
+grounds. Under the steadily strengthening spell of avarice he ceased to
+invite even old friends to his table; and it was rumored that in course
+of time his domestic servants complained with reason that they were
+required to consume the same fare as their master deemed sufficient for
+himself. "In Lord Kenyon's house," a wit exclaimed, "all the year
+through it is Lent in the kitchen, and Passion Week in the Parlor."
+Another caustic quidnunc remarked, "In his lordship's kitchen the fire
+is dull, but the spits are always bright;" whereupon Jekyll interposed
+with an assumption of testiness, "Spits! in the name of common sense I
+order you not to talk about _his_ spits, for nothing turns upon them."
+
+Very different was the temper of Erskine, who spent money faster than
+Kenyon saved it, and who died in indigence after holding the Great Seal
+of England, and making for many years a finer income at the bar than any
+of his contemporaries not enjoying crown patronage. Many are the bright
+pictures preserved to us of his hospitality to politicians and lawyers,
+wits, and people of fashion; but none of the scenes is more
+characteristic than the dinner described by Sir Samuel Romilly, when
+that good man met at Erskine's Hampstead villa the chiefs of the
+opposition and Mr. Pinkney, the American Minister. "Among the light,
+trifling topics of conversation after dinner," says Sir Samuel Romilly,
+"it may be worth while to mention one, as it strongly characterizes Lord
+Erskine. He has always expressed and felt a strong sympathy with
+animals. He has talked for years of a bill he was to bring into
+parliament to prevent cruelty towards them. He has always had some
+favorite animals to whom he has been much attached, and of whom all his
+acquaintance have a number of anecdotes to relate; a favorite dog which
+he used to bring, when he was at the bar, to all his consultations;
+another favorite dog, which, at the time when he was Lord Chancellor, he
+himself rescued in the street from some boys who were about to kill it
+under the pretence of its being mad; a favorite goose, which followed
+him wherever he walked about his grounds; a favorite macaw, and other
+dumb favorites without number. He told us now that he had got two
+favorite leeches. He had been blooded by them last autumn when he had
+been taken dangerously ill at Portsmouth; they had saved his life, and
+he had brought them with him to town, had ever since kept them in a
+glass, had himself every day given them fresh water, and had formed a
+friendship for them. He said he was sure they both knew him and were
+grateful to him. He had given them different names, 'Home' and 'Cline'
+(the names of two celebrated surgeons), their dispositions being quite
+different. After a good deal of conversation about them, he went
+himself, brought them out of his library, and placed them in their glass
+upon the table. It is impossible, however, without the vivacity, the
+tones, the details, and the gestures of Lord Erskine, to give an
+adequate idea of this singular scene." Amongst the listeners to Erskine,
+whilst he spoke eloquently and with fervor of the virtues of his two
+leeches, were the Duke of Norfolk, Lord Grenville, Lord Grey, Lord
+Holland, Lord Ellenborough, Lord Lauderdale, Lord Henry Petty, and
+Thomas Grenville.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI.
+
+WINE.
+
+
+From the time when Francis Bacon attributed a sharp attack of gout to
+his removal from Gray's Inn Fields to the river side, to a time not many
+years distant when Sir Herbert Jenner Fust[36] used to be brought into
+his court in Doctors' Commons and placed in the judicial seat by two
+liveried porters, lawyers were not remarkable for abstinence from the
+pleasures to which our ancestors were indebted for the joint-fixing,
+picturesque gout that has already become an affair of the past.
+Throughout the long period that lies between Charles II.'s restoration
+and George III.'s death, an English judge without a symptom of gout was
+so exceptional a character that people talked of him as an interesting
+social curiosity. The Merry Monarch made Clarendon's bedroom his
+council-chamber when the Chancellor was confined to his couch by
+_podagra_. Lord Nottingham was so disabled by gout, and what the old
+physicians were pleased to call a 'perversity of the humors,' that his
+duties in the House of Lords were often discharged by Francis North,
+then Chief Justice of the Common Pleas; and though he persevered in
+attending to the business of his court, a man of less resolution would
+have altogether succumbed to the agony of his disease and the burden of
+his infirmities. "I have known him," says Roger North, "sit to hear
+petitions in great pain, and say that his servants had let him out,
+though he was fitter for his chamber." Prudence saved Lord Guildford
+from excessive intemperance; but he lived with a freedom that would be
+remarkable in the present age. Chief Justice Saunders was a confirmed
+sot, taking nips of brandy with his breakfast, and seldom appearing in
+public "without a pot of ale at his nose or near him." Sir Robert Wright
+was notoriously addicted to wine; and George Jeffreys drank, as he
+swore, like a trooper. "My lord," said King Charles, in a significant
+tone, when he gave Jeffreys the _blood-stone_ ring, "as it is a hot
+summer, and you are going the circuit, I desire you will not drink too
+much."
+
+Amongst the reeling judges of the Restoration, however, there moved one
+venerable lawyer, who, in an age when moralists hesitated to call
+drunkenness a vice, was remarkable for sobriety. In his youth, whilst he
+was indulging with natural ardor in youthful pleasures, Chief Justice
+Hale was so struck with horror at seeing an intimate friend drop
+senseless, and apparently lifeless, at a student's drinking-bout, that
+he made a sudden but enduring resolution to conquer his ebrious
+propensities, and withdraw himself from the dangerous allurements of
+ungodly company. Falling upon his knees he prayed the Almighty to
+rescue his friend from the jaws of death, and also to strengthen him to
+keep his newly-formed resolution. He rose an altered man. But in an age
+when the barbarous usage of toast-drinking was in full force, he felt
+that he could not be an habitually sober man if he mingled in society,
+and obeyed a rule which required the man of delicate and excitable
+nerves to drink as much, bumper for bumper, as the man whose sluggish
+system could receive a quart of spirits at a sitting and yet scarcely
+experience a change of sensation. At that time it was customary with
+prudent men to protect themselves against a pernicious and tyrannous
+custom, by taking a vow to abstain from toast-drinking, or even from
+drinking wine at all, for a certain stated period. Readers do not need
+to be reminded how often young Pepys was under a vow not to drink; and
+the device by which the jovial admiralty clerk strengthened an infirm
+will and defended himself against temptation was frequently employed by
+right-minded young men of his date. In some cases, instead of _vowing_
+not to drink, they _bound_ themselves not to drink within a certain
+period; two persons, that is to say, agreeing that they would abstain
+from wine and spirits for a certain period, and each _binding_ himself
+in case he broke the compact to pay over a certain sum of money to his
+partner in the bond. Young Hale saw that to effect a complete
+reformation of his life it was needful for him to abjure the practice of
+drinking healths. He therefore vowed _never again_ to drink a health;
+and he kept his vow. Never again did he brim his bumper and drain it at
+the command of a toast-master, although his abstinence exposed him to
+much annoyance; and in his old age he thus urged his grandchildren to
+follow his example--"I will not have you begin or pledge any health, for
+it is become one of the greatest artifices of drinking, and occasions of
+quarrelling in the kingdom. If you pledge one health you oblige
+yourself to pledge another, and a third, and so onwards; and if you
+pledge as many as will be drunk, you must be debauched and drunk. If
+they will needs know the reason of your refusal, it is a fair answer,
+'that your grandfather that brought you up, from whom, under God, you
+have the estate you enjoy or expect, left this in command with you, that
+you should never begin or pledge a health.'"
+
+Jeffrey's _protégé_, John Trevor, liked good wine himself, but emulated
+the virtuous Hale in the pains which he took to place the treacherous
+drink beyond the reach of others--whenever they showed a desire to drink
+it at his expense. After his expulsion from the House of Commons, Sir
+John Trevor was sitting alone over a choice bottle of claret, when his
+needy kinsman, Roderic Lloyd, was announced. "You rascal," exclaimed the
+Master of the Rolls, springing to his feet, and attacking his footman
+with furious language, "you have brought my cousin, Roderic Lloyd,
+Esquire, Prothonotary of North Wales, Marshal to Baron Price, up my back
+stairs. You scoundrel, hear ye, I order you to take him this instant
+down my _back stairs_, and bring him up my _front stairs_." Sir John
+made such a point of showing his visitor this mark of respect, that the
+young barrister was forced to descend and enter the room by the state
+staircase; but he saw no reason to think himself honored by his cousin's
+punctilious courtesy, when on entering the room a second time he looked
+in vain for the claret bottle.
+
+On another occasion Sir John Trevor's official residence afforded
+shelter to the same poor relation when the latter was in great mental
+trouble. "Roderic," saith the chronicler, "was returning rather elevated
+from his club one night, and ran against the pump in Chancery Lane.
+Conceiving somebody had struck him, he drew and made a lunge at the
+pump. The sword entered the spout, and the pump, being crazy, fell
+down. Roderic concluded he had killed his man, left, his sword in the
+pump, and retreated to his old friend's house at the Rolls. There he was
+concealed by the servants for the night. In the morning his Honor,
+having heard the story, came himself to deliver him from his
+consternation and confinement in the coal-hole."
+
+Amongst the eighteenth century lawyers there was considerable difference
+of taste and opinion on questions relating to the use and abuse of wine.
+Though he never, or very seldom, exceeded the limits of sobriety, Somers
+enjoyed a bottle in congenial society; and though wine never betrayed
+him into reckless hilarity, it gave gentleness and comity to his
+habitually severe countenance and solemn deportment--if reliance may be
+placed on Swift's couplet--
+
+   "By force of wine even Scarborough is brave,
+   Hall grows more pert, and Somers not so grave."
+
+A familiar quotation that alludes to Murray's early intercourse with the
+wits warrants an inference that in opening manhood he preferred
+champagne to every other wine; but as Lord Mansfield he steadily adhered
+to claret, though fashion had taken into favor the fuller wine
+stigmatized as poison by John Home's famous epigram--
+
+   "Bold and erect the Caledonian stood;
+   Old was his mutton, and his claret good.
+   'Let him drink port,' an English statesman cried:
+   He drunk the poison and his spirit died."
+
+Unlike his father, who never sinned against moderation in his cups,
+Charles Yorke was a deep drinker as well as a gourmand. Hardwicke's
+successor, Lord Northington, was the first of a line of
+port-wine-drinking judges that may at the present time be fairly said
+to have come to an end--although a few reverend fathers of the law yet
+remain, who drink with relish the Methuen drink when age has deprived it
+of body and strength. Until Robert Henley held the seals, Chancellors
+continued to hold after-dinner sittings in the Court of Chancery on
+certain days of the week throughout term. Hardwicke, throughout his long
+official career, sat on the evenings of Wednesdays and Fridays hearing
+causes, while men of pleasure were fuddling themselves with fruity
+vintages. Lord Northington, however, prevailed on George III. to let him
+discontinue these evening attendances in court. "But why," asked the
+monarch, "do you wish for a change?" "Sir," the Chancellor answered,
+with delightful frankness, "I want the change in order that I may finish
+my bottle of port at my ease; and your majesty, in your parental care
+for the happiness of your subjects, will, I trust, think this a
+sufficient reason." Of course the king's laughter ended in a favorable
+answer to the petition for reform, and from that time the Chancellor's
+evening sittings were discontinued. But ere he died, the jovial
+Chancellor paid the penalty which port exacts from all her fervent
+worshippers, and he suffered the acutest pangs of gout. It is recorded
+that as he limped from the woolsack to the bar of the House of Lords, he
+once muttered to a young peer, who watched his distress with evident
+sympathy--"Ah, my young friend, if I had known that these legs would one
+day carry a Chancellor, I would have taken better care of them when I
+was at your age." Unto this had come the handsome legs of young
+Counsellor Henley, who, in his dancing days, stepped minuets to the
+enthusiastic admiration of the _belles_ of Bath.
+
+Some light is thrown on the manners of lawyers in the eighteenth century
+by an order made by the authorities of Barnard's Inn, who, in November,
+1706, named two quarts as the allowance of wine to be given to each
+mess of four men by two gentlemen on going through the ceremony of
+'initiation.' Of course, this amount of wine was an 'extra' allowance,
+in addition to the ale and sherry assigned to members by the regular
+dietary of the house. Even Sheridan, who boasted that he could drink any
+_given_ quantity of wine, would have thought twice before he drank so
+large a given quantity, in addition to a liberal allowance of stimulant.
+Anyhow, the quantity was fixed--a fact that would have elicited an
+expression of approval from Chief Baron Thompson, who, loving port wine
+wisely, though too well, expressed at the same time his concurrence with
+the words, and his dissent from the opinion of a barrister, who
+observed--"I hold, my lord, that after a good dinner a certain quantity
+of wine does no harm." With a smile, the Chief Baron rejoined--"True,
+sir; it is the _uncertain_ quantity that does the mischief."
+
+The most temperate of the eighteenth-century Chancellors was Lord
+Camden, who required no more generous beverage than sound malt liquor,
+as he candidly declared, in a letter to the Duke of Grafton, wherein he
+says--"I am, thank God, remarkably well, but your grace must not seduce
+me into my former intemperance. A plain dish and a draught of porter
+(which last is indispensable), are the very extent of my luxury." For
+porter, Edward Thurlow, in his student days, had high respect and keen
+relish; but in his mature years, as well as still older age, full-bodied
+port was his favorite drink, and under its influence were seen to the
+best advantage those colloquial powers which caused Samuel Johnson to
+exclaim--"Depend upon it, sir, it is when you come close to a man in
+conversation that you discover what his real abilities are; to make a
+speech in a public assembly is a knack. Now, I honor Thurlow, sir;
+Thurlow is a fine fellow: he fairly puts his mind to yours." Of
+Thurlow, when he had mounted the woolsack, Johnson also observed--"I
+would prepare myself for no man in England but Lord Thurlow. When I am
+to meet him, I would wish to know a day before." From the many stories
+told of Thurlow and ebriosity, one may be here taken and brought under
+the reader's notice--not because it has wit or humor to recommend it,
+but because it presents the Chancellor in company with another
+port-loving lawyer, William Pitt, from whose fame, by-the-by, Lord
+Stanhope has recently removed the old disfiguring imputations of
+sottishness. "Returning," says Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, a poor authority,
+but piquant gossip-monger, "by way of frolic, very late at night, on
+horseback, to Wimbledon, from Addiscombe, the seat of Mr. Jenkinson,
+near Croydon, where the party had dined, Lord Thurlow, the Chancellor,
+Pitt, and Dundas, found the turnpike gate, situate between Tooting and
+Streatham, thrown open. Being elevated above their usual prudence, and
+having no servant near them, they passed through the gate at a brisk
+pace, without stopping to pay the toll, regardless of the remonstrances
+and threats of the turnpike man, who running after them, and believing
+them to belong to some highwaymen who had recently committed some
+depredation on that road, discharged the contents of his blunderbuss at
+their backs. Happily he did no injury."
+
+Throughout their long lives the brothers Scott were steady, and,
+according to the rules of the present day, inordinate drinkers of port
+wine. As a young barrister, John Scott could carry more port with
+decorum than any other man of his inn; and in the days when he is
+generally supposed to have lived on sprats and table-beer, he seldom
+passed twenty-four hours without a bottle of his favorite wine.
+Prudence, however, made him careful to avoid intoxication, and when he
+found that a friendship often betrayed him into what he thought
+excessive drinking, he withdrew from the dangerous connexion. "I see
+your friend Bowes very often," he wrote in May, 1778, a time when Mr.
+Bowes was his most valuable client; "but I dare not dine with him above
+once in three months, as there is no getting away before midnight; and,
+indeed, one is sure to be in a condition in which no man would wish to
+be in the streets at any other season." Of the quantities imbibed at
+these three-monthly dinners, an estimate may be formed from the
+following story. Bringing from Oxford to London that fine sense of the
+merits of port wine which characterized the thorough Oxonion of a
+century since, William Scott made it for some years a rule to dine with
+his brother John on the first day of term at a tavern hard by the
+Temple; and on these occasions the brothers used to make away with
+bottle after bottle not less to the astonishment than the approval of
+the waiters who served them. Before the decay of his faculties, Lord
+Stowell was recalling these terminal dinners to his son-in-law, Lord
+Sidmouth, when the latter observed, "You drank some wine together, I
+dare say?" Lord Stowell, modestly, "Yes, we drank some wine."
+Son-in-law, inquisitively, "Two bottles?" Lord Stowell, quickly putting
+away the imputation of such abstemiousness, "More than that."
+Son-in-law, smiling, "What, three bottles?" Lord Stowell, "More."
+Son-in-law, opening his eyes with astonishment, "By Jove, sir, you don't
+mean to say that you took four bottles?" Lord Stowell, beginning to feel
+ashamed of himself, "More; I mean to say we had more. Now don't ask any
+more questions."
+
+Whilst Lord Stowell, smarting under the domestic misery of which his
+foolish marriage with the Dowager Marchioness of Sligo was fruitful,
+sought comfort and forgetfulness in the cellar of the Middle Temple,
+Lord Eldon drained magnums of Newcastle port at his own table. Populous
+with wealthy merchants, and surrounded by an opulent aristocracy,
+Newcastle had used the advantages given her by a large export trade with
+Portugal to draw to her cellars such superb port wine as could be found
+in no other town in the United Kingdom; and to the last the Tory
+Chancellor used to get his port from the canny capital of Northumbria.
+Just three weeks before his death, the veteran lawyer, sitting in his
+easy-chair and recalling his early triumphs, preluded an account of the
+great leading case, "Akroyd _v._ Smithson," by saying to his listener,
+"Come, Farrer, help yourself to a glass of Newcastle port, and help me
+to a little." But though he asked for a little, the old earl, according
+to his wont, drank much before he was raised from his chair and led to
+his sleeping-room. It is on record, and is moreover supported by
+unexceptionable evidence, that in his extreme old age, whilst he was
+completely laid upon the shelf, and almost down to the day of his death,
+which occurred in his eighty-seventh year, Lord Eldon never drank less
+than three pints of port daily with or after his dinner.
+
+Of eminent lawyers who were steady port-wine drinkers, Baron Platt--the
+amiable and popular judge who died in 1862, aged seventy-two years--may
+be regarded as one of the last. Of him it is recorded that in early
+manhood he was so completely prostrated by severe illness that beholders
+judged him to be actually dead. Standing over his silent body shortly
+before the arrival of the undertaker, two of his friends concurred in
+giving utterance to the sentiment: "Ah, poor dear fellow, we shall never
+drink a glass of wine with him again;" when, to their momentary alarm
+and subsequent delight, the dead man interposed with a faint assumption
+of jocularity, "But you will though, and a good many too, I hope." When
+the undertaker called he was sent away a genuinely sorrowful man; and
+the young lawyer, who was 'not dead yet,' lived to old age and good
+purpose.
+
+[36] In old Sir Herbert's later days it was a mere pleasantry, or bold
+figure of speech to say that his court had risen, for he used to be
+lifted from his chair and carried bodily from the chamber of justice by
+two brawny footmen. Of course, as soon as the judge was about to be
+elevated by his bearers, the bar rose; and also as a matter of course
+the bar continued to stand until the strong porters had conveyed their
+weighty and venerable burden along the platform behind one of the rows
+of advocates and out of sight. As the _trio_ worked their laborious way
+along the platform, there seemed to be some danger that they might
+blunder and fall through one of the windows into the space behind the
+court; and at a time when Sir Herbert and Dr. ---- were at open
+variance, that waspish advocate had on one occasion the bad taste to
+keep his seat at the rising of the court, and with characteristic
+malevolence of expression to say to the footmen, "Mind, my men, and take
+care of that judge of yours--or, by Jove, you'll pitch him out of the
+window." It is needless to say that this brutal speech did not raise the
+speaker in the opinion of the hearers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII.
+
+LAW AND LITERATURE.
+
+
+At the present time, when three out of every five journalists attached
+to our chief London newspapers are Inns-of-Court men; when many of our
+able and successful advocates are known to ply their pens in organs of
+periodical literature as regularly as they raise their voices in courts
+of justice; and when the young Templar, who has borne away the first
+honors of his university, deems himself the object of a compliment on
+receiving an invitation to contribute to the columns of a leading review
+or daily journal--it is difficult to believe that strong men are still
+amongst us who can remember the days when it was the fashion of the bar
+to disdain law-students who were suspected of 'writing for hire' and
+barristers who 'reported for the papers.' Throughout the opening years
+of the present century, and even much later, it was almost universally
+held on the circuits and in Westminster Hall, that Inns-of-Court men
+lowered the dignity of their order by following those literary
+avocations by which some of the brightest ornaments of the law supported
+themselves at the outset of their professional careers. Notwithstanding
+this prejudice, a few wearers of the long robe, daring by nature, or
+rendered bold by necessity, persisted in 'maintaining a connexion with
+the press, whilst they sought briefs on the circuit, or waited for
+clients in their chambers. Such men as Sergeant Spankie and Lord
+Campbell, as Master Stephen and Mr. Justice Talfourd, were reporters for
+the press whilst they kept terms; and no sooner had Henry Brougham's
+eloquence charmed the public, than it was whispered that for years his
+pen, no less ready than his tongue, had found constant employment in
+organs of political intelligence.
+
+But though such men were known to exist, they were regarded as the
+'black sheep' of the bar by a great majority of their profession. It is
+not improbable that this prejudice against gownsmen on the press was
+palliated by circumstances that no longer exist. When political writers
+were very generally regarded as dangerous members of society, and when
+conductors of respectable newspapers were harassed with vexatious
+prosecutions and heavy punishments for acts of trivial inadvertence, or
+for purely imaginary offences, the average journalist was in many
+respects inferior to the average journalist working under the present
+more favorable circumstances. Men of culture, honest purpose, and fine
+feeling were slow to enrol themselves members of a despised and
+proscribed fraternity; and in the dearth of educated gentlemen ready to
+accept literary employment, the task of writing for the public papers
+too frequently devolved upon very unscrupulous persons, who rendered
+their calling as odious as themselves. A shackled and persecuted press
+is always a licentious and venal press; and before legislation endowed
+English journalism with a certain measure of freedom and security, it
+was seldom manly and was often corrupt. It is therefore probable that
+our grandfathers had some show of reason for their dislike of
+contributors to anonymous literature. At the bar men of unquestionable
+amiability and enlightenment were often the loudest to express this
+aversion for their scribbling brethren. It was said that the scribblers
+were seldom gentlemen in temper; and that they never hesitated to puff
+themselves in their papers. These considerations so far influenced Mr.
+Justice Lawrence that, though he was a model of judicial suavity to all
+other members of the bar, he could never bring himself to be barely
+civil to advocates known to be 'upon the press.'
+
+At Lincoln's Inn this strong feeling against journalists found vent in a
+resolution, framed in reference to a particular person, which would have
+shut out journalists from the Society. It had long been understood that
+no student could be called to the bar _whilst_ he was acting as a
+reporter in the gallery of either house; but the new decision of the
+benchers would have destroyed the ancient connexion of the legal
+profession and literary calling. Strange to say this illiberal measure
+was the work of two benchers who, notwithstanding their patrician
+descent and associations, were vehement asserters of liberal principles.
+Mr. Clifford--'O.P.' Clifford--was its proposer and Erskine was its
+seconder. Fortunately the person who was the immediate object of its
+provisions petitioned the House of Commons upon the subject, and the
+consequent debate in the Lower House decided the benchers to withdraw
+from their false position; and since their silent retreat no attempt has
+been made by any of the four honorable societies to affix an undeserved
+stigma on the followers of a serviceable art. Upon the whole the
+literary calling gained much from the discreditable action of Lincoln's
+Inn; for the speech in which Sheridan covered with derision this attempt
+to brand parliamentary reporters as unfit to associate with members of
+the bar, and the address in which Mr. Stephen, with manly reference to
+his own early experiences, warmly censured the conduct of the society of
+which he was himself a member, caused many persons to form a new and
+juster estimate of the working members of the London press. Having
+alluded to Dr. Johnson and Edmund Burke, who had both acted as
+parliamentary reporters, Sheridan stated that no less than twenty-three
+graduates of universities were then engaged as reporters of the
+proceedings of the house.
+
+The close connexion which for centuries has existed between men of law
+and men of letters is illustrated on the one hand by a long succession
+of eminent lawyers who have added to the lustre of professional honors
+the no less bright distinctions of literary achievements or friendships,
+and on the other hand by the long line of able writers who either
+enrolled themselves amongst the students of the law, or resided in the
+Inns of Court, or cherished with assiduous care the friendly regard of
+famous judges. Indeed, since the days of Chancellor de Bury, who wrote
+the 'Philobiblon,' there have been few Chancellors to whom literature is
+not in some way indebted; and the few Keepers of the Seal who neither
+cared for letters nor cultivated the society of students, are amongst
+the judges whose names most Englishmen would gladly erase from the
+history of their country. Jeffreys and Macclesfield represent the
+unlettered Chancellors; More and Bacon the lettered. Fortescue's 'De
+Laudibus' is a book for every reader. To Chancellor Warham, Erasmus--a
+scholar not given to distribute praise carelessly--dedicated his 'St.
+Jerom,' with cordial eulogy. Wolsey was a patron of letters. More may be
+said to have revived, if he did not create, the literary taste of his
+contemporaries, and to have transplanted the novel to English soil.
+Equally diligent as a writer and a collector of books, Gardyner spent
+his happiest moments at his desk, or over the folios of the magnificent
+library which was destroyed by Wyat's insurgents. Christopher Hatton was
+a dramatic author. To one person who can describe with any approach to
+accuracy Edward Hyde's conduct in the Court of Chancery, there are
+twenty who have studied Clarendon's 'Rebellion.' At the present date
+Hale's books are better known than his judgments, though his conduct
+towards the witches of Bury St. Edmunds conferred an unenviable fame on
+his judicial career. By timely assistance rendered to Burnet, Lord
+Nottingham did something to atone for his brutality towards Milton,
+whom, at an earlier period of his career, he had declared worthy of a
+felon's death, for having been Cromwell's Latin secretary. Lord Keeper
+North wrote upon 'Music;' and to his brother Roger literature is
+indebted for the best biographies composed by any writer of his period.
+In his boyhood Somers was a poet; in his maturer years the friend of
+poets. The friend of Prior and Gay, Arbuthnot and Pope, Lord Chancellor
+Harcourt, wrote verses of more than ordinary merit, and alike in periods
+of official triumph and in times of retirement valued the friendship of
+men of wit above the many successes of his public career. Lord
+Chancellor King, author of 'Constitution and Discipline of the Primitive
+Church,' was John Locke's dutiful nephew and favorite companion. King's
+immediate successor was extolled by Pope in the lines,
+
+   O teach us, Talbot! thou'rt unspoil'd by wealth,
+   That secret rare, between the extremes to move,
+   Of mad good-nature and of mean self-love.
+   Who is it copies Talbot's better part,
+   To ease th' oppress'd, and raise the sinking heart?
+
+But Talbot's fairest eulogy was penned by his son's tutor, Alexander
+Thomson--a poet who had no reason to feel gratitude to Talbot's official
+successor. Ere he thoroughly resolved to devote himself to law, the cold
+and formal Hardwicke had cherished a feeble ambition for literary
+distinction; and under its influence he wrote a paper that appeared in
+the _Spectator_. Blackstone's entrance at the Temple occasioned his
+metrical 'Farewell' to his muse. In his undergraduate days at Cambridge
+Lord Chancellor Charles Yorke was a chief contributor to the 'Athenian
+Letters,' and it would have been well for him had he in after-life given
+to letters a portion of the time which he sacrificed to ambition.
+Thurlow's churlishness and overbearing temper are at this date trifling
+matters in comparison with his friendship for Cowper and Samuel Johnson,
+and his kindly aid to George Crabbe. Even more than for the wisdom of
+his judgments Mansfield is remembered for his intimacy with 'the wits,'
+and his close friendship with that chief of them all, who exclaimed,
+"How sweet an Ovid, Murray, was our boast," and in honor of that "Sweet
+Ovid" penned the lines,
+
+   "Graced as thou art, with all the power of words,
+   So known, so honored in the House of Lords"--
+
+verses deliciously ridiculed by the parodist who wrote,
+
+   "Persuasion tips his tongue whene'er he talks:
+   And he has chambers in the King's Bench walks."
+
+As an atonement for many defects, Alexander Wedderburn had one
+virtue--an honest respect for letters that made him in opening manhood
+seek the friendship of Hume, at a later date solicit a pension for Dr.
+Johnson, and after his elevation to the woolsack overwhelm Gibbon with
+hospitable civilities. Eldon was an Oxford Essayist in his young, the
+compiler of 'The Anecdote Book' in his old days; and though he cannot be
+commended for literary tastes, or sympathy with men of letters, he was
+one of the many great lawyers who found pleasure in the conversation of
+Samuel Johnson. Unlike his brother, Lord Stowell clung fast to his
+literary friendships, as 'Dr. Scott of the Commons' priding himself more
+on his membership in the Literary Club than on his standing in the
+Prerogative Court; and as Lord Stowell evincing cordial respect for the
+successors of Reynolds and Malone, even when love of money had taken
+firm hold of his enfeebled mind. Archdeacon Paley's London residence was
+in Edward Law's house in Bloomsbury Square. In Erskine literary ambition
+was so strong that, not content with the fame brought to him by
+excellent _vers de société_, he took pen in hand when he resigned the
+seals, and--more to the delight of his enemies than the satisfaction of
+his friends--wrote a novel, which neither became, nor deserved to be,
+permanently successful. With similar zeal and greater ability the
+literary reputation of the bar has been maintained by Lord Denman, who
+was an industrious _littérateur_ whilst he was working his way up at the
+bar; by Sir John Taylor Coleridge, whose services to the _Quarterly
+Review_ are an affair of literary history; by Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd,
+who, having reported in the gallery, lived to lake part in the debates
+of the House of Commons, and who, from the date of his first engagement
+on the _Times_ till the sad morning when "God's finger touched him,"
+while he sat upon the bench, never altogether relinquished those
+literary pursuits, in which he earned well-merited honor; by Lord
+Macaulay, whose connexion with the legal profession is almost lost sight
+of in the brilliance of his literary renown; by Lord Campbell, who
+dreamt of living to wear an SS collar in Westminster Hall whilst he was
+merely John Campbell the reporter; by Lord Brougham, who, having
+instructed our grandfathers with his pen, still remains upon the stage,
+giving their grandsons wise lessons with his tongue; and by Lord
+Romilly, whose services to English literature have won for him the
+gratitude of scholars.
+
+Of each generation of writers between the accession of Elizabeth and the
+present time, several of the most conspicuous names are either found on
+the rolls of the inns, or are closely associated in the minds of
+students with the life of the law-colleges. Shakspeare's plays abound
+with testimony that he was no stranger in the legal inns, and the rich
+vein of legal lore and diction that runs through his writings has
+induced more judicious critics than Lord Campbell to conjecture that he
+may at some early time of his career have directed his mind to the
+study, if not the practice, of the law. Amongst Elizabethan writers who
+belonged to inns may be mentioned--George Ferrars, William Lambarde, Sir
+Henry Spelman, and that luckless pamphleteer John Stubbs, all of whom
+were members of Lincoln's Inn; Thomas Sackville, Francis Beaumont the
+Younger, and John Ferne, of the Inner Temple; Walter Raleigh, of the
+Middle Temple; Francis Bacon, Philip Sidney, George Gascoyne, and
+Francis Davison, of Gray's Inn. Sir John Denham, the poet, became a
+Lincoln's-Inn student in 1634; and Francis Quarles was a member of the
+same learned society. John Selden entered the Inner Temple in the second
+year of James I., where in due course he numbered, amongst his literary
+contemporaries,--William Browne, Croke, Oulde, Thomas Gardiner, Dynne,
+Edward Heywood, John Morgan, Augustus Cæsar, Thomas Heygate, Thomas May,
+dramatist and translator of Lucan's 'Pharsalia,' William Rough and Rymer
+were members of Gray's Inn. Sir John David and Sir Simonds D'Ewes
+belonged to the Middle Temple. Massinger's dearest friends lived in the
+Inner Temple, of which society George Keate, the dramatist, and Butler's
+staunch supporter William Longueville, were members. Milton passed the
+most jocund hours of his life in Gray's Inn, in which college Cleveland
+and the author of 'Hudibras' held the meetings of their club. Wycherley
+and Congreve, Aubrey and Narcissus Luttrell were Inns-of-Court men. In
+later periods we find Thomas Edwards, the critic; Murphy, the dramatic
+writer; James Mackintosh, Francis Hargrave, Bentham, Curran, Canning, at
+Lincoln's Inn. The poet Cowper was a barrister of the Temple. Amongst
+other Templars of the eighteenth century, with whose names the
+literature of their time is inseparably associated, were Henry Fielding,
+Henry Brooke, Oliver Goldsmith, and Edmund Burke. Samuel Johnson resided
+both in Gray's Inn and the Temple, and his friend Boswell was an
+advocate of respectable ability as well as the best biographer on the
+roll of English writers.
+
+The foregoing are but a few taken from hundreds of names that illustrate
+the close union of Law and Literature in past times. To lengthen the
+list would but weary the reader; and no pains would make a perfect
+muster roll of all the literary lawyers and _legal littérateurs_ who
+either are still upon the stage, or have only lately passed away. In
+their youth four well-known living novelists--Mr. William Harrison
+Ainsworth, Mr. Shirley Brooks, Mr. Charles Dickens, and Mr. Benjamin
+Disraeli--passed some time in solicitors' offices. Mr. John Oxenford was
+articled to an attorney. Mr. Theodore Martin resembles the authors of
+'The Rejected Addresses' in being a successful practitioner in the
+inferior branch of the law. Mr. Charles Henry Cooper was a successful
+solicitor. On turning over the leaves to that useful book, 'Men of the
+Time,' the reader finds mention made of the following men of letters and
+law--Sir Archibald Alison, Mr. Thomas Chisholm Anstey, Mr. William
+Edmonstone Aytoun, Mr. Philip James Bailey, Mr. J.N. Ball, Mr. Sergeant
+Peter Burke, Sir J.B. Burke, Mr. John Hill Burton, Mr. Hans Busk, Mr.
+Isaac Butt, Mr. George Wingrove Cooke, Sir E.S. Creasy, Dr. Dasent, Mr.
+John Thaddeus Delane, Mr. W. Hepworth Dixon, Mr. Commissioner
+Fonblanque, Mr. William Forsyth, Q.C., Mr. Edward Foss, Mr. William
+Carew Hazlitt, Mr. Thomas Hughes, Mr. Leone Levi, Mr. Lawrence
+Oliphant, Mr. Charles Reade, Mr. W. Stigant, Mr. Tom Taylor, Mr.
+McCullagh Torrens, Mr. M.F. Tupper, Dr. Travers, Mr. Samuel Warren, and
+Mr. Charles Weld. Some of the gentlemen in this list are not merely
+nominal barristers, but are practitioners with an abundance of business.
+Amongst those to whom the editor of 'Men of the Time' draws attention as
+'Lawyers,' and who either are still rendering or have rendered good
+service to literature, occur the names of Sir William A'Beckett, Mr. W.
+Adams, Dr. Anster, Sir Joseph Arnould, Sir George Bowyer, Sir John
+Coleridge, Mr. E. W. Cox, Mr. Wilson Gray, Mr. Justice Haliburton, Mr.
+Thomas Lewin, Mr. Thomas E. May, Mr. J.G. Phillimore, Mr. James Fitz
+James Stephen, Mr. Vernon Harcourt, Mr. James Whiteside. Some of the
+distinguished men mentioned in this survey have already passed to
+another world since the publication of the last edition of 'Men of the
+Time;' but their recorded connexion with literature as well as law no
+less serves to illustrate an important feature of our social life. It is
+almost needless to remark that the names of many of our ablest anonymous
+writers do not appear in 'Men of the Time.'
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BOOK ABOUT LAWYERS***
+
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+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" />
+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Book About Lawyers, by John Cordy Jeaffreson</title>
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+<body>
+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Book About Lawyers, by John Cordy
+Jeaffreson</h1>
+<pre>
+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 <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: A Book About Lawyers</p>
+<p>Author: John Cordy Jeaffreson</p>
+<p>Release Date: January 12, 2009  [eBook #27785]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BOOK ABOUT LAWYERS***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>E-text prepared by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Graeme Mackreth,<br />
+    and Project Gutenberg the Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
+    (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h1>
+A BOOK ABOUT LAWYERS.</h1>
+
+<h3>BY</h3>
+
+<h2>JOHN CORDY JEAFFRESON,</h2>
+
+<h4>BARRISTER-AT-LAW</h4>
+
+<h4>AUTHOR OF</h4>
+
+<h3>"A BOOK ABOUT DOCTORS,"</h3>
+
+<h4>ETC., ETC.</h4>
+
+<p class='center' style="margin-top: 5em;"><small><i>Reprinted from the London Edition.</i><br />
+
+TWO VOLUMES IN ONE.</small></p>
+
+<p class='center' style="margin-top: 10em;"><small>NEW YORK:<br />
+<i>Carleton, Publisher, Madison Square.</i><br />
+LONDON: S. LOW, SON &amp; CO.,<br />
+M DCCC LXXV.<br /></small>
+</p>
+
+<p  class='center' style="margin-top: 10em;"><small>
+Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1807, by<br />
+<br />
+G.W. CARLETON &amp; CO.,<br />
+<br />
+In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the<br />
+Southern District of New York.<br /></small>
+</p>
+
+
+<p  class='center' style="margin-top: 10em;"><small>
+<span class="smcap">John F. Trow &amp; Son, Printers,<br />
+205-213 East 12th St., New York.</span><br /></small>
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+
+
+<table summary='toc' cellspacing='10'>
+<tr>
+<td colspan='2'><a href="#PART_I"><b>PART I. HOUSES AND HOUSEHOLDERS.</b></a>
+</td>
+<td>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>I.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b><span class="smcap">Ladies in Law Colleges</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td  align='right'><b>II.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b><span class="smcap">The Last of the Ladies</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td  align='right'><b>III.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#Chapter_III"><b><span class="smcap">York House and Powis House</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td  align='right'><b>IV.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b><span class="smcap">Lincoln's Inn Fields</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>V.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b> <span class="smcap">The Old Law Quarter</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan='2'><a href="#PART_II"><b>PART II. LOVES OF THE LAWYERS.</b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>VI.</b>
+</td>
+
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b><span class="smcap">A Lottery</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+
+<td align='right'><b>VII.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><b><span class="smcap">Good Queen Bess</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+
+<td align='right'><b>VIII.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><b><span class="smcap">Rejected Addresses</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+
+<td align='right'><b>IX.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><b><span class="smcap">"Cicero" upon His Trial</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+
+<td align='right'><b>X.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_X"><b><span class="smcap">Brothers in Trouble</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+
+<td align='right'><b>XI.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><b><span class="smcap">Early Marriages</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan='2'><a href="#PART_III"><b>PART III. MONEY.</b></a>
+</td>
+<td>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>XII.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><b><span class="smcap">Fees to Counsel</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>XIII.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><b><span class="smcap">Retainers, General and Special</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>XIV.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><b><span class="smcap">Judicial Corruption</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>XV.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XV"><b><span class="smcap">Gifts and Sales</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>XVI.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI"><b><span class="smcap">A Rod Pickled by William Cole</span> </b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>XVII.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII"><b><span class="smcap">Chief Justice Popham</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>XVIII.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII"><b><span class="smcap">Judicial Salaries</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan='2'><a href="#PART_IV"><b>PART IV. COSTUME AND TOILET.</b></a>
+</td>
+<td>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>XIX.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX"><b><span class="smcap">Bright and Sad</span> </b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>XX.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XX"><b><span class="smcap">Millinery</span> </b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>XXI.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI"><b><span class="smcap">Wigs</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>XXII.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII"><b><span class="smcap">Bands and Collars</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>XXIII.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII"><b><span class="smcap">Bags and Gowns</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>XXIV.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV"><b><span class="smcap">Hats</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan='2'><a href="#PART_V"><b>PART V. MUSIC.</b></a>
+</td>
+<td>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>XXV.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV"><b><span class="smcap">The Piano in Chambers</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>XXVI.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI"><b><span class="smcap">The Battle of the Organs</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>XXVII.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII"><b><span class="smcap">The Thickness in the Throat</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan='2'><a href="#PART_VI"><b>PART VI. AMATEUR THEATRICALS.</b></a><br />
+</td>
+<td>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>XXVIII.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII"><b><span class="smcap">Actors at The Bar</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>XXIX.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX"><b>"<span class="smcap">The Play's The Thing</span>" </b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>XXX.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX"><b><span class="smcap">The River and the Strand by Torchlight</span> </b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>XXXI.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI"><b><span class="smcap">Anti-Prynne</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>XXXII.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII"><b><span class="smcap">An Empty Grate</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan='2'><a href="#PART_VII"><b>PART VII. LEGAL EDUCATION</b></a>
+</td>
+<td>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>XXXIII.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII"><b><span class="smcap">Inns of Court and Inns of Chancery</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>XXXIV.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV"><b><span class="smcap">Lawyers and Gentlemen</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>XXXV.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV"><b><span class="smcap">Law-French and Law-Latin</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>XXXVI.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVI"><b><span class="smcap">Student Life in Old Time</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>XXXVII.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVII"><b><span class="smcap">Readers and Mootmen</span> </b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>XXXVIII.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVIII"><b><span class="smcap">Pupils in Chambers</span> </b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan='2'><a href="#PART_VIII"><b>PART VIII. MIRTH.</b></a>
+</td>
+<td>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>XXXIX.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIX"><b><span class="smcap">Wit of Lawyers</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>XL.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XL"><b><span class="smcap">Humorous Stories</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>XLI.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XLI"><b><span class="smcap">Wits in 'silk' and Punsters in 'ermine'</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>XLII.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XLII"><b><span class="smcap">Witnesses</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>XLIII.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIII"><b><span class="smcap">Circuiteers</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>XLIV.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIV"><b><span class="smcap">Lawyers and Saints</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan='2'><a href="#PART_IX"><b>PART IX. AT HOME: IN COURT: AND IN SOCIETY.</b></a>
+</td>
+<td>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>XLV.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XLV"><b><span class="smcap">Lawyers at their Own Tables</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>XLVI.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XLVI"><b><span class="smcap">Wine</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align='right'><b>XLVII.</b>
+</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XLVII"><b><span class="smcap">Law and Literature</span></b></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="PART_I" id="PART_I"></a>PART I.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'>HOUSES AND HOUSEHOLDERS.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>LADIES IN LAW COLLEGES.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>A law-student of the present day finds it difficult to realize the
+brightness and domestic decency which characterized the Inns of Court in
+the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Under existing
+circumstances, women of character and social position avoid the gardens
+and terraces of Gray's Inn and the Temple.</p>
+
+<p>Attended by men, or protected by circumstances that guard them from
+impertinence and scandal, gentlewomen can without discomfort pass and
+repass the walls of our legal colleges; but in most cases a lady enters
+them under conditions that announce even to casual passers the object of
+her visit. In her carriage, during the later hours of the day, a
+barrister's wife may drive down the Middle Temple Lane, or through the
+gate of Lincoln's Inn, and wait in King's Bench Walk or New Square,
+until her husband, putting aside clients and papers, joins her for the
+homeward drive. But even thus placed, sitting in her carriage and
+guarded by servants, she usually prefers to fence off inquisitive eyes
+by a bonnet-veil, or the blinds of her carriage-windows. On Sunday, the
+wives and daughters of gentle families brighten the dingy passages of
+the Temple, and the sombre courts of Lincoln's Inn: for the musical
+services of the grand church and little chapel, are amongst the
+religious entertainments of the town. To those choral celebrations
+ladies go, just as they are accustomed to enter any metropolitan church;
+and after service they can take a turn in the gardens of either Society,
+without drawing upon themselves unpleasant attention. So also,
+unattended by men, ladies are permitted to inspect the floral
+exhibitions with which Mr. Broome, the Temple gardener, annually
+entertains London sightseers.</p>
+
+<p>But, save on these and a few similar occasions and conditions,
+gentlewomen avoid an Inn of Court as they would a barrack-yard, unless
+they have secured the special attendance of at least one member of the
+society. The escort of a barrister or student, alters the case. What
+barrister, young or old, cannot recall mirthful eyes that, with quick
+shyness, have turned away from his momentary notice, as in answer to the
+rustling of silk, or stirred by sympathetic consciousness of women's
+noiseless presence, he has raised his face from a volume of reports, and
+seen two or three timorous girls peering through the golden haze of a
+London morning, into the library of his Inn? What man, thus drawn away
+for thirty seconds from prosaic toil, has not in that half minute
+remembered the faces of happy rural homes,&mdash;has not recalled old days
+when his young pulses beat cordial welcome to similar intruders upon the
+stillness of the Bodleian, or the tranquil seclusion of Trinity library?
+What occupant of dreary chambers in the Temple, reading this page,
+cannot look back to a bright day, when young, beautiful, and pure as
+sanctity, Lilian, or Kate, or Olive, entered his room radiant with
+smiles, delicate in attire, and musical with gleesome gossip about
+country neighbors, and the life of a joyous home?</p>
+
+<p>Seldom does a Templar of the present generation receive so fair and
+innocent a visitor. To him the presence of a gentlewoman in his court,
+is an occasion for ingenious conjecture; encountered on his staircase
+she is a cause of lively astonishment. His guests are men, more or less
+addicted to tobacco; his business callers are solicitors and their
+clerks; in his vestibule the masculine emissaries of tradesmen may
+sometimes be found&mdash;head-waiters from neighboring taverns, pot-boys from
+the 'Cock' and the 'Rainbow.' A printer's devil may from time to time
+knock at his door. But of women&mdash;such women as he would care to mention
+to his mother and sisters&mdash;he sees literally nothing in his dusty,
+ill-ordered, but not comfortless rooms. He has a laundress, one of a
+class on whom contemporary satire has been rather too severe.</p>
+
+<p>Feminine life of another sort lurks in the hidden places of the law
+colleges, shunning the gaze of strangers by daylight; and even when it
+creeps about under cover of night, trembling with a sense of its own
+incurable shame. But of this sad life, the bare thought of which sends a
+shivering through the frame of every man whom God has blessed with a
+peaceful home and wholesome associations, nothing shall be said in this
+page.</p>
+
+<p>In past time the life of law-colleges was very different in this
+respect. When they ceased to be ecclesiastics, and fixed themselves in
+the hospices which soon after the reception of the gowned tenants, were
+styled Inns of Courts; our lawyers took unto themselves wives, who were
+both fair and discreet. And having so made women flesh of their flesh
+and bone of their bone, they brought them to homes within the immediate
+vicinity of their collegiate walls, and sometimes within the walls
+themselves. Those who would appreciate the life of the Inns in past
+centuries, and indeed in times within the memory of living men, should
+bear this in mind. When he was not on circuit, many a counsellor learned
+in the law, found the pleasures not less than the business of his
+existence within the bounds of his 'honorable society.' In the fullest
+sense of the words, he took his ease in his Inn; besides being his
+workshop, where clients flocked to him for advice, it was his club, his
+place of pastime, and the shrine of his domestic affections. In this
+generation a successful Chancery barrister, or Equity draftsman, looks
+upon Lincoln's Inn merely as a place of business, where at a prodigious
+rent he holds a set of rooms in which he labors over cases, and
+satisfies the demands of clients and pupils. A century or two centuries
+since the case was often widely different. The rising barrister brought
+his bride in triumph to his 'chambers,' and in them she received the
+friends who hurried to congratulate her on her new honors. In those
+rooms she dispensed graceful hospitality, and watched her husband's
+toils. The elder of her children first saw the light in those narrow
+quarters; and frequently the lawyer, over his papers, was disturbed by
+the uproar of his heir in an adjoining room.</p>
+
+<p>Young wives, the mistresses of roomy houses in the western quarters of
+town, shudder as they imagine the discomforts which these young wives of
+other days must have endured. "What! live in chambers?" they exclaim
+with astonishment and horror, recalling the smallness and cheerless
+aspect of their husbands' business chambers. But past usages must not be
+hastily condemned,&mdash;allowance must be made for the fact that our
+ancestors set no very high price on the luxuries of elbow-room and
+breathing-room. Families in opulent circumstances were wont to dwell
+happily, and receive whole regiments of jovial visitors in little houses
+nigh the Strand and Fleet Street, Ludgate Hill and Cheapside;&mdash;houses
+hidden in narrow passages and sombre courts&mdash;houses, compared with
+which the lowliest residences in a "genteel suburb" of our own time
+would appear capacious mansions. Moreover, it must be borne in mind that
+the married barrister, living a century since with his wife in
+chambers&mdash;either within or hard-by an Inn or Court&mdash;was, at a
+comparatively low rent, the occupant of far more ample quarters than
+those for which a working barrister now-a-days pays a preposterous sum.
+Such a man was tenant of a 'set of rooms' (several rooms, although
+called 'a chamber') which, under the present system, accommodates a
+small colony of industrious 'juniors' with one office and a clerk's room
+attached. Married ladies, who have lived in Paris or Vienna, in the 'old
+town' of Edinburgh, or Victoria Street, Westminster, need no assurance
+that life 'on a flat' is not an altogether deplorable state of
+existence. The young couple in chambers had six rooms at their
+disposal,&mdash;a chamber for business, a parlor, not unfrequently a
+drawing-room, and a trim, compact little kitchen. Sometimes they had two
+'sets of rooms,' one above another; in which case the young wife could
+have her bridesmaids to stay with her, or could offer a bed to a friend
+from the country. Occasionally during the last fifty years of the last
+century, they were so fortunate as to get possession of a small detached
+house, originally built by a nervous bencher, who disliked the sound of
+footsteps on the stairs outside his door. Time was when the Inns
+comprised numerous detached houses, some of them snug dwellings, and
+others imposing mansions, wherein great dignitaries lived with proper
+ostentation. Most of them have bean pulled down, and their sites covered
+with collegiate 'buildings;' but a few of them still remain, the grand
+piles having long since been partitioned off into chambers, and the
+little houses striking the eye as quaint, misplaced, insignificant
+blocks of human habitation. Under the trees of Gray's Inn gardens may
+be seen two modest tenements, each of them comprising some six or eight
+rooms and a vestibule. At the present time they are occupied as offices
+by legal practitioners, and many a day has passed since womanly taste
+decorated their windows with flowers and muslin curtains; but a certain
+venerable gentleman, to whom the writer of this page is indebted for
+much information about the lawyers of the last century, can remember
+when each of those cottages was inhabited by a barrister, his young
+wife, and three or four lovely children. Into some such a house near
+Lincoln's Inn, a young lawyer who was destined to hold the seals for
+many years, and be also the father of a Lord Chancellor, married in the
+year of our Lord, 1718. His name was Philip Yorke: and though he was of
+humble birth, he had made such a figure in his profession that great
+men's doors, were open to him. He was asked to dinner by learned judges,
+and invited to balls by their ladies. In Chancery Lane, at the house of
+Sir Joseph Jekyll, Master of the Rolls, he met Mrs. Lygon, a beauteous
+and wealthy widow, whose father was a country squire, and whose mother
+was the sister of the great Lord Somers. In fact, she was a lady of such
+birth, position, and jointure, that the young lawyer&mdash;rising man though
+he was&mdash;seemed a poor match for her. The lady's family thought so; and
+if Sir Joseph Jekyll had not cordially supported the suitor with a
+letter of recommendation, her father would have rejected him as a man
+too humble in rank and fortune. Having won the lady and married her, Mr.
+Philip Yorke brought her home to a 'very small house' near Lincoln's
+Inn; and in that lowly dwelling, the ground-floor of which was the
+barrister's office, they spent the first years of their wedded life.
+What would be said of the rising barrister who, now-a-days, on his
+marriage with a rich squire's rich daughter and a peer's niece, should
+propose to set up his household gods in a tiny crip just outside
+Lincoln's Inn gate, and to use the parlor of the 'very small house' for
+professional purposes? Far from being guilty of unseemly parsimony in
+this arrangement, Philip Yorke paid proper consideration to his wife's
+social advantages, in taking her to a separate house. His contemporaries
+amongst the junior bar would have felt no astonishment if he had fitted
+up a set of chambers for his wealthy and well-descended bride. Not
+merely in his day, but for long years afterward, lawyers of gentle birth
+and comfortable means, who married women scarcely if at all inferior to
+Mrs. Yorke in social condition, lived upon the flats of Lincoln's Inn
+and the Temple.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>THE LAST OF THE LADIES.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>Whatever its drawbacks, the system which encouraged the young barrister
+to marry on a modest income, and make his wife 'happy in chambers,' must
+have had special advantages. In their Inn the husband was near every
+source of diversion for which he greatly cared, and the wife was
+surrounded by the friends of either sex in whose society she took most
+pleasure&mdash;friends who, like herself, 'lived in the Inn,' or in one of
+the immediately adjacent streets. In 'hall' he dined and drank wine with
+his professional compeers and the wits of the bar: the 'library'
+supplied him not only with law books, but with poems and dramas, with
+merry trifles written for the stage, and satires fresh from the Row;
+'the chapel'&mdash;or if he were a Templer, 'the church'&mdash;was his habitual
+place of worship, where there were sittings for his wife and children
+as well as for himself; on the walks and under the shady trees of 'the
+garden' he sauntered with his own, or, better still, a friend's wife,
+criticising the passers, describing the new comedy, or talking over the
+last ball given by a judge's lady. At times those gardens were pervaded
+by the calm of collegiate seclusion, but on 'open days' they were brisk
+with life. The women and children of the legal colony walked in them
+daily; the ladies attired in their newest fashions, and the children
+running with musical riot over lawns and paths. Nor were the grounds
+mere places of resort for lawyers and their families. Taking rank
+amongst the pleasant places of the metropolis, they attracted, on 'open
+days,' crowds from every quarter of the town&mdash;ladies and gallants from
+Soho Square and St. James's Street, from Whitehall and Westminster;
+sightseers from the country and gorgeous alderwomic dowagers from
+Cheapside. From the days of Elizabeth till the middle, indeed till the
+close, of the eighteenth century the ornamental grounds of the four
+great Inns were places of fashionable promenade, where the rank and
+talent and beauty of the town assembled for display and exercise, even
+as in our own time they assemble (less universally) in Hyde Park and
+Kensington Gardens.</p>
+
+<p>When ladies and children had withdrawn, the quietude of the gardens
+lured from their chambers scholars and poets, who under murmuring
+branches pondered the results of past study, or planned new works. Ben
+Jonson was accustomed to saunter beneath the elms of Lincoln's Inn; and
+Steele&mdash;alike on 'open' and 'close' days&mdash;used to frequent the gardens
+of the same society. "I went," he writes in May, 1809, "into Lincoln's
+Inn Walks, and having taking a round or two, I sat down, according to
+the allowed familiarity of these places, on a bench." In the following
+November he alludes to the privilege that he enjoyed of walking there
+as "a favor that is indulged me by several of the benchers, who are very
+intimate friends, and grown in the neighborhood."</p>
+
+<p>But though on certain days, and under fixed regulations, the outside
+public were admitted to the college gardens, the assemblages were always
+pervaded by the tone and humor of the law. The courtiers and grand
+ladies from 'the west' felt themselves the guests of the lawyers; and
+the humbler folk, who by special grant had acquired the privilege of
+entry, or whose decent attire and aspect satisfied the janitors of their
+respectability, moved about with watchfulness and gravity, surveying the
+counsellors and their ladies with admiring eyes, and extolling the
+benchers whose benevolence permitted simple tradespeople to take the air
+side by side with 'the quality.' In 1736, James Ralph, in his 'New
+Critical Review of the Publick Buildings,' wrote about the square and
+gardens of Lincoln's Inn in a manner which testifies to the respectful
+gratitude of the public for the liberality which permitted all outwardly
+decent persons to walk in the grounds. "I may safely add," he says,
+"that no area anywhere is kept in better order, either for cleanliness
+and beauty by day, or illumination by night; the fountain in the middle
+is a very pretty decoration, and if it was still kept playing, as it was
+some years ago, 'twould preserve its name with more propriety." In his
+remarks on the chapel the guide observes, "The raising this chapel on
+pillars affords a pleasing, melancholy walk underneath, and by night,
+particularly, when illuminated by the lamps, it has an effect that may
+be felt, but not described." Of the gardens Mr. Ralph could not speak in
+high praise, for they were ill-arranged and not so carefully kept as the
+square; but he observes, "they are convenient; and considering their
+situation cannot be esteemed to much. There is something hospitable in
+laying them open to public use; and while we share in their pleasures,
+we have no title to arraign their taste."</p>
+
+<p>The chief attraction of Lincoln's Inn gardens, apart from its beautiful
+trees, was for many years the terrace overlooking 'the Fields,' which
+was made <i>temp.</i> Car. II. at the cost of nearly &pound;1000. Dugdale, speaking
+of the recent improvements of the Inn, says, "And the last was the
+enlargement of their garden, beautifying with a large tarras walk on the
+west side thereof, and raising the wall higher towards Lincoln's Inne
+Fields, which was done in An. 1663 (15 Car. II.), the charge thereof
+amounting to a little less than a thousand pounds, by reason that the
+levelling of most part of the ground, and raising the tarras, required
+such great labor." A portion of this terrace, and some of the old trees,
+were destroyed to make room for the new dining-hall.</p>
+
+<p>The old system supplied the barrister with other sources of recreation.
+Within a stone's throw of his residence was the hotel where his club had
+its weekly meeting. Either in hall, or with his family, or at a tavern
+near 'the courts,' it was his use, until a comparatively recent date, to
+dine in the middle of the day, and work again after the meal. Courts sat
+after dinner as well as before; and it was observable that counsellors
+spoke far better when they were full of wine and venison than when they
+stated the case in the earlier part of the day. But in the evening the
+system told especially in the barrister's favor. All his many friends
+lying within a small circle, he had an abundance of congenial society.
+Brother-circuiteers came to his wife's drawing-room for tea and chat,
+coffee and cards. There was a substantial supper at half-past eight or
+nine for such guests (supper cooked in my lady's little kitchen, or
+supplied by the 'Society's cook'); and the smoking dishes were
+accompanied by foaming tankards of ale or porter, and followed by
+superb and richly aromatic bowls of punch. On occasions when the learned
+man worked hard and shut out visitors by sporting his oak, he enjoyed
+privacy as unbroken and complete as that of any library in Kensington or
+Tyburnia. If friends stayed away, and he wished for diversion, he could
+run into the chambers of old college-chums, or with his wife's gracious
+permission could spend an hour at Chatelin's or Nando's, or any other
+coffeehouse in vogue with members of his profession. During festive
+seasons, when the judges' and leaders' ladies gave their grand balls,
+the young couple needed no carriage for visiting purposes. From Gray's
+Inn to the Temple they walked&mdash;if the weather was fine. When it rained
+they hailed a hackney-coach, or my lady was popped into a sedan and
+carried by running bearers to the frolic of the hour.</p>
+
+<p>Of course the notes of the preceding paragraphs of this chapter are but
+suggestions as to the mode in which the artistic reader must call up the
+life of the old lawyers. Encouraging him to realize the manners and
+usages of several centuries, not of a single generation, they do not
+attempt to entertain the student with details. It is needless to say
+that the young couple did not use hackney-coaches in times prior to the
+introduction of those serviceable vehicles, and that until sedans were
+invented my lady never used them.</p>
+
+<p>It is possible, indeed it is certain, that married ladies living in
+chambers occasionally had for neighbors on the same staircase women whom
+they regarded with abhorrence. Sometimes it happened that a dissolute
+barrister introduced to his rooms a woman more beautiful than virtuous,
+whom he had not married, though he called her his wife. People can no
+more choose their neighbors in a house broken up into sets of chambers,
+than they can choose them in the street. But the cases where ladies
+were daily liable to meet an offensive neighbor on their common
+staircase were comparatively rare; and when the annoyance actually
+occurred, the discipline of the Inn afforded a remedy.</p>
+
+<p>Uncleanness too often lurked within the camp, but it veiled its face;
+and though in rare cases the error and sin of a powerful lawyer may have
+been notorious, the preccant man was careful to surround himself with
+such an appearance of respectability that society should easily feign
+ignorance of his offence. An Elizabethan distich&mdash;familiar to all
+barristers, but too rudely worded for insertion in this page&mdash;informs us
+that in the sixteenth century Gray's Inn had an unenviable notoriety
+amongst legal hospices for the shamelessness of its female inmates. But
+the pungent lines must be regarded as a satire aimed at certain
+exceptional members, rather than as a vivacious picture of the general
+tone of morals in the society. Anyhow the fact that Gray's Inn<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> was
+alone designated as a home for infamy&mdash;whilst the Inner Temple was
+pointed to as the hospice most popular with rich men, the Middle Temple
+as the society frequented by Templars of narrow means, and Lincoln's Inn
+as the abode of gentlemen&mdash;is, of itself, a proof that the pervading
+manners of the last three institutions were outwardly decorous. Under
+the least favorable circumstances, a barrister's wife living in
+chambers, within or near Lincoln's Inn, or the Temple, during Charles
+II.'s reign, fared as well in this respect as she would have done had
+Fortune made her a lady-in-waiting at Whitehall.</p>
+
+<p>A good story is told of certain visits paid to William Murray's chambers
+at No. 5, King's Bench Walk Temple, in the year 1738. Born in 1705,
+Murray was still a young man when in 1738 he made his brilliant speech
+in behalf of Colonel Sloper, against whom Colley Cibber's rascally son
+had brought an action for <i>crim. con.</i> with his wife&mdash;the lovely actress
+who was the rival of Mrs. Clive. Amongst the many clients who were drawn
+to Murray by that speech, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, was neither the
+least powerful nor the least distinguished. Her grace began by sending
+the rising advocate a general retainer, with a fee of a thousand
+guineas; of which sum he accepted only the two-hundredth part,
+explaining to the astonished duchess that "the professional fee, with a
+general retainer, could neither be less nor more than five guineas." If
+Murray had accepted the whole sum he would not have been overpaid for
+his trouble; for her grace persecuted him with calls at most
+unseasonable hours. On one occasion, returning to his chambers after
+"drinking champagne with the wits," he found the duchess's carriage and
+attendants on King's Bench Walk. A numerous crowd of footmen and
+link-bearers surrounded the coach; and when the barrister entered his
+chambers he encountered the mistress of that army of lackeys. "Young
+man," exclaimed the grand lady, eying the future Lord Mansfield with a
+look of warm displeasure, "if you mean to rise in the world, you must
+not sup out." On a subsequent night Sarah of Marlborough called without
+appointment at the same chambers, and waited till past midnight in the
+hope that she would see the lawyer ere she went to bed. But Murray being
+at an unusually late supper-party, did not return till her grace had
+departed in an over-powering rage. "I could not make out, sir, who she
+was," said Murray's clerk, describing her grace's appearance and manner,
+"for she would not tell me her name; <i>but she swore so dreadfully that I
+am sure she must be a lady of quality</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the Inns of Court may still shelter a few married ladies, who
+either from love of old-world ways, or from stern necessity, consent to
+dwell in their husbands' chambers. If such ladies can at the present
+time be found, the writer of this page would look for them in Gray's
+Inn&mdash;that straggling caravansary for the reception of money-lenders,
+Bohemians, and eccentric gentlemen&mdash;rather than in the other three Inns
+of Court, which have undoubtedly quite lost their old population of
+lady-residents. But from those three hospices the last of the ladies
+must have retreated at a comparatively recent date. Fifteen years since,
+when the writer of this book was a beardless undergraduate, he had the
+honor of knowing some married ladies, of good family and unblemished
+repute, who lived with their husbands in the Middle Temple. One of those
+ladies&mdash;the daughter of a country magistrate, the sister of a
+distinguished classic scholar&mdash;was the wife of a common law barrister
+who now holds a judicial appointment in one of our colonies. The women
+of her old home circle occasionally called on this young wife: but as
+they could not reach her quarters in Sycamore Court without attracting
+much unpleasant observation, their visits were not frequent. Living in a
+barrack of unwed men, that charming girl was surrounded by honest
+fellows who would have resented as an insult to themselves an
+impertinence offered to her. Still her life was abnormal, unnatural,
+deleterious; it was felt by all who cared for her that she ought not to
+be where she was; and when an appointment with a good income in a
+healthy and thriving colony was offered to her husband, all who knew
+her, and many who had never spoken to her, rejoiced at the intelligence.
+At the present time, in the far distant country which looks up to her
+as a personage of importance, this lady&mdash;not less exemplary as wife and
+mother than brilliant as a woman of society&mdash;takes pleasure in recalling
+the days when she was a prisoner in the Temple.</p>
+
+<p>One of the last cases of married life in the Temple, that came before
+the public notice, was that of a barrister and his wife who incurred
+obloquy and punishment for their brutal conduct to a poor servant girl.
+No one would thank the writer for re-publishing the details of that
+nauseous illustration of the degradation to which it is possible for a
+gentleman and scholar to sink. But, however revolting, the case is not
+without interest for the reader who is curious about the social life of
+the Temple.</p>
+
+<p>The portion of the Temple in which the old-world family life of the Inns
+held out the longest, is a clump of commodious houses lying between the
+Middle Temple Garden and Essex Street, Strand. Having their
+entrance-doors in Essex Street, these houses are, in fact, as private as
+the residences of any London quarter. The noise of the Strand reaches
+them, but their occupants are as secure from the impertinent gaze or
+unwelcome familiarities of law-students and barristers' clerks, as they
+would be if they lived at St. John's Wood. In Essex Street, on the
+eastern side, the legal families maintained their ground almost till
+yesterday. Fifteen years since the writer of this page used to be
+invited to dinners and dances in that street&mdash;dinners and dances which
+were attended by prosperous gentlefolk from the West End of the town. At
+that time he often waltzed in a drawing-room, the windows of which
+looked upon the spray of the fountain&mdash;at which Ruth Pinch loved to gaze
+when its jet resembled a wagoner's whip. How all old and precious things
+pass away! The dear old 'wagoner's whip' has been replaced by a pert,
+perky squirt that will never stir the heart or brain of a future Ruth.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> The scandalous state of Gray's Inn at this period is shown
+by the following passage in Dugdale's 'Origines:'&mdash;"In 23 Eliz. (30
+Jan.) there was an order made that no laundress, nor women called
+victuallers, should thenceforth come into the gentlemen's chambers of
+this society, until they were full forty years of age, and not send
+their maid-servants, of what age soever, in the said gentlemen's
+chambers, upon penalty, for the first offence of him that should admit
+of any such, to be put out of Commons: and for the second, to be
+expelled the House." The stringency and severity of this order show a
+determination on the part of the authorities to cure the evil.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_III" id="Chapter_III"></a>Chapter III.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>YORK HOUSE AND POWIS HOUSE.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>Whilst the great body of lawyers dwelt in or hard by the Inns, the
+dignitaries of the judicial bench, and the more eminent members of the
+bar, had suitable palaces or mansions at greater or less distances from
+the legal hostelries. The ecclesiastical Chancellors usually enjoyed
+episcopal or archiepiscopal rank, and lived in the London palaces
+attached to their sees or provinces. During his tenure of the seals,
+Morton, Bishop of Ely, years before he succeeded to the archbishopric of
+Canterbury, and received the honors of the Cardinalate, grew
+strawberries in his garden on Holborn Hill, and lived in the palace
+surrounded by that garden. As Archbishop of Canterbury, Chancellor
+Warham maintained at Lambeth Palace the imposing state commemorated by
+Erasmus.</p>
+
+<p>When Wolsey made his first progress to the Court of Chancery in
+Westminster Hall, a progress already alluded to in these pages, he
+started from the archiepiscopal palace, York House or Place&mdash;an official
+residence sold by the cardinal to Henry VIII. some years later; and when
+the same superb ecclesiastic, towards the close of his career, went on
+the memorable embassy to France, he set out from his palace at
+Westminster, "passing through all London over London Bridge, having
+before him of gentlemen a great number, three in rank in black velvet
+livery coats, and the most of them with great chains of gold about their
+necks."</p>
+
+<p>At later dates Gardyner, whilst he held the seals, kept his numerous
+household at Winchester House in Southwark; and Williams, the last
+clerical Lord Keeper, lived at the Deanery, Westminster.</p>
+
+<p>The lay Chancellors also maintained costly and pompous establishments,
+apart from the Inns of Court. Sir Thomas More's house stood in the
+country, flanked by a garden and farm, in the cultivation of which
+ground the Chancellor found one of his chief sources of amusement. In
+Aldgate, Lord Chancellor Audley built his town mansion, on the site of
+the Priory of the Canons of the Holy Trinity of Christ Church.
+Wriothesley dwelt in Holborn at the height of his unsteady fortunes, and
+at the time of his death. The infamous but singularly lucky Rich lived
+in Great St. Bartholomew's, and from his mansion there wrote to the Duke
+of Northumberland, imploring that messengers might be sent to him to
+relieve him of the perilous trust of the Great Seal. Christopher Hatton
+wrested from the see of Ely the site of Holborn, whereon he built his
+magnificent palace. The reluctance with which the Bishop of Ely
+surrendered the ground, and the imperious letter by which Elizabeth
+compelled the prelate to comply with the wish of her favorite courtier,
+form one of the humorous episodes of that queen's reign. Hatton House
+rose over the soil which had yielded strawberries to Morton; and of that
+house&mdash;where the dancing Chancellor received Elizabeth as a visitor, and
+in which he died of "diabetes <i>and</i> grief of mind"&mdash;the memory is
+preserved by Hatton Garden, the name of the street where some of our
+wealthiest jewelers and gold assayers have places of business.</p>
+
+<p>Public convenience had long suggested the expediency of establishing a
+permanent residence for the Chancellors of England, when either by
+successive expressions of the royal will, or by the individual choice of
+several successive holders of the <i>Clavis Regni</i>, a noble palace on the
+northern bank of the Thames came to be regarded as the proper domicile
+for the Great Seal. York House, memorable as the birthplace of Francis
+Bacon, and the scene of his brightest social splendor, demands a brief
+notice. Wolsey's 'York House' or Whitehall having passed from the
+province of York to the crown, Nicholas Heath, Archbishop of York,
+established himself in another York House on a site lying between the
+Strand and the river. In this palace (formerly leased to the see of
+Norwich as a bishop's Inn, and subsequently conferred on Charles Brandon
+by Henry VIII.) Heath resided during his Chancellorship; and when, in
+consequence of his refusal to take the oath of supremacy, Elizabeth
+deprived him of his archbishopric, York House passed into the hands of
+her new Lord Keeper, Sir Nicholas Bacon. On succeeding to the honors of
+the Marble Chair, Hatton did not move from Holborn to the Strand; but
+otherwise all the holders of the Great Seal, from Heath to Francis Bacon
+inclusive, seem to have occupied York House; Heath, of course, using it
+by right as Archbishop of York, and the others holding it under leases
+granted by successive archbishops of the northern province. So little is
+known of Bromley, apart from the course which he took towards Mary of
+Scotland, that the memory of old York House gains nothing of interest
+from him. Indeed it has been questioned whether he was one of its
+tenants. Puckering, Egerton, and Francis Bacon certainly inhabited it in
+succession. On Bacon's fall it was granted to Buckingham, whose desire
+to possess the picturesque palace was one of the motives which impelled
+him to blacken the great lawyer's reputation. Seized by the Long
+Parliament, it was granted to Lord Fairfax. In the following generation
+it passed into the hands of the second Duke of Buckingham, who sold
+house and precinct for building-ground. The bad memory of the man who
+thus for gold surrendered a spot of earth sacred to every scholarly
+Englishman is preserved in the names of <i>George</i> Street, <i>Duke</i> Street,
+<i>Villiers</i> Street, <i>Buckingham</i> Street.</p>
+
+<p>The engravings commonly sold as pictures of the York House, in which
+Lord Bacon kept the seals, are likenesses of the building after it was
+pulled about, diminished, and modernized, and in no way whatever
+represent the architecture of the original edifice. Amongst the
+art-treasures of the University of Oxford, Mr. Hepworth Dixon
+fortunately found a rough sketch of the real house, from which sketch
+Mr. E.M. Ward drew the vignette that embellishes the title-page of 'The
+Story of Lord Bacon's Life.'</p>
+
+<p>After the expulsion of the Great Seal from old York House, it wandered
+from house to house, manifesting, however, in its selections of London
+quarters, a preference for the grand line of thoroughfare between
+Charing Cross and the foot of Ludgate Hill. Escaping from the
+Westminster Deanery, where Williams kept it in a box, the <i>Clavis Regni</i>
+inhabited Durham House, Strand, whilst under Lord Keeper Coventry's
+care. Lord Keeper Littleton, until he made his famous ride from London
+to York, lived in Exeter House. Clarendon resided in Dorset House,
+Salisbury Court, Fleet Street, and subsequently in Worcester House,
+Strand, before he removed to the magnificent palace which aroused the
+indignation of the public in St. James's Street. The greater and happier
+part of his official life was passed in Worcester House. There he held
+councils in his bedroom when he was laid up with gout; there King
+Charles visited him familiarly, even condescending to be present to the
+bedside councils; and there he was established when the Great Fire of
+London caused him, in a panic, to send his most valuable furniture to
+his Villa at Twickenham. Thanet House, Aldersgate Street, is the
+residence with which Shaftesbury, the politician, is most generally
+associated; but whilst he was Lord Chancellor he occupied Exeter House,
+Strand, formerly the abode of Keeper Littleton. Lord Nottingham slept
+with the seals under his pillow in Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn
+Fields, the same street in which his successor, Lord Guildford, had the
+establishment so racily described by his brother, Roger North. And Lord
+Jeffreys moving westward, gave noisy dinners in Duke Street,
+Westminster, where he opened a court-house that was afterwards
+consecrated as a place of worship, and is still known as the Duke Street
+Chapel. Says Pennant, describing the Chancellor's residence, "It is
+easily known by a large flight of stone steps, which his royal master
+permitted to be made into the park adjacent for the accommodation of his
+lordship. These steps terminate above in a small court, on three sides
+of which stands the house." The steps still remain, but their history is
+unknown to many of the habitual frequenters of the chapel. After
+Jefferys' fall the spacious and imposing mansion, where the
+<i>bon-vivants</i> of the bar used to drink inordinately with the wits and
+buffoons of the London theatres, was occupied by Government; and there
+the Lords of the Admiralty had their offices until they moved to their
+quarters opposite Scotland Yard. Narcissus Luttrell's Diary contains the
+following entry:&mdash;"April 23, 1690. The late Lord Chancellor's house at
+Westminster is taken for the Lords of the Admiralty to keep the
+Admiralty Office at."</p>
+
+<p>William III., wishing to fix the holders of the Great Seal in a
+permanent official home, selected Powis House (more generally known by
+the name of Newcastle House), in Lincoln's Inn Fields, as a residence
+for Somers and future Chancellors. The Treasury minute books preserve an
+entry of September 11, 1696, directing a Privy Seal to "discharge the
+process for the apprised value of the house, and to declare the king's
+pleasure that the Lord Keeper or Lord Chancellor for the time being
+should have and enjoy it for the accommodation of their offices." Soon
+after his appointment to the seals, Somers took possession of this
+mansion at the north-west corner of the Fields; and after him Lord
+Keeper Sir Nathan Wright, Lord Chancellor Cowper, and Lord Chancellor
+Harcourt used it as an official residence. But the arrangement was not
+acceptable to the legal dignitaries. They preferred to dwell in their
+private houses, from which they were not liable to be driven by a change
+of ministry or a grist of popular disfavor. In the year 1711 the mansion
+was therefore sold to John Holles, Duke of Newcastle, to whom it is
+indebted for the name which it still bears. This large, unsightly
+mansion is known to every one who lives in London, and has any knowledge
+of the political and social life of the earlier Georgian courtiers and
+statesmen.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>The annals of the legal profession show that the neighborhood of
+Guildhall was a favorite place of residence with the ancient lawyers,
+who either held judicial offices within the circle of the Lord Mayor's
+jurisdiction, or whose practice lay chiefly in the civic courts. In the
+fifteenth and sixteenth centuries there was quite a colony of jurists
+hard by the temple of Gogmagog and Cosineus&mdash;or Gog and Magog, as the
+grotesque giants are designated by the unlearned, who know not the
+history of the two famous effigies, which originally figured in an
+Elizabethan pageant, stirring the wonder of the illiterate, and
+reminding scholars of two mythical heroes about whom the curious reader
+of this paragraph may learn further particulars by referring to Michael
+Drayton's 'Polyolbion.'</p>
+
+<p>In Milk Street, Cheapside, lived Sir John More, judge in the Court of
+King's Bench; and in Milk street, A.D. 1480, was born Sir John's famous
+son Thomas, the Chancellor, who was at the same time learned and simple,
+witty and pious, notable for gentle meekness and firm resolve, abounding
+with tenderness and hot with courage. Richard Rich&mdash;who beyond Scroggs
+or Jeffreys deserves to be remembered as the arch-scoundrel of the legal
+profession&mdash;was one of Thomas More's playmates and boon companions for
+several years of their boyhood and youth. Richard's father was an
+opulent mercer, and one of Sir John's near neighbors; so the youngsters
+were intimate until Master Dick, exhibiting at an early age his vicious
+propensities, came to be "esteemed very light of his tongue, a great
+dicer and gamester, and not of any commendable fame."</p>
+
+<p>On marrying his first wife Sir Thomas More settled in a house in
+Bucklersbury, the City being the proper quarter for his residence, as he
+was an under-sheriff of the city of London, in which character he both
+sat in the Court of the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs, and presided over a
+separate court on the Thursday of each week. Whilst living in
+Bucklersbury he had chambers in Lincoln's Inn. On leaving Bucklersbury
+he took a house in Crosby Place, from which he moved, in 1523, to
+Chelsea, in which parish he built the house that was eventually pulled
+down by Sir Hans Sloane in the year 1740.</p>
+
+<p>A generation later, Sir Nicholas Bacon was living in Noble Street,
+Foster Lane, where he had built the mansion known as Bacon House, in
+which he resided till, as Lord Keeper, he took possession of York House.
+Chief Justice Bramston lived, at different parts of his career, in
+Whitechapel; in Philip Lane, Aldermanbury; and (after his removal from
+Bosworth Court) in Warwick Lane, Sir John Bramston (the autobiographer)
+married into a house in Charterhouse Yard, where his father, the Chief
+Justice, resided with him for a short time.</p>
+
+<p>But from an early date, and especially during the seventeenth and
+eighteenth centuries, the more prosperous of the working lawyers either
+lived within the walls of the Inns, or in houses lying near the law
+colleges. Fleet Street, the Strand, Holborn, Chancery Lane, and the good
+streets leading into those thoroughfares, contained a numerous legal
+population in the times between Elizabeth's death and George III.'s
+first illness. Rich benchers and Judges wishing for more commodious
+quarters than they could obtain at any cost within college-walls,
+erected mansions in the immediate vicinity of their Inns; and their
+example was followed by less exalted and less opulent members of the bar
+and judicial bench. The great Lord Strafford first saw the light in
+Chancery Lane, in the house of his maternal grandfather, who was a
+bencher of Lincoln's Inn. Lincoln's Inn Fields was principally built for
+the accommodation of wealthy lawyers; and in Charles II.'s reign Queen
+Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields was in high repute with legal magnates. Sir
+Edward Coke lived alternately in chambers, and in Hatton House, Holborn,
+the palace that came to him by his second marriage. John Kelyng's house
+stood in Hatton Garden, and there he died in 1671. In his mansion in
+Lincoln's Inn Fields, Sir Harbottle Grimston, on June 25, 1660 (shortly
+before his appointment to the Mastership of the Rolls, for which place
+he is said to have given Clarendon &pound;8000), entertained Charles II. and a
+grand gathering of noble company. After his marriage Francis North took
+his high-born bride into chambers, which they inhabited for a short time
+until a house in Chancery Lane, near Serjeants' Inn, was ready for
+their use. On Nov. 15, 1666,&mdash;the year of the fire of London, in which
+year Hyde had his town house in the Strand&mdash;Glyn died in his house, in
+Portugal Row, Lincoln's Inn Fields. On June 15, 1691, Henry Pollexfen,
+Chief Justice of Common Pleas, expired in his mansion in Lincoln's Inn
+Fields. These addresses&mdash;taken from a list of legal addresses lying
+before the writer&mdash;indicate with sufficient clearness the quarter of the
+town in which Charles II.'s lawyers mostly resided.</p>
+
+<p>Under Charles II. the population of the Inns was such that barristers
+wishing to marry could not easily obtain commodious quarters within
+College-walls. Dugdale observes "that all but the benchers go two to a
+chamber: a bencher hath only the privilege of a chamber to himself." He
+adds&mdash;"if there be any one chamber consisting of two parts, and the one
+part exceeds the other in value, and he who hath the best part sells the
+same, yet the purchaser shall enter into the worst part; for it is a
+certain rule that the auntient in the chamber&mdash;<i>viz.</i>, he who was
+therein first admitted, without respect to their antiquity in the house,
+hath his choice of either part." This custom of sharing chambers gave
+rise to the word 'chumming,' an abbreviation of 'chambering.' Barristers
+in the present time often share a chamber&mdash;<i>i.e.</i>, set of rooms. In the
+seventeenth century an utter-barrister found the half of a set of rooms
+inconveniently narrow quarters for himself and wife. By arranging
+privately with a non-resident brother of the long robe, he sometimes
+obtained an entire "chamber," and had the space allotted to a bencher.
+When he could not make such an arrangement, he usually moved to a house
+outside the gate, but in the immediate vicinity of his inn, as soon as
+his lady presented him with children, if not sooner.</p>
+
+<p>Of course working, as well as idle, members of the profession were found
+in other quarters. Some still lived in the City; others preferred more
+fashionable districts. Roger North, brother of the Lord Keeper and son
+of a peer, lived in the Piazza of Covent Garden, in the house formerly
+occupied Lely the painter. To this house Sir Dudley North moved from his
+costly and dark mansion in the City, and in it he shortly afterwards
+died, under the hands of Dr. Radcliffe and the prosperous apothecary,
+Mr. St. Amand. "He had removed," writes Roger, "from his great house in
+the City, and came to that in the Piazza which Sir Peter Lely formerly
+used, and I had lived in alone for divers years. We were so much
+together, and my incumbrances so small, that so large a house might hold
+us both." Roger was a practicing barrister and Recorder of Bristol.</p>
+
+<p>During his latter years Sir John Bramston (the autobiographer) kept
+house in Greek Street, Soho.</p>
+
+<p>In the time of Charles II. the wealthy lawyers often maintained suburban
+villas, where they enjoyed the air and pastimes of the country. When his
+wife's health failed, Francis North took a villa for her at Hammersmith,
+"for the advantage of better air, which he thought beneficial for her;"
+and whilst his household tarried there, he never slept at his chambers
+in town, "but always went home to his family, and was seldom an evening
+without company agreeable to him." In his latter years, Chief Justice
+Pemberton had a rural mansion in Highgate, where his death occurred on
+June 10, 1699, in the 74th year of his age. A pleasant chapter might be
+written on the suburban seats of our great lawyers from the Restoration
+down to the present time. Lord Mansfield's 'Kenwood' is dear to all who
+are curious in legal <i>ana</i>. Charles Yorke had a villa at Highgate, where
+he entertained his political and personal friends. Holland, the
+architect, built a villa at Dulwich for Lord Thurlow; and in consequence
+of a quarrel between the Chancellor and the builder, the former took
+such a dislike to the house, that after its completion he never slept a
+night in it, though he often passed his holidays in a small lodge
+standing in the grounds of the villa. "Lord Thurlow," asked a lady of
+him, as he was leaving the Queen's Drawing-room, "when are you going
+into your new house?" "Madam," answered the surly Chancellor, incensed
+by her curiosity, "the Queen has asked me that impudent question, and I
+would not answer her; I will not tell you." For years Loughborough and
+Erskine had houses in Hampstead. "In Lord Mansfield's time," Erskine
+once said to Lord Campbell, "although the King's Bench monopolized all
+the common-law business, the court often rose at one or two o'clock&mdash;the
+papers, special, crown, and peremptory, being cleared; and then I
+refreshed myself by a drive to my villa at Hampstead." It was on
+Hampstead Heath that Loughborough, meeting Erskine in the dusk, said,
+"Erskine, you must not take Paine's brief;" and received the prompt
+reply, "But I have been retained, and I will take it, by G-d!" Much of
+that which is most pleasant in Erskine's career occurred at his
+Hampstead villa. Of Lord Kenyon's weekly trips from his mansion in
+Lincoln's Inn Fields to his farm-house at Richmond notice has been taken
+in a previous chapter. The memory of Charles Abbott's Hendon villa is
+preserved in the name, style, and title of Lord Tenterden, of Hendon, in
+the county of Middlesex. Indeed, lawyers have for many generations
+manifested much fondness for fresh air; the impure atmosphere of their
+courts in past time apparently whetting their appetites for wholesome
+breezes.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout the eighteenth century Lincoln's Inn Fields, an open though
+disorderly spot, was a great place for the residence of legal magnates.
+Somers, Nathan Wright, Cowper, Harcourt, successively inhabited Powis
+House. Chief Justice Parker (subsequently Lord Chancellor Macclesfield)
+lived there when he engaged Philip Yorke (then an attorney's articled
+clerk, but afterwards Lord Chancellor of England) to be his son's law
+tutor. On the south side of the square, Lord Chancellor Henley kept high
+state in the family mansion that descended to him on the death of his
+elder brother, and subsequently passed into the hands of the Surgeons,
+whose modest but convenient college stands upon its site. Wedderburn and
+Erskine had their mansions in Lincoln's Inn Fields, as well as their
+suburban villas. And between the lawyers of the Restoration and the
+judges of George III.'s reign, a large proportion of our most eminent
+jurists and advocates lived in that square and the adjoining streets;
+such as Queen Street on the west, Serle Street, Carey Street, Portugal
+Street, Chancery Lane, on the south and south-east. The reader, let it
+be observed, may not infer that this quarter was confined to legal
+residents. The lawyers were the most conspicuous and influential
+occupants; but they had for neighbors people of higher quality, who,
+attracted to the square by its openness, or the convenience of its site,
+or the proximity of the law colleges, made it their place of abode in
+London. Such names as those of the Earl of Lindsey and the Earl of
+Sandwich in the seventeenth, and of the Duke of Ancaster and the Duke of
+Newcastle in the eighteenth century, establish the patrician character
+of the quarter for many years. Moreover, from the books of popular
+antiquaries, a long list might be made of wits, men of science, and
+minor celebrities, who, though in no way personally connected with the
+law, lived during the same period under the shadow of Lincoln's Inn.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst Lincoln's Inn Fields took rank amongst the most aristocratic
+quarters of the town, it was as disorderly a square as could be found in
+all London. Royal suggestions, the labors of a learned committee
+especially appointed by James I. to decide on a proper system of
+architecture, and Inigo Jones's magnificent but abortive scheme had but
+a poor result. In Queen Anne's reign, and for twenty years later, the
+open space of the fields was daily crowded with beggars, mountebanks,
+and noisy rabble; and it was the scene of constant uproar and frequent
+riots. As soon as a nobleman's coach drew up before one of the
+surrounding mansions, a mob of half-naked rascals swarmed about the
+equipage, asking for alms in alternate tones of entreaty and menace.
+Pugilistic encounters, and fights resembling the faction fights of an
+Irish row, were of daily occurrence there; and when the rabble decided
+on torturing a bull with dogs, the wretched beast was tied to a stake in
+the centre of the wide area, and there baited in the presence of a
+ferocious multitude, and to the diversion of fashionable ladies, who
+watched the scene from their drawing-room windows. The Sacheverell
+outrage was wildest in this chosen quarter of noblemen and blackguards;
+and in George II.'s reign, when Sir Joseph Jekyll, the Master of the
+Rolls, made himself odious to the lowest class by his Act for laying an
+excise upon gin, a mob assailed him in the middle of the fields, threw
+him to the ground, kicked him over and over, and savagely trampled upon
+him. It was a marvel that he escaped with his life; but with
+characteristic good humor, he soon made a joke of his ill-usage, saying
+that until the mob made him their football he had never been master of
+<i>all</i> the <i>rolls</i>. Soon after this outbreak of popular violence, the
+inhabitants enclosed the middle of the area with palisades, and turned
+the enclosure into an ornamental garden. Describing the Fields in 1736,
+the year in which the obnoxious Act concerning gin became law, James
+Ralph says, "Several of the original houses still remain, to be a
+reproach to the rest; and I wish the disadvantageous comparison had
+been a warning to others to have avoided a like mistake.... But this is
+not the only quarrel I have to Lincoln's Inn Fields. The area is capable
+of the highest improvement, might be made a credit to the whole city,
+and do honor to those who live round it; whereas at present no place can
+be more contemptible or forbidding; in short, it serves only as a
+nursery for beggars and thieves, and is a daily reflection on those who
+suffer it to be in its abandoned condition."</p>
+
+<p>During the eighteenth century, a tendency to establish themselves in the
+western portion of the town was discernible amongst the great law lords.
+For instance, Lord Cowper, who during his tenure of the seals resided in
+Powis House, during his latter years occupied a mansion in Great George
+Street, Westminster&mdash;once a most fashionable locality, but now a street
+almost entirely given up to civil engineers, who have offices there, but
+usually live elsewhere. In like manner, Lord Harcourt, moving westwards
+from Lincoln's Inn Fields, established himself in Cavendish Square. Lord
+Henley, on retiring from the family mansion in Lincoln's Inn Fields,
+settled in Grosvenor Square. Lord Camden lived in Hill Street, Berkeley
+Square. On being entrusted with the sole custody of the seals, Lord
+Apsley (better known as Lord Chancellor Bathurst) made his first
+state-progress to Westminster Hall from his house in Dean Street, Soho;
+but afterwards moving farther west, he built Apsley House (familiar to
+every Englishman as the late Duke of Wellington's town mansion) upon the
+site of Squire Western's favorite inn&mdash;the 'Hercules' Pillars.'</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>THE OLD LAW QUARTER.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>Fifteen years since the writer of this page used to dine with a
+conveyancer&mdash;a lawyer of an old and almost obsolete school&mdash;who had a
+numerous household, and kept a hospitable table in Lincoln's Inn Fields;
+but the conveyancer was almost the last of his species. The householding
+legal <i>resident</i> of the Fields, like the domestic resident of the
+Temple, has become a feature of the past. Among the ordinary nocturnal
+population of the square called Lincoln's Inn Fields, may be found a few
+solicitors who sleep by night where they work by day, and a sprinkling
+of young barristers and law students who have residential chambers in
+grand houses that less than a century since were tenanted by members of
+a proud and splendid aristocracy; but the gentle families have by this
+time altogether disappeared from the mansions.</p>
+
+<p>But long before this aristocratic secession, the lawyers took possession
+of a new quarter. The great charm of Lincoln's Inn Fields had been the
+freshness of the air which played over the open space. So also the
+recommendation of Great Queen Street had been the purity of its rural
+atmosphere. Built between 1630 and 1730, that thoroughfare&mdash;at present
+hemmed in by fetid courts and narrow passages&mdash;caught the keen breezes
+of Hampstead, and long maintained a character for salubrity as well as
+fashion. Of those fine squares and imposing streets which lie between
+High Holborn and Hampstead, not a stone had been laid when the ground
+covered by the present Freemason's Tavern was one of the most desirable
+sites of the metropolis. Indeed, the houses between Holborn and Great
+Queen Street were not erected till the mansions on the south side of
+the latter thoroughfare&mdash;built long before the northern side&mdash;had for
+years commanded an unbroken view of Holborn Fields. Notwithstanding many
+gloomy predictions of the evils that would necessarily follow from
+over-building, London steadily increased, and enterprising architects
+deprived Lincoln's Inn Fields and Great Queen Street of their rural
+qualities. Crossing Holborn, the lawyers settled on a virgin plain
+beyond the ugly houses which had sprung up on the north of Great Queen
+Street, and on the country side of Holborn. Speedily a new quarter
+arose, extending from Gray's Inn on the east to Southampton Row on the
+West, and lying between Holborn and the line of Ormond Street, Red Lion
+Street, Bedford Row, Great Ormond Street, Little Ormond Street, Great
+James Street, and Little James Street were amongst its best
+thoroughfares; in its centre was Red Lion Square, and in its
+northwestern corner lay Queen's Square. Steadily enlarging its
+boundaries, it comprised at later dates Guildford Street, John's Street,
+Doughty Street, Mecklenburgh Square, Brunswick Square, Bloomsbury
+Square, Russell Square, Bedford Square&mdash;indeed, all the region lying
+between Gray's Inn Lane (on the east), Tottenham Court Road (on the
+west), Holborn (on the south), and a line running along the north of the
+Foundling Hospital and 'the squares.' Of course this large residential
+district was more than the lawyers required for themselves. It became
+and long remained a favorite quarter with merchants, physicians,<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> and
+surgeons; and until a recent date it comprised the mansions of many
+leading members of the aristocracy. But from its first commencement it
+was so intimately associated with the legal profession that it was often
+called the 'law quarter;' and the writer of this page has often heard
+elderly ladies and gentlemen speak of it as the 'old law quarter.'</p>
+
+<p>Although lawyers were the earliest householders in this new quarter, its
+chief architect encountered at first strong opposition from a section of
+the legal profession. Anxious to preserve the rural character of their
+neighborhood, the gentlemen of Gray's Inn were greatly displeased with
+the proposal to lay out Holborn Fields in streets and squares. Under
+date June 10, 1684, Narcissus Luttrell wrote in his diary&mdash;"Dr.
+Barebone, the great builder, having some time since bought the Red Lyon
+Fields, near Graie's Inn walks, to build on, and having for that purpose
+employed severall workmen to goe on with the same, the gentlemen of
+Graie's Inn took notice of it, and, thinking it an injury to them, went
+with a considerable body of 100 persons; upon which the workmen
+assaulted the gentlemen, and flung bricks at them, and the gentlemen at
+them again. So a sharp engagement ensued, but the gentlemen routed them
+at last, and brought away one or two of the workmen to Graie's Inn; in
+this skirmish one or two of the gentlemen and servants of the house were
+hurt, and severall of the workmen."</p>
+
+<p>James Ralph's remarks on the principal localities of this district are
+interesting. "Bedford Row," he says, "is one of the most noble streets
+that London has to boast of, and yet there is not one house in it which
+deserves the least attention." He tells us that "Ormond Street is
+another place of pleasure, and that side of it next the Fields is,
+beyond question, one of the most charming situations about town." This
+'place of pleasure' is now given up for the most part to hospitals and
+other charitable institutions, and to lodging-houses of an inferior
+sort. Passing on to Bloomsbury Square, and speaking of the Duke of
+Bedford's residence, which stood on the North side of the square, he
+says, "Then behind it has the advantage of most agreeable gardens, and a
+view of the country, which would make a retreat from the town almost
+unnecessary, besides the opportunity of exhibiting another prospect of
+the building, which would enrich the landscape and challenge new
+approbation." This was written in 1736. At that time the years of two
+generations were appointed to pass away ere the removal of Bedford House
+should make way for Lower Bedford Place, leading into Russell Square.</p>
+
+<p>So late as the opening years of George III.'s reign, Queen's Square
+enjoyed an unbroken prospect in the direction of Highgate and Hampstead.
+'The Foreigner's Guide: or a Necessary and Instructive Companion both to
+the Foreigner and Native, in their Tours through the Cities of London
+and Westminster' (1763), contains the following passage:&mdash;"Queen's
+Square, which is pleasantly situated at the extreme part of the town,
+has a fine open view of the country, and is handsomely built, as are
+likewise the neighboring streets&mdash;viz., Southampton Row, Ormond Street,
+&amp;c. In this last is Powis House, so named from the Marquis of Powis, who
+built the present stately structure in the year 1713. It is now the town
+residence of the Earl of Hardwicke, late Lord Chancellor. The
+apartments are noble, and the whole edifice is commendable for its
+situation, and the fine prospect of the country. Not far from thence is
+Bloomsbury Square. This square is commendable for its situation and
+largeness. On the North side is the house of the Duke of Bedford. This
+building was erected from a design of Inigo Jones, and is very elegant
+and spacious." From the duke's house in Bloomsbury Square and his
+surrounding property, the political party, of which he was the Chief,
+obtained the nickname of the Bloomsbury Gang.</p>
+
+<p>Chief Justice Holt died March 5, 1710, at his house<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> in Bedford Row.
+In Red Lion Square Chief Justice Raymond had the town mansion wherein he
+died on April 15, 1733; twelve years after Sir John Pratt, Lord Camden's
+father, died at his house in Ormond Street. On December 15, 1761, Chief
+Justice Willes died at his house in Bloomsbury Square. Chagrin at
+missing the seals through his own arrogance, when they had been actually
+offered to him, was supposed to be a principal cause of the Chief
+Justice's death. His friends represented that he died of a broken heart;
+to which assertion flippant enemies responded that no man ever had a
+heart after living seventy-four years. Murray for many years inhabited a
+handsome house in Lincoln's Inn Fields; but his name is more generally
+associated with Bloomsbury Square, where stood the house which was
+sacked and burnt by the Gordon rioters. In Bloomsbury Square our
+grandfathers used to lounge, watching the house of Edward Law,
+subsequently Lord Ellenborough, in the hope of seeing Mrs. Law, as she
+watered the flowers of her balcony. Mrs. Law's maiden name was Towry,
+and, as a beauty, she remained for years the rage of London. Even at
+this date there remain a few aged gentlemen whose eyes sparkle and whose
+checks flush when they recall the charms of the lovely creature who
+became the wife of ungainly Edward Law, after refusing him on three
+separate occasions.</p>
+
+<p>On becoming Lord Ellenborough and Chief Justice, Edward Law moved to a
+great mansion in St. James's Square, the size of which he described to a
+friend by saying: "Sir, if you let off a piece of ordnance in the hall,
+the report is not heard in the bedrooms." In this house the Chief
+Justice expired, on December 13, 1818. Speaking of Lord Ellenborough's
+residence in St. James's Square, Lord Campbell says: "This was the first
+instance of a common law judge moving to the 'West End.' Hitherto all
+the common law judges had lived within a radius of half a mile from
+Lincoln's Inn; but they are now spread over the Regent's Park, Hyde Park
+Gardens, and Kensington Gore."</p>
+
+<p>Lord Harwicke and Lord Thurlow have been more than once mentioned as
+inhabitants of Ormond Street.</p>
+
+<p>Eldon's residences may be noticed with advantage in this place. On
+leaving Oxford and settling in London, he took a small house for himself
+and Mrs. Scott in Cursitor Street, Chancery Lane. About this dwelling he
+wrote to his brother Henry:&mdash;"I have got a house barely sufficient to
+hold my small family, which (so great is the demand for them here) will,
+in rent and taxes, cost me annually six pounds." To this house he used
+to point in the days of his prosperity, and, in allusion to the poverty
+which he never experienced, he would add, "There was my first perch.
+Many a time have I run down from Cursitor Street to Fleet Market and
+bought sixpenn'orth of sprats for our supper." After leaving Cursitor
+Street, he lived in Carey Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, where also, in
+his later years, he believed himself to have endured such want of money
+that he and his wife were glad to fill themselves with sprats. When he
+fixed this anecdote upon Carey Street, the old Chancellor used to
+represent himself as buying the sprats in Clare Market instead of Fleet
+Market. After some successful years he moved his household from the
+vicinity of Lincoln's Inn, and took a house in the law quarter,
+selecting one of the roomy houses (No. 42) of Gower Street, where he
+lived when as Attorney General he conducted the futile prosecutions of
+Hardy, Horne Tooke, and Thelwall, in 1794.</p>
+
+<p>On quitting Gower Street, Eldon took the house in Bedford Square, which
+witnessed so many strange scenes during his tenure of the seals, and
+also during his brief exclusion from office. In Bedford Square he played
+the part of chivalric protector to the Princess of Wales, and chuckled
+over the proof-sheets of that mysterious 'book' by the publication of
+which the injured wife and the lawyer hoped to take vengeance on their
+common enemy. There the Chancellor, feeling it well to protract his
+flirtation with the Princess of Wales, entertained her in the June of
+1808, with a grand banquet, from which Lady Eldon was compelled by
+indisposition to be absent. And there, four years later, when he was
+satisfied that her Royal Highness's good opinion could be of no service
+to him, the crafty, self-seeking minister gave a still more splendid
+dinner to the husband whose vices he had professed to abhor, whose
+meanness of spirit he had declared the object of his contempt.
+"However," writes Lord Campbell, with much satiric humor, describing
+this alliance between the selfish voluptuary and the equally selfish
+lawyer, "he was much comforted by having the honor, at the prorogation,
+of entertaining at dinner his Royal Highness the Regent, with whom he
+was now a special favorite, and who, enjoying the splendid hospitality
+of Bedford Square, forgot that the Princess of Wales had sat in the same
+room; at the same table; on the same chair; had drunk of the same wine;
+out of the same cup; while the conversation had turned on her barbarous
+usage, and the best means of publishing to the world <i>her</i> wrongs and
+<i>his</i> misconduct."</p>
+
+<p>Another of the Prince Regent's visits to Bedford Square is surrounded
+with comic circumstances and associations. In the April of 1815, a
+mastership of chancery became vacant by the death of Mr. Morris; and
+forthwith the Chancellor was assailed with entreaties from every direction
+for the vacant post. For two months Eldon, pursuing that policy of which he
+was a consummate master, delayed to appoint; but on June 23, he disgusted
+the bar and shocked the more intelligent section of London society, by
+conferring the post on Jekyll, the courtly <i>bon vivant</i> and witty
+descendant of Sir Joseph Jekyll, Master of the Rolls. Amiable, popular,
+and brilliant, Jekyll received the congratulations of his numerous personal
+friends; but beyond the circle of his private acquaintance the appointment
+created lively dissatisfaction&mdash;dissatisfaction which was heightened rather
+than diminished by the knowledge that the placeman's good fortune was
+entirely due to the personal importunity of the Prince Regent, who
+called at the Chancellor's house, and having forced his way into the
+bedroom, to which Eldon was confined by an attack of gout, refused to
+take his departure without a promise that his friend should have the
+vacant place. How this royal influence was applied to the Chancellor, is
+told in the 'Anecdote Book.'</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately Jekyll was less incompetent for the post than his enemies
+had declared, and his friends admitted. He proved a respectable master,
+and held his post until age and sickness compelled him to resign it;
+and then, sustained in spirits by the usual retiring pension, he
+sauntered on right mirthfully into the valley of the shadow of death. On
+the day after his retirement, the jocose veteran, meeting Eldon in the
+street, observed:&mdash;"Yesterday, Lord Chancellor, I was your master;
+to-day I am my own."</p>
+
+<p>From Bedford Square, Lord Eldon, for once following the fashion, moved
+to Hamilton Place, Piccadilly. With the purpose of annoying him the
+'Queen's friends,' during the height of the 'Queen Caroline agitation,'
+proposed to buy the house adjoining the Chancellor's residence in
+Hamilton Place, and to fit it up for the habitation of that not
+altogether meritorious lady. Such an arrangement would have been an
+humiliating as well as exasperating insult to a lawyer who, as long as
+the excitement about the poor woman lasted, would have been liable to
+affront whenever he left his house or looked through the windows facing
+Hamilton Place. The same mob that delighted in hallooing round whatever
+house the Queen honored with her presence, would have varied their
+'hurrahs' for the lady with groans for the lawyer who, after making her
+wrongs the stalking-horse of his ambition, had become one of her chief
+oppressors. Eldon determined to leave Hamilton Place on the day which
+should see the Queen enter it; and hearing that the Lords of the
+Treasury were about to assist her with money for the purchase of the
+house, he wrote to Lord Liverpool, protesting against an arrangement
+which would subject him to annoyance at home and to ridicule out of
+doors. "I should," he wrote, "be very unwilling to state anything
+offensively, but I cannot but express my confidence that Government will
+not aid a project which must remove the Chancellor from his house the
+next hour that it takes effect, and from his office at the same time."
+This decided attitude caused the Government to withdraw their
+countenance from the project; whereupon a public subscription was opened
+for its accomplishment. Sufficient funds were immediately proffered; and
+the owner of the mansion had verbally made terms with the patriots, when
+the Chancellor, outbidding them, bought the house himself. "I had no
+other means," he wrote to his daughter, "of preventing the destruction
+of my present house as a place in which I could live, or which anybody
+else would take. The purchase-money is large, but I have already had
+such offers, that I shall not, I think, lose by it."</p>
+
+<p>Russell Square&mdash;where Lord Loughborough (who knows aught of the Earl of
+Rosslyn?) had his town house, after leaving Lincoln's Inn Fields, and
+where Charles Abbott (Lord Tenterden) established himself on leaving the
+house in Queen Square, into which he married during the summer of
+1795&mdash;maintained a quasi-fashionable repute much later than the older
+and therefore more interesting parts of the 'old law quarter.' Theodore
+Hook's disdain for Bloomsbury is not rightly appreciated by those who
+fail to bear in mind that the Russell Square of Hook's time was tenanted
+by people who&mdash;though they were unknown to 'fashion,' in the sense given
+to the word by men of Brummel's habit and tone&mdash;had undeniable status
+amongst the aristocracy and gentry of England. With some justice the
+witty writer has been charged with snobbish vulgarity because he
+ridiculed humble Bloomsbury for being humble. His best defence is found
+in the fact that his extravagant scorn was not directed at helpless and
+altogether obscure persons so much as at an educated and well-born class
+who laughed at his caricatures, and gave dinners at which he was proud
+to be present. Though it fails to clear the novelist of the special
+charge, this apology has a certain amount of truth; and in so far as it
+palliates some of his offences against good taste and gentle feeling, by
+all means let him have the full benefit of it. Criticism can afford to
+be charitable to the clever, worthless man, now that no one admires or
+tries to respect him. Again, it may be advanced, in Hook's behalf, that
+political animosity&mdash;a less despicable, though not less hurtful passion
+than love of gentility&mdash;contributed to Hook's dislike of the quarter on
+the north side of Holborn. As a humorist he ridiculed, as a panderer to
+fashionable prejudices he sneered at, Bloomsbury; but as a tory he
+cherished a genuine antagonism to the district of town that was
+associated in the public mind with the wealth and ascendency of the
+house of Bedford. Anyhow, the Russell Square neighborhood&mdash;although it
+was no longer fashionable, as Belgravia and Mayfair are fashionable at
+the present day&mdash;remained the locality of many important families, at
+the time when Mr. Theodore Hook was pleased to assume that no one above
+the condition of a rich tradesman or second-rate attorney lived in it.
+Of the lawyers whose names are mournfully associated with the square
+itself are Sir Samuel Romilly and Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd. In 1818, the
+year of his destruction by his own hand, Sir Samuel Romilly lived there;
+and Talfourd had a house on the east side of the square up to the time
+of his lamented death in 1854.</p>
+
+<p>That Theodore Hook's ridicule of Bloomsbury greatly lessened for a time
+the value of its houses there is abundant evidence. When he deluged the
+district with scornful satire, his voice was a social power, to which a
+considerable number of honest people paid servile respect. His clever
+words were repeated; and Bloomsbury having become a popular by-word for
+contempt, aristocratic families ceased to live, and were reluctant to
+invest money, in its well-built mansions. But Hook only accelerated a
+movement which had for years been steadily though silently making
+progress. Erskine knew Red Lion Square when every house was occupied by
+a lawyer of wealth and eminence, if not of titular rank; but before he
+quitted the stage, barristers had relinquished the ground in favor of
+opulent shopkeepers. When an ironmonger became the occupant of a house
+in Red Lion Square on the removal of a distinguished counsel, Erskine
+wrote the epigram&mdash;</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+"This house, where once a lawyer dwelt,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Is now a smith's,&mdash;alas!</span><br />
+How rapidly the iron age<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Succeeds the age of brass."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>These lines point to a minor change in the social arrangements of
+London, which began with the century, and was still in progress when
+Erskine had for years been mouldering in his grave. In 1823, the year of
+Erskine's death, Chief Baron Richards expired in his town house, in
+Great Ormond Street. In the July of the following year Baron
+Wood&mdash;<i>i.e.</i>, George Wood, the famous special pleader&mdash;died at his house
+in Bedford Square, about seventeen months after his resignation of his
+seat in the Court of Exchequer to John Hullock.</p>
+
+<p>At the present time the legal fraternity has deserted Bloomsbury. The
+last of the Judges to depart was Chief Baron Pollock, who sold his great
+house in Queen Square at a quite recent date. With the disappearance of
+this venerable and universally respected judge, the legal history of the
+neighborhood may be said to have closed. Some wealthy solicitors still
+live in Russell Square and the adjoining streets; a few old-fashioned
+barristers still linger in Upper Bedford Place and Lower Bedford Place.
+Guilford Street and Doughty Street, and the adjacent thoroughfares of
+the same class, still number a sprinkling of rising juniors, literary
+barristers, and fairly prosperous attorneys. Perhaps the ancient aroma
+of the 'old law quarter'&mdash;Mesopotamia, us it is now disrespectfully
+termed&mdash;is still strong and pleasant enough to attract a few lawyers who
+cherish a sentimental fondness for the past. A survey of the Post Office
+Directory creates an impression that, compared with other neighborhoods,
+the district north and northeast of Bloomsbury Square still possesses
+more than an average number of legal residents; but it no longer remains
+the quarter of the lawyers.</p>
+
+<p>There still resides in Mecklenburgh Square a learned Queen's Counsel,
+for whose preservation the prayers of the neighborhood constantly
+ascend. To his more scholarly and polite neighbors this gentleman is an
+object of intellectual interest and anxious affection. As the last of an
+extinct species, as a still animate Dodo, as a lordly Mohican who has
+outlived his tribe, this isolated counselor of her Gracious Majesty is
+watched by heedful eyes whenever he crosses his threshold. In the
+morning, as he paces from his dwelling to chambers, his way down Doughty
+Street and John Street, and through Gray's Inn Gardens, is guarded by
+men anxious for his safety. Shreds of orange-peel are whisked from the
+pavement on which he is about to tread; and when he crosses Holborn he
+walks between those who would imperil their lives to rescue him from
+danger. The gatekeeper in Doughty Street daily makes him low obeisance,
+knowing the historic value and interest of his courtly presence.
+Occasionally the inhabitants of Mecklenburgh Square whisper a fear that
+some sad morning their Q.C. may flit away without giving them a warning.
+Long may it be before the residents of the 'Old Law Quarter' shall wail
+over the fulfillment of this dismal anticipation!</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Dr. Clench lived in Brownlow Street, Holborn; and until his
+death, in 1831, John Abernethy occupied in Bedford Row the house which
+is still inhabited by an eminent surgeon, who was Abernethy's favorite
+pupil. Of Dr. Clench's death in January, 1691-2, Narcissus Luttrell
+gives the following account: "The 5th, last night, Dr. Clench, the
+physician, was strangled in a coach; two persons came to his house in
+Brownlow Street, Holborn, in a coach, and pretended to carry him to a
+patient's in the City; they drove backward and forward, and after some
+time stopt by Leadenhall, and sent the coachman to buy a couple of fowls
+for supper, who went accordingly; and in the meantime they slipt away,
+and the coachman when he returned found Dr. Clench with a handkerchief
+tyed about his neck, with a hard sea-coal twisted in it, and clapt
+against his windpipe; he had spirits applied to him and other means, but
+too late, he having been dead some time." Dr. Clench's murderer, one Mr.
+Harrison, a man of gentle condition, was apprehended, tried, found
+guilty, and hung in chains.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Holt's country seat was Redgrave Hall, formerly the home of
+the Bacons. It was on his manor of Redgrave, that Sir Nicholas Bacon
+entertained Queen Elizabeth, when she remarked that her Lord Keeper's
+house was too small for him, and he answered&mdash;"Your Majesty has made me
+too great for my house."</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="PART_II" id="PART_II"></a>PART II.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'>LOVES OF THE LAWYERS.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>A LOTTERY.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>"I would compare the multitude of women which are to be chosen for wives
+unto a bag full of snakes, having among them a single eel; now if a man
+should put his hand into this bag, he may chance to light on the eel;
+but it is an hundred to one he shall be stung by a snake."</p>
+
+<p>These words were often heard from the lips of that honest judge, Sir
+John More, whose son Thomas stirred from brain to foot by the bright
+eyes, and snowy neck, and flowing locks of <i>cara Elizabetha</i> (the <i>cara
+Elizabetha</i> of a more recent Tom More was 'Bessie, my darling')&mdash;penned
+those warm and sweetly-flowing verses which delight scholars of the
+present generation, and of which the following lines are neither the
+least musical nor the least characteristic:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+"Jam subit illa dies qu&aelig; ludentem obtulit olim<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Inter virgineos te mibi prima choros.</span><br />
+Lactea cum flavi decuerunt colla capilli,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cum gena par nivibus visa, labella rosis:</span><br />
+Cum tua perstringunt oculos duo sydera nostros<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Perque oculos intrant in mea corda meos."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>The goddess of love played the poet more than one droll trick. Having
+approached her with musical flattery, he fled from her with fear and
+abhorrence. For a time the highest and holiest of human affections was
+to his darkened mind no more than a carnal appetite; and he strove to
+conquer the emotions which he feared would rouse within him a riot of
+impious passions. With fasting and cruel discipline he would fain have
+killed the devil that agitated him, whenever he passed a pretty girl in
+the street. As a lay Carthusian he wore a hair-shirt next his skin,
+disciplined his bare back with scourges, slept on the cold ground or a
+hard bench, and by a score other strong measures sought to preserve his
+spiritual by ruining his bodily health. But nature was too powerful for
+unwholesome doctrine and usage, and before he rashly took a celibatic
+vow, he knelt to fair Jane Colt&mdash;and rising, kissed her on the lips.</p>
+
+<p>When spiritual counsel had removed his conscientious objections to
+matrimony, he could not condescend to marry for love, but must,
+forsooth, choose his wife in obedience to considerations of compassion
+and mercy. Loving her younger sister, he paid his addresses to Jane,
+because he shrunk from the injustice of putting the junior above the
+older of the two girls. "Sir Thomas having determined, by the advice and
+direction of his ghostly father, to be a married man, there was at that
+time a pleasant conceited gentleman of an ancient family in Essex, one
+Mr. John Colt, of New Hall, that invited him into his house, being much
+delighted in his company, proffering unto him the choice of any of his
+daughters, who were young gentlewomen of very good carriage, good
+complexions, and very religiously inclined; whose honest and sweet
+conversation and virtuous education enticed Sir Thomas not a little; and
+although his affection most served him to the second, for that he
+thought her the fairest and best favored, yet when he thought within
+himself that it would be a grief and some blemish to the eldest to have
+the younger sister preferred before her, he, out of a kind of
+compassion, settled his fancy upon the eldest, and soon after married
+her with all his friends' good liking."</p>
+
+<p>The marriage was a fair happy union, but its duration was short. After
+giving birth to four children Jane died, leaving the young husband, who
+had instructed her sedulously, to mourn her sincerely. That his sorrow
+was poignant may be easily believed; for her death deprived him of a
+docile pupil, as well as a dutiful wife.</p>
+
+<p>"Virginem duxit admodum puellam," Erasmus says of his friend, "claro
+genere natam, rudem adhuc utpote ruri inter parentes ac sorores semper
+habitam, quo magis illi liceret illam ad suos mores fingere. Hanc et
+literis instruendam curavit, et omni musices genere doctam reddidit."
+Here is another insight into the considerations which brought about the
+marriage. When he set out in search of a wife, he wished to capture a
+simple, unsophisticated, untaught country girl, whose ignorance of the
+world should incline her to rely on his superior knowledge, and the
+deficiencies of whose intellectual training should leave him an ample
+field for educational experiments. Seeking this he naturally turned his
+steps toward the eastern countries; and in Essex he found the young
+lady, who to the last learnt with intelligence and zeal the lessons
+which he set her.</p>
+
+<p>More's second choice of a wife was less fortunate than his first.
+Wanting a woman to take care of his children and preside over his rather
+numerous establishment, he made an offer to a widow, named Alice
+Middleton. Plain and homely in appearance and taste, Mistress Alice
+would have been invaluable to Sir Thomas as a superior domestic servant,
+but his good judgment and taste deserted him when he decided to make
+her a closer companion. Bustling, keen, loquacious, tart, the good dame
+scolded servants and petty tradesmen with admirable effect; but even at
+this distance of time the sensitive ear is pained by her sharp,
+garrulous tongue, when its acerbity and virulence are turned against her
+pacific and scholarly husband. A smile follows the recollection that he
+endeavored to soften her manners and elevate her nature by a system of
+culture similar to that by which Jane Colt, 'admodum puella,' had been
+formed and raised into a polished gentlewoman. Past forty years of age,
+Mistress Alice was required to educate herself anew. Erasmus assures his
+readers that "though verging on old age, and not of a yielding temper,"
+she was prevailed upon "to take lessons on the lute, the cithara, the
+viol, the monochord, and the flute, which she daily practised to him."</p>
+
+<p>It has been the fashion with biographers to speak bitterly of this poor
+woman, and to pity More for his cruel fate in being united to a
+termagant. No one has any compassion for her. Sir Thomas is the victim;
+Mistress Alice the shrill virago. In those days, when every historic
+reprobate finds an apologist, is there no one to say a word in behalf of
+the Widow Middleton, whose lot in life and death seems to this writer
+very pitiable? She was quick in temper, slow in brain, domineering,
+awkward. To rouse sympathy for such a woman is no easy task; but if
+wretchedness is a title to compassion, Mistress Alice has a right to
+charity and gentle usage. It <i>was not</i> her fault that she could not
+sympathize with her grand husband, in his studies and tastes, his lofty
+life and voluntary death; it <i>was</i> her misfortune that his steps
+traversed plains high above her own moral and intellectual level. By
+social theory they were intimate companions; in reality, no man and
+woman in all England were wider apart. From his elevation he looked
+down on her with commiseration that was heightened by curiosity and
+amazement; and she daily writhed under his gracious condescension and
+passionless urbanity; under her own consciousness of inferiority and
+consequent self-scorn. He could no more sympathize with her petty aims,
+than she with the high views and ambitions; and conjugal sympathy was
+far more necessary to her than to him. His studious friends and clever
+children afforded him an abundance of human fellowship; his public cares
+and intellectual pursuits gave him constant diversion. He stood in such
+small need of her, that if some benevolent fairy had suddenly endowed
+her with grace, wisdom, and understanding, the sum of his satisfaction
+would not have been perceptibly altered. But apart from him she had no
+sufficient enjoyments. His genuine companionship was requisite for her
+happiness; but for this society nature had endowed her with no fitness.
+In the case of an unhappy marriage, where the unhappiness is not caused
+by actual misconduct, but is solely due to incongruity of tastes and
+capacities, it is cruel to assume that the superior person of the
+ill-assorted couple has the stronger claim to sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>Finding his wife less tractable than he wished, More withheld his
+confidence from her, taking the most important steps of his life,
+without either asking for her advice, or even announcing the course
+which he was about to take. His resignation of the seals was announced
+to her on the day <i>after</i> his retirement from office, and in a manner
+which, notwithstanding its drollery, would greatly pain any woman of
+ordinary sensibility. The day following the date of his resignation was
+a holiday; and in accordance with his usage the ex-Chancellor, together
+with his household, attended service in Chelsea Church. On her way to
+church, Lady More returned the greetings of her friends with a
+stateliness not unseemly at that ceremonious time in one who was the
+lady of the Lord High Chancellor. At the conclusion of service, ere she
+left her pew, the intelligence was broken to her in a jest that she had
+lost her cherished dignity. "And whereas upon the holidays during his
+High Chancellorship one of his gentlemen, when the service of the church
+was done, ordinarily used to come to my lady his wife's pew-door, and
+say unto her '<i>Madam, my lord is gone</i>,' he came into my lady his wife's
+pew himself, and making a low courtesy, said unto her, 'Madam, my lord
+is gone,' which she, imagining to be but one of his jests, as he used
+many unto her, he sadly affirmed unto her that it was true. This was the
+way he thought fittest to break the matter unto his wife, who was full
+of sorrow to hear it."</p>
+
+<p>Equally humorous and pathetic was that memorable interview between More
+and his wife in the Tower, when she, regarding his position by the
+lights with which nature had endowed her, counseled him to yield even at
+that late moment to the king. "What the goodyear, Mr. More!" she cried,
+bustling up to the tranquil and courageous man. "I marvel that you, who
+have been hitherto always taken for a wise man, will now so play the
+fool as to lie here in this close, filthy prison, and be content to be
+shut up thus with mice and rats, when you might be abroad at your
+liberty, with the favor and good-will both of the king and his council,
+if you would but do as the bishops and best learned of his realm have
+done; and, seeing you have at Chelsea a right fair house, your library,
+your books, your gallery, and all other necessaries so handsome about
+you, where you might, in company with me, your wife, your children, and
+household, be merry, I muse what, in God's name, you mean, here thus
+fondly to tarry." Having heard her out&mdash;preserving his good-humor, he
+said to her, with a cheerful countenance, "I pray thee, good Mrs.
+Alice, tell me one thing!" "What is it?" saith she, "Is not this house
+as near heaven as my own?"</p>
+
+<p>Sir Thomas More was looking towards heaven.</p>
+
+<p>Mistress Alice had her eye upon the 'right fair house' at Chelsea.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>GOOD QUEEN BESS.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>Amongst the eminent men who are frequently mentioned as notorious
+suitors for the personal affection of Queen Elizabeth, a conspicuous
+place is awarded to Hatton, by the scandalous memoirs of his time and
+the romantic traditions of later ages. Historians of the present
+generation have accepted without suspicion the story that Hatton was
+Elizabeth's amorous courtier, that the fanciful letters of 'Lydds' were
+fervent solicitations for response to his passion; that he won her favor
+and his successive promotions by timely exhibition of personal grace and
+steady perseverance in flattery. Campbell speaks of the queen and her
+chancellor as 'lovers;' and the view of the historian has been upheld by
+novelists and dramatic writers.</p>
+
+<p>The writer of this page ventures to reject a story which is not
+consistent with truth, and casts a dark suspicion on her who was not
+more powerful as a queen than virtuous as a woman.</p>
+
+<p>For illustrations of lovers' pranks amongst the Elizabethan lawyers, the
+reader must pass to two great judges, the inferior of whom was a far
+greater man than Christopher Hatton. Rivals in law and politics, Bacon
+and Coke were also rivals in love. Having wooed the same proud, lovely,
+capricious, violent woman, the one was blessed with failure, and the
+other was cursed with success.</p>
+
+<p>Until a revolution in the popular estimate of Bacon was effected by Mr.
+Hepworth Dixon's vindication of that great man, it was generally
+believed that love was no appreciable element in his nature. Delight in
+vain display occupied in his affections the place which should have been
+held by devotion to womanly beauty and goodness; he had sneered at love
+in an essay, and his cold heart never rebelled against the doctrine of
+his clever brain; he wooed his notorious cousin for the sake of power,
+and then married Alice Barnham for money. Such was the theory, the most
+solid foundation of which was a humorous treatise,<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> misread and
+misapplied.</p>
+
+<p>The lady's wealth, rank, and personal attractions were in truth the only
+facts countenancing the suggestion that Francis Bacon proffered suit to
+his fair cousin from interested motives. Notwithstanding her defects of
+temper, no one denies that she was a woman qualified by nature to rouse
+the passion of man. A wit and beauty, she was mistress of the arts which
+heighten the powers of feminine tact and loveliness. The daughter of Sir
+Thomas Cecil, the grandchild of Lord Burleigh, she was Francis Bacon's
+near relation; and though the Cecils were not inclined to help him to
+fortune, he was nevertheless one of their connection, and consequently
+often found himself in familiar conversation with the bright and
+fascinating woman. Doubtless she played with him, persuading herself
+that she merely treated him with cousinly cordiality, when she was
+designedly making him her lover. The marvel was that she did not give
+him her hand; that he sought it is no occasion for surprise&mdash;or for
+insinuations that he coveted her wealth. Biography is by turns
+mischievously communicative and vexatiously silent. That Bacon loved Sir
+William Hatton's widow, and induced Essex to support his suit, and that
+rejecting him she gave herself to his enemy, we know; but history tells
+us nothing of the secret struggle which preceded the lady's resolution
+to become the wife of an unalluring, ungracious, peevish, middle-aged
+widower. She must have felt some tenderness for her cousin, whose
+comeliness spoke to every eye, whose wit was extolled by every lip.
+Perhaps she, like many others, had misread the essay 'Of Love,' and felt
+herself bound in honor to bring the philosopher to his knees at her
+feet. It is credible that from the outset of their sentimental
+intercourse, she intended to win and then to flout him. But coquetry
+cannot conquer the first laws of human feeling. To be a good flirt, a
+woman must have nerve and a sympathetic nature; and doubtless the flirt
+in this instance paid for her triumph with the smart of a lasting wound.
+Is it fanciful to argue that her subsequent violence and misconduct, her
+impatience of control and scandalous disrespect for her aged husband,
+may have been in some part due to the sacrifice of personal inclination
+which she made in accepting Coke at the entreaty of prudent and selfish
+relations&mdash;and to the contrast, perpetually haunting her, between what
+she was as Sir Edward's termagant partner, and what she might have been
+as Francis Bacon's wife?</p>
+
+<p>She consented to a marriage with Edward Coke, but was so ashamed of her
+choice, that she insisted on a private celebration of their union,
+although Archbishop Whitgift had recently raised his voice against the
+scandal of clandestine weddings, and had actually forbidden them. In the
+face of the primate's edict the ill-assorted couple were united in
+wedlock, without license or publication of banns, by a country parson,
+who braved the displeasure of Whitgift, in order that he might secure
+the favor of a secular patron. The wedding-day was November 24, 1598,
+the bridegroom's first wife having been buried on the 24th of the
+previous July.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> On learning the violation of his orders, the
+archbishop was so incensed that he resolved to excommunicate the
+offenders, and actually instituted for that purpose legal proceedings,
+which were not dropped until bride and bridegroom humbly sued for
+pardon, pleading ignorance of law in excuse of their misbehavior.</p>
+
+<p>The scandalous consequences of that marriage are known to every reader
+who has laughed over the more pungent and comic scenes of English
+history. Whilst Lady Hatton gave masques and balls in the superb palace
+which came into her possession through marriage with Sir Christopher
+Hatton's nephew, Coke lived in his chambers, working at cases and
+writing the books which are still carefully studied by every young man
+who wishes to make himself a master of our law. In private they had
+perpetual squabbles, and they quarrelled with equal virulence and
+indecency before the world. The matrimonial settlement of their only and
+ill-starred daughter was the occasion of an outbreak on the part of
+husband and wife, that not only furnished diversion for courtiers but
+agitated the council table. Of all the comic scenes connected with that
+unseemly <i>fracas</i>, not the least laughable and characteristic was the
+grand festival of reconciliation at Hatton House, when Lady Hatton
+received the king and queen in Holborn, and expressly forbade her
+husband to presume to show himself among her guests. "The expectancy of
+Sir Edward's rising," says a writer of the period,<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> "is much abated by
+reason of his lady's liberty,<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> who was brought in great honor to
+Exeter House by my Lord of Buckingham from Sir William Craven's, whither
+she had been remanded, presented by his lordship to the king, received
+gracious usage, reconciled to her daughter by his Majesty, and her house
+in Holborn enlightened by his presence at a dinner, where there was a
+royal feast; and to make it more absolutely her own, express
+commandment given by her ladyship, that neither Sir Edward Coke nor any
+of his servants should be admitted."</p>
+
+<p>If tradition may be credited, the law is greatly indebted to the class
+of women whom it was our forefathers' barbarous wont to punish with the
+ducking-stool. Had Coke been happy in his second marriage, it is assumed
+that he would have spent more time in pleasure and fewer hours at his
+desk, that the suitors in his court would have had less careful
+decisions, and that posterity would have been favored with fewer
+reports. If the inference is just, society may point to the commentary
+on Littleton, and be thankful for the lady's unhappy temper and sharp
+tongue. In like manner the wits of the following century maintained that
+Holt's steady application to business was a consequence of domestic
+misery. The lady who ruled his house in Bedford Row, is said to have
+been such a virago, that the Chief Justice frequently retired to his
+chambers, in order that he might place himself beyond reach of her
+voice. Amongst the good stories told of Radcliffe, the Tory physician,
+is the tradition of his boast, that he kept Lady Holt alive out of pure
+political animosity to the Whig Chief Justice. Another eminent lawyer,
+over whose troubles people have made merry in the same fashion, was
+Jeffrey Gilbert, Baron of the Exchequer. At his death, October 14, 1726,
+this learned judge left behind him that mass of reports, histories, and
+treatises by which he is known as one of the most luminous, as well as
+voluminous of legal writers. None of his works passed through the press
+during his life, and when their number and value were discovered after
+his departure to another world, it was whispered that they had been
+composed in hours of banishment from a hearth where a <i>scolding wife</i>
+made misery for all who came within the range of her querulous notes.</p>
+
+<p>Disappointed in his suit to his beautiful and domineering cousin, Bacon
+let some five or six years pass before he allowed his thoughts again to
+turn to love, and then he wooed and waited for nearly three years more,
+ere, on a bright May day, he met Alice Barnham in Marylebone Chapel, and
+made her his wife in the presence of a courtly company. In the July of
+1603, he wrote to Cecil:&mdash;"For this divulged and almost prostituted
+title of knighthood, I could, without charge by your honor's mean, be
+content to have it, both because of this late disgrace, and because I
+have three new knights in my mess in Gray's Inn Commons, and because I
+have found out an alderman's daughter, a handsome maiden, to my liking.
+So as if your honor will find the time, I will come to the court from
+Gorhambury upon any warning." This expression, 'an alderman's daughter,'
+contributed greatly, if it did not give rise to, the misapprehension
+that Bacon's marriage was a mercenary arrangement. In these later times
+the social status of an alderman is so much beneath the rank of a
+distinguished member of the bar, that a successful queen's counsel, who
+should make an offer to the daughter of a City magistrate, would be
+regarded as bent upon a decidedly unambitious match; and if in a
+significant tone he spoke of the lady as 'an alderman's daughter' his
+words might be reasonably construed as a hint that her fortune atoned
+for her want of rank. But it never occurred to Bacon's contemporaries to
+put such a construction on the announcement. Far from using the words in
+an apologetic manner, the lover meant them to express concisely that
+Alice Barnham was a lady of suitable condition to bear a title as well
+as to become his bride. Cecil regarded them merely as an assurance that
+his relative meditated a suitable and even advantageous alliance, just
+as any statesman of the present day would read an announcement that a
+kinsman, making his way in the law-courts, intended to marry 'an
+admiral's daughter' or a 'bishop's daughter.' That it was the reverse of
+a mercenary marriage, Mr. Hepworth Dixon has indisputably proved in his
+eighth chapter of 'The Story of Lord Bacon's Life,' where he contrasts
+Lady Bacon's modest fortune with her husband's personal acquisitions and
+prospects.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> To readers who have no sense of humor and irony, the essay
+'Of Love' unquestionably gives countenance to the theory that Francis
+Bacon was cold and passionless in all that concerned woman. Of the many
+strange constructions put upon this essay, not the least amusing and
+perverse is that which would make it a piece of adroit flattery to
+Elizabeth, who never permitted love "to check with business," though she
+is represented to have used it as a diversion in idle moments. If Sir
+Thomas More's 'Utopia' had been published a quarter of a century after
+1518 (the date of its appearance), a similar construction would have
+been put on the passage, which urges that lovers should not be bound by
+an indissoluble tie of wedlock, until mutual inspection has satisfied
+each of the contracting parties that the other does not labor under any
+grave personal defect. If it were possible to regard the passage
+containing this proposal as an interpolation in the original romance, it
+might then be regarded as an attempt to palliate Henry VIII.'s conduct
+to Anne of Cleves.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> When due allowance has been made for the difference between
+the usages of the sixteenth century and the present time, decency was
+signally violated by this marriage, which followed so soon upon Mrs.
+Coke's death, and still sooner upon the death of Lady Hatton's famous
+grandfather, at whose funeral the lawyer made the first overtures for
+her hand. Mrs. Coke died June 27, 1598, and was buried at Huntingfield,
+co. Suffolk, July 24, 1598. Lord Burleigh expired on August 4, of the
+same year. Coke's first marriage was not unhappy; and on the death of
+his wife by that union, he wrote in his note-book:&mdash;"Most beloved and
+most excellent wife, she well and happily lived, and, as a true handmaid
+of the Lord, fell asleep in the Lord, and now lives and reigns in
+heaven." In after years he often wished most cordially that he could say
+<i>as much</i> for his second wife.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Strafford's Letters and Despatches, I. 5.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Lady Hatton never used her second husband's name either
+before or after his knighthood. A good case, touching the customary
+right of a married lady to bear the name, and take her title from the
+rank of a former husband, is that of Sir Dudley North, Charles II.'s
+notorious sheriff of London. The son of an English peer, he married Lady
+Gunning, the widow of a wealthy civic knight, and daughter of Sir Robert
+Cann, "a morose old merchant of Bristol"&mdash;the same magistrate whom Judge
+Jeffreys, in terms not less just than emphatic, upbraided for his
+connection with, or to speak moderately, his connivance at, the Bristol
+kidnappers. It might be thought that the merchant's daughter, on her
+marriage with a peer's son, would be well content to relinquish the
+title of Lady Gunning; but Roger North tells us that his brother Dudley
+accepted knighthood, in order that he might avoid giving offence to the
+city, and also, in order that his wife might be called Lady North, and
+not Lady Gunning.&mdash;<i>Vide Life of the Hon. Sir Dudley North.</i> After Sir
+Thomas Wilde (subsequently Lord Truro), married Augusta Emma d'Este, the
+daughter of the duke of Sussex and Lady Augusta Murray, that lady, of
+whose legitimacy Sir Thomas had vainly endeavored to convince the House
+of Lords, retained her maiden surname. In society she was generally
+known as the Princess d'Este, and the bilious satirists of the Inns of
+Court used to speak of Sir Thomas as 'the Prince.' It was said that one
+of Wilde's familiar associates, soon after the lawyer's marriage, called
+at his house and asked if the Princess d'Este was at home. "No, sir,"
+replied the servant, "the Princess d'Este is not at home, but the Prince
+is!" That this malicious story obtained a wide currency is not
+wonderful; that it is a truthful anecdote the writer of this book would
+not like to pledge his credit. The case of Sir John Campbell and Lady
+Strathedon, was a notable instance of a lawyer and his wife bearing
+different names. Raised to the peerage, with the title of Baroness
+Stratheden, the first Lord Abinger's eldest daughter was indebted to her
+husband for an honor that made him her social inferior. Many readers
+will remember a droll story of a misapprehension caused by her
+ladyship's title. During an official journey, Sir John Campbell and
+Baroness Stratheden slept at lodgings which he had frequently occupied
+as a circuiteer. On the morning after his arrival, the landlady obtained
+a special interview with Campbell, and in the baroness's absence thus
+addressed him, with mingled indignation and respectfulness:&mdash;"Sir John
+Campbell, I am a lone widow, and live by my good name. It is not in my
+humble place to be too curious about the ladies brought to my lodgings
+by counsellors and judges. It is not in me to make remarks if a
+counsellor's lady changes the color of her eyes, and her complexion
+every assizes. But, Sir John, a gentleman ought not to bring a lady to a
+lone widow's lodgings, unless so long as he 'okkipies' the apartments he
+makes all honorable professions that the lady is his wife, and as such
+gives her the use of his name."</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>REJECTED ADDRESSES.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>No lawyer of the Second Charles's time surpassed Francis North in love
+of money, or was more firmly resolved not to marry, without due and
+substantial consideration.</p>
+
+<p>His first proposal was for the daughter of a Gray's Inn money-lender.
+Usury was not a less contemptible vocation in the seventeenth century
+than it is at the present time; and most young barristers of gentle
+descent and fair prospects would have preferred any lot to the
+degradation of marriage with the child of the most fortunate usurer in
+Charles II.'s London. But the Hon. Francis North was placed comfortably
+<i>beneath</i> the prejudices of his order and time of life. He was of noble
+birth, but quite ready to marry into a plebeian family; he was young,
+but loved money more than aught else. So his hearing was quickened and
+his blood beat merrily when, one fine morning, "there came to him a
+recommendation of a lady, who was an only daughter of an old usurer in
+Gray's Inn, supposed to be a good fortune in present, for her father was
+rich; but, after his death, to become worth, nobody could tell what."
+One would like to know how that 'recommendation of a lady' reached the
+lawyer's chambers; above all, who sent it?</p>
+
+<p>"His lordship," continues Roger North, "got a sight of the lady, and did
+not dislike her; thereupon he made the old man a visit, and a proposal
+of himself to marry his daughter." By all means let this ingenuous,
+high-spirited Templar have a fair judgment. He would not have sold
+himself to just any woman. He required a <i>maximum</i> of wealth with a
+<i>minimum</i> of personal repulsiveness. He therefore 'took a sight of the
+lady' (it does not appear that he talked with her) before he committed
+himself irrevocably by a proposal. The <i>sight</i> having been taken, as he
+did not dislike her (mind, he did not positively like her) he made the
+old man a visit. Loving money, and believing in it, this 'old man'
+wished to secure as much of it as possible for his only child; and
+therefore looking keenly at the youthful admirer of a usurer's heiress,
+"asked him what estate his father intended to settle upon him for
+present maintenance, jointure, and provision for children." Mildly and
+not unjustly Roger calls this "an inauspicious question." It was so
+inauspicious that Mr. Francis North abruptly terminated the discussion
+by wishing the usurer good-morning. So ended Love Affair No. 1.</p>
+
+<p>Having lost his dear companion, Mr. Edward Palmer, son of the powerful
+Sir Geoffry Palmer, Mr. Francis North soon regarded his friend's wife
+with tender longing. It was only natural that he should desire to
+mitigate his sorrow for the dead by possession of the woman who was
+"left a flourishing widow, and very rich." But the lady knew her worth,
+as well she might, for "never was lady more closely besieged with
+wooers: she had no less than five younger sons sat down before her at
+one time, and she kept them well in hand, as they say, giving no
+definite answers to any of one of them." Small respect did Mistress
+Edward Palmer show her late husband's most intimate friend. For weeks
+she tortured the wretched, knavish fellow with coquettish tricks, and
+having rendered him miserable in many ways, made him ludicrous by
+jilting him. "He was held at the long saw above a month, doing his duty
+as well as he might, and that was but clumsily; for he neither dressed
+nor danced, when his rivals were adroit at both, and the lady used to
+shuffle her favors amongst them affectedly, and on purpose to mortify
+his lordship, and at the same time be as civil to him, with like purpose
+to mortify them." Poor Mr. Francis! Well may his brother write
+indignantly, "It was very grievous to him&mdash;that had his thoughts upon
+his clients' concerns, which came in thick upon him&mdash;to be held in a
+course of bo-peep play with a crafty widow." At length, "after a
+clancular proceeding," this crafty widow, by marrying "a jolly knight of
+a good estate," set her victims free; and Mr. Francis was at liberty to
+look elsewhere for a lapful of money.</p>
+
+<p>Roger North tells the story of the third affair so concisely and pithily
+that his exact words must be put before the reader:&mdash;"Another
+proposition came to his lordship," writes the fraternal biographer,
+giving Francis North credit for the title he subsequently won, although
+at the time under consideration he was plain <i>Mister</i> North, on the keen
+look-out for the place of Solicitor General, "by a city broker, from Sir
+John Lawrence, who had many daughters, and those reputed beauties; and
+the fortune was to be &pound;6000. His lordship went and dined with the
+alderman, and liked the lady, who (as the way is) was dressed out for a
+muster. And coming to treat, the portion shrank to &pound;5000, and upon that
+his lordship parted, and was not gone far before Mr. Broker (following)
+came to him, and said Sir John would give &pound;500 more at the birth of the
+first child; but that would not do, for his lordship hated such
+screwing. Not long after this dispute, his lordship was made the King's
+Solicitor General, and then the broker came again, with news that Sir
+John would give &pound;10,000. 'No,' his lordship said, 'after such usage he
+would not proceed if he might have &pound;20,000.'" The intervention of the
+broker in this negotiation is delightfully suggestive. More should have
+been said about him&mdash;his name, address, and terms for doing business.
+Was he paid for his services on all that he could save from a certain
+sum beyond which his employer would not advance a single gold-piece for
+the disposal of his child? Were there, in olden time, men who avowed
+themselves 'Heart and Jointure Brokers, Agents for Lovers of both Sexes,
+Contractors of Mutual Attachments, Wholesale and Retail Dealers in
+Reciprocal Affection, and General Referees, Respondents, and Insurers in
+all Sentimental Affairs, Clandestine or otherwise?'</p>
+
+<p>After these mischances Francis North made an eligible match under
+somewhat singular circumstances. As co-heiresses of Thomas, Earl of
+Down, three sisters, the Ladies Pope, claimed under certain settlements
+large estates of inheritance, to which Lady Elizabeth Lee set up a
+counter claim. North, acting as Lady Elizabeth Lee's counsel, effected a
+compromise which secured half the property in dispute to his client, and
+diminished by one-half the fortunes to which each of the three suitors
+on the other side had maintained their right. Having thus reduced the
+estate of Lady Frances Pope to a fortune estimated at about &pound;14,000, the
+lawyer proposed for her hand, and was accepted. After his marriage,
+alluding to his exertions in behalf of Lady Elizabeth Lee's very
+disputable claim, he used to say that "he had been counsel against
+himself;" but Roger North frankly admits that "if this question had not
+come to such a composition, which diminished the ladies' fortunes, his
+brother had never compassed his match."</p>
+
+<p>It was not without reluctance that the Countess of Downs consented to
+the union of her daughter with the lawyer who had half ruined her, and
+who (though he was Solicitor General and in fine practice) could settle
+only &pound;5000 upon the lady. "I well remember," observes Roger, "the good
+countess had some qualms, and complained that she knew not how she could
+justify what she had done (meaning the marrying her daughters with no
+better settlement)." To these qualms Francis North, with lawyer-like
+coolness, answered&mdash;"Madam, if you meet with any question about that,
+<i>say</i> that your daughter has &pound;1000 per annum jointure."</p>
+
+<p>The marriage was celebrated in Wroxton Church; and after bountiful
+rejoicings with certain loyalist families of Oxfordshire, the happy
+couple went up to London and lived in chambers until they moved into a
+house in Chancery Lane.</p>
+
+<p>It may surprise some readers of this book to learn that George Jeffreys,
+the odious judge of the Bloody Circuit, was a successful gallant. Tall,
+well-shaped, and endowed by nature with a pleasant countenance and
+agreeable features, Jeffreys was one of the most fascinating men of his
+time. A wit and a <i>bon-vivant</i>, he could hit the humor of the roystering
+cavaliers who surrounded the 'merry monarch;' a man of gallantry and
+polite accomplishments, he was acceptable to women of society. The same
+tongue that bullied from the bench, when witnesses were perverse or
+counsel unruly, could flatter with such melodious affectation of
+sincerity, that he was known as a most delightful companion. As a
+musical connoisseur he spoke with authority; as a teller of good stories
+he had no equal in town. Even those who detested him did not venture to
+deny that in the discharge of his judicial offices he could at his
+pleasure assume a dignity and urbane composure that well became the seat
+of justice. In short, his talents and graces were so various and
+effective, that he would have risen to the bench, even if he had labored
+under the disadvantages of pure morality and amiable temper.</p>
+
+<p>Women declared him irresistible. At court he had the ear of Nell Gwyn
+and the Duchess of Portsmouth&mdash;the Protestant favorite and the Catholic
+mistress; and before he attained the privilege of entering Whitehall&mdash;at
+a time when his creditors were urgent, and his best clients were the
+inferior attorneys of the city courts&mdash;he was loved by virtuous girls.
+He was still poor, unknown, and struggling with difficulties, when he
+induced an heiress to accept his suit,&mdash;the daughter of a rural squire
+whose wine the barrister had drunk upon circuit. This young lady was
+wooed under circumstances of peculiar difficulty; and she promised to
+elope with him if her father refused to receive him as a son-in-law.
+Ill-luck befell the scheme; and whilst young Jeffreys was waiting in
+the Temple for the letter which should decide his movements, an
+intimation reached him that elopement was impossible and union
+forbidden. The bearer of this bad news was a young lady&mdash;the child of a
+poor clergyman&mdash;who had been the confidential friend and paid companion
+of the squire's daughter.</p>
+
+<p>The case was hard for Jeffreys, cruel for the fair messenger. He had
+lost an advantageous match, she had lost her daily bread. Furious with
+her for having acted as the <i>confidante</i> of the clandestine lovers, the
+squire had turned this poor girl out of his house; and she had come to
+London to seek for employment as well as to report the disaster.</p>
+
+<p>Jeffreys saw her overpowered with trouble and shame&mdash;penniless in the
+great city, and disgraced by expulsion from her patron's roof. Seeing
+that her abject plight was the consequence of amiable readiness to serve
+him, Jeffreys pitied and consoled her. Most young men would have soothed
+their consciences and dried the running tears with a gift of money or a
+letter recommending the outcast to a new employer. As she was pretty, a
+libertine would have tried to seduce her. In Jeffreys, compassion roused
+a still finer sentiment: he loved the poor girl and married her. On May
+23, 1667, Sarah Neesham was married to George Jeffreys of the Inner
+Temple; and her father, in proof of his complete forgiveness of her
+<i>escapade</i>, gave her a fortune of &pound;300&mdash;a sum which the poor clergyman
+could not well afford to bestow on the newly married couple.</p>
+
+<p>Having outlived Sarah Neesham, Jeffreys married again&mdash;taking for his
+second wife a widow whose father was Sir Thomas Bludworth, ex-Lord Mayor
+of London. Whether rumor treated her unjustly it is impossible to say at
+this distance of time; but if reliance may be put on many broad stories
+current about the lady, her conduct was by no means free from fault. She
+was reputed to entertain many lovers. Jeffreys would have created less
+scandal if, instead of taking her to his home, he had imitated the pious
+Sir Matthew Hale, who married his maid-servant, and on being twitted by
+the world with the lowliness of his choice, silenced his censors with a
+jest.</p>
+
+<p>Amongst the love affairs of seventeenth-century lawyers place must be
+made for mention of the second wife whom Chief Justice Bramston brought
+home from Ireland, where she had outlived two husbands (the Bishop of
+Clogher and Sir John Brereton), before she gave her hand to the judge
+who had loved her in his boyhood. "When I see her," says the Chief
+Justice's son, who describes the expedition to Dublin, and the return to
+London, "I confess I wondered at my father's love. She was low, fatt,
+red-faced; her dress, too, was a hat and ruff, which tho' she never
+changed to death. But my father, I believe, seeing me change
+countenance, told me it was not beautie, but virtue, he courted. I
+believe she had been handsome in her youth; she had a delicate, fine
+hand, white and plump, and indeed proved a good wife and mother-in-law,
+too." On her journey to Charles I.'s London, this elderly bride, in her
+antiquated attire, rode from Holyhead to Beaumaris on a pillion behind
+her step-son. "As she rode over the sandes," records her step-son,
+"behind mee, and pulling off her gloves, her wedding ringe fell off, and
+sunk instantly. She caused her man to alight; she sate still behind me,
+and kept her eye on the place, and directed her man, but he not guessing
+well, she leaped off, saying she would not stir without her ringe, it
+being the most unfortunate thinge that could befall any one to lose the
+wedding-ringe&mdash;made the man thrust his hand into the sands (the nature
+of which is not to bear any weight but passing), he pulled up sand, but
+not the ringe. She made him strip his arme and put it deeper into the
+sand, and pulled up the ringe; and this done, he and shee, and all that
+stood still, were sunk almost to the knees, but we were all pleased that
+the ringe was found."</p>
+
+<p>In the legal circle of Charles the Second's London, Lady King was
+notable as a virago whose shrill tongue disturbed her husband's peace of
+mind by day, and broke his rest at night. Earning a larger income than
+any other barrister of his time, he had little leisure for domestic
+society; but the few hours which he could have spent with his wife and
+children, he usually preferred to spend in a tavern, beyond the reach of
+his lady's sharp querulousness. "All his misfortune," says Roger North,
+"lay at home, in perverse consort, who always, after his day-labor done,
+entertained him with all the chagrin and peevishness imaginable; so that
+he went home as to his prison, or worse; and when the time came, rather
+than go home, he chose commonly to get a friend to go and sit in a free
+chat at the tavern, over a single bottle, till twelve or one at night,
+and then to work again at five in the morning. His fatigue in business,
+which, as I said, was more than ordinary to him, and his no comfort, or
+rather, discomfort at home, and taking his refreshment by excising his
+sleep, soon pulled him down; so that, after a short illness, he died."
+On his death-bed, however, he forgave the weeping woman, who, more
+through physical irritability than wicked design, had caused him so much
+undeserved discomfort; and by his last will and testament he made
+liberal provision for her wants. Having made his will, "he said, I am
+glad it is done," runs the memoir of Sir John King, written by his
+father, "and after took leave of his wife, who was full of tears; seeing
+it is the will of God, let us part quietly in friendship, with
+submissiveness to his will, as we came together in friendship by His
+will."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>"CICERO" UPON HIS TRIAL.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>A complete history of the loves of lawyers would notice many scandalous
+intrigues and disreputable alliances, and would comprise a good deal of
+literature for which the student would vainly look in the works of our
+best authors. From the days of Wolsey, whose amours were notorious, and
+whose illegitimate son became Dean of Wells, down to the present time of
+brighter though not unimpeachable morality, the domestic lives of our
+eminent judges and advocates have too frequently invited satire and
+justified regret. In the eighteenth century judges, without any loss of
+<i>caste</i> or popular regard, openly maintained establishments that in
+these more decorous and actually better days would cover their keepers
+with obloquy. Attention could be directed to more than one legal family
+in which the descent must be traced through a succession of illegitimate
+births. Not only did eminent lawyers live openly with women who were not
+their wives, and with children whom the law declined to recognize as
+their offspring; but these women and children moved in good society,
+apparently indifferent to shame that brought upon them but few
+inconveniences. In Great Ormond Street, where a mistress and several
+illegitimate children formed his family circle, Lord Thurlow was visited
+by bishops and deans; and it is said that in 1806, when Sir James
+Mansfield, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, was invited to the
+woolsack and the peerage, he was induced to decline the offer more by
+consideration for his illegitimate children than by fears for the
+stability of the new administration.</p>
+
+<p>Speaking of Lord Thurlow's undisguised intercourse with Mrs. Hervey,
+Lord Campbell says, "When I first knew the profession, it would not
+have been endured that any one in a judicial situation should have had
+such a domestic establishment as Thurlow's; but a majority of judges had
+married their mistresses. The understanding then was that a man elevated
+to the bench, if he had a mistress, must either marry her or put her
+away. For many years there has been no necessity for such an
+alternative." Either Lord Campbell had not the keen appetite for
+professional gossip, with which he is ordinarily credited, or his
+conscience must have pricked him when he wrote, "For many years there
+has been no necessity for such an alternative." To show how far his
+lordship erred through want of information or defect of candor is not
+the duty of this page; but without making any statement that can wound
+private feeling, the present writer may observe that 'the
+understanding,' to which Lord Campbell draws attention, has affected the
+fortune of ladies within the present generation.</p>
+
+<p>That the bright and high-minded Somers was the debauchee that Mrs.
+Manley and Mr. Cooksey would have us believe him is incredible. It is
+doubtful if Mackey in his 'Sketch of Leading Characters at the English
+Court' had sufficient reasons for clouding his sunny picture of the
+statesman with the assertion that he was "something of a libertine." But
+there are occasions when prudence counsels us to pay attention to
+slander.</p>
+
+<p>Having raised himself to the office of Solicitor General, Somers, like
+Francis Bacon, found an alderman's daughter to his liking; and having
+formed a sincere attachment for her, he made his wishes known to her
+father. Miss Anne Bawdon's father was a wealthy merchant, styled Sir
+John Bawdon&mdash;a man proud of his civic station and riches, and thinking
+lightly of lawyers and law. When Somers stated his property and
+projects, the rental of his small landed estate and the buoyancy of his
+professional income, the opulent knight by no means approved the
+prospect offered to his child. The lawyer might die in the course of
+twelve months; in which case the Worcestershire estate would be still a
+small estate, and the professional income would cease. In twelve mouths
+Mr. Solicitor might be proved a scoundrel, for at heart all lawyers were
+arrant rogues; in which case matters would be still worse. Having
+regarded the question from these two points of view, Sir John Bawdon
+gave Somers his dismissal and married Miss Anne to a rich Turkey
+merchant. Three years later, when Somers had risen to the woolsack, and
+it was clear that the rich Turkey merchant would never be anything
+grander than a rich Turkey merchant, Sir John saw that he had made a
+serious blunder, for which his child certainly could not thank him. A
+goodly list might be made of cases where papas have erred and repented
+in Sir John Bawdon's fashion. Sir John Lawrence would have made his
+daughter a Lord Keeper's lady and a peeress, if he and his broker had
+dealt more liberally with Francis North. Had it not been for Sir Joseph
+Jekyll's counsel, Mr. Cocks, the Worcestershire squire, would have
+rejected Philip Yorke as an ineligible suitor, in which case <i>plain</i>
+Mrs. Lygon would never have been Lady Hardwicke, and worked her
+husband's twenty purses of state upon curtains and hangings of crimson
+velvet. And, if he were so inclined, this writer could point to a
+learned judge, who in his days of 'stuff' and 'guinea fees' was deemed
+an ineligible match for a country apothecary's pretty daughter. The
+country doctor being able to give his daughter &pound;20,000, turned away
+disdainfully from the unknown 'junior,' who five years later was leading
+his circuit, and quickly rose to the high office which he still fills to
+the satisfaction of his country.</p>
+
+<p>Disappointed in his pursuit of Anne Bawdon, Somers never again made any
+woman an offer of marriage; but scandalous gossip accused him of immoral
+intercourse with his housekeeper. This woman's name was Blount; and
+while she resided with the Chancellor, fame whispered that her husband
+was still living. Not only was Somers charged with open adultery, but it
+was averred that for the sake of peace he had imprisoned in a madhouse
+his mistress's lawful husband, who was originally a Worcester tradesman.
+The chief authority for this startling imputation is Mrs. Manley, who
+was encouraged, if not actually paid, by Swift to lampoon his political
+adversaries. In her 'New Atalantis'&mdash;the 'Cicero' of which scandalous
+work was understood by its readers to signify 'Lord Somers,'&mdash;this
+shameless woman entertained quid-nuncs and women of fashion by putting
+this abominable story in written words, the coarseness of which accorded
+with the repulsiveness of the accusation.</p>
+
+<p>At a time when honest writers on current politics were punished with
+fine and imprisonment, the pillory and the whip, statesmen and
+ecclesiastics were not ashamed to keep such libellers as Mrs. Manley in
+their pay. That the reader may fully appreciate the change which time
+has wrought in the tone of political literature, let him contrast the
+virulence and malignity of this unpleasant passage from the New
+Atalantis, with the tone which recently characterized the public
+discussion of the case which is generally known by the name of 'The
+Edmunds Scandal.'</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding her notorious disregard of truth, it is scarcely
+credible that Mrs. Manley's scurrilous charge was in no way countenanced
+by facts. At the close of the seventeenth century to keep a mistress was
+scarcely regarded as an offence against good morals; and living in
+accordance with the fashion of the time, it is probable that Somers did
+that which Lord Thurlow, after an interval of a century, was able to do
+without rousing public disapproval. Had his private life been spotless,
+he would doubtless have taken legal steps to silence his traducer; and
+unsustained by a knowledge that he dared not court inquiry into his
+domestic arrangements, Mrs. Manley would have used her pen with greater
+caution. But all persons competent to form an opinion on the case have
+agreed that the more revolting charges of the indictment were the
+baseless fictions of a malicious and unclean mind.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>BROTHERS IN TROUBLE.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>In the 'Philosophical Dictionary,' Voltaire, laboring under
+misapprehension or carried away by perverse humor, made the following
+strange announcement:&mdash;"Il est public en Angleterre, et on voudroit le
+nier en vain, que le Chancelier Cowper &eacute;pousa deux femmes, qui v&eacute;curent
+ensemble dans sa maison avec une concorde singuli&egrave;re qui fit honneur &agrave;
+tous trois. Plusieurs curieux ont encore le petit livre que ce
+Chancelier composa en faveur de la Polygamie." Tickled by the
+extravagant credulity or grotesque malice of this declaration, an
+English wit, improving upon the published words, represented the
+Frenchman as maintaining that the custodian of the Great Seal of England
+was called the <i>Lord Keeper</i>, because, by English law, he was permitted
+to keep as many wives as he pleased.</p>
+
+<p>The reader's amusement will not be diminished by a brief statement of
+the facts to which we are indebted for Voltaire's assertions.</p>
+
+<p>William Cowper, the first earl of his line, began life with a reputation
+for dissipated tastes and habits, and by unpleasant experience he
+learned how difficult it is to get rid of a bad name. The son of a
+Hertfordshire baronet, he was still a law student when he formed a
+reprehensible connexion with an unmarried lady of that county&mdash;Miss (or,
+as she was called by the fashion of the day Mistress) Elizabeth Culling,
+of Hertingfordbury Park. But little is known of this woman. Her age is
+an affair of uncertainty, and all the minor circumstances of her
+intrigue with young William Cowper are open to doubt and conjecture; but
+the few known facts justify the inference that she neither merited nor
+found much pity in her disgrace, and that William erred through boyish
+indiscretion rather than from vicious propensity. She bore him two
+children, and he neither married her nor was required by public opinion
+to marry her. The respectability of their connexions gave the affair a
+peculiar interest, and afforded countenance to many groundless reports.
+By her friends it was intimated that the boy had not triumphed over the
+lady's virtue until he had made her a promise of marriage; and some
+persons even went so far as to assert that they were privately married.
+It is not unlikely that at one time the boy intended to make her his
+wife as soon as he should be independent of his father, and free to
+please himself. Beyond question, however, is it that they were never
+united in wedlock, and that Will Cowper joined the Home Circuit with the
+tenacious fame of a scapegrace and <i>rou&eacute;</i>.</p>
+
+<p>That he was for any long period a man of dissolute morals is improbable;
+for he was only twenty-four years of age when he was called to the bar,
+and before his call he had married (after a year's wooing) a virtuous
+and exemplary young lady, with whom he lived happily for more than
+twenty years. A merchant's child, whose face was her fortune&mdash;Judith,
+the daughter of Sir Robert Booth, is extolled by biographers for
+reclaiming her young husband from a life of levity and culpable
+pleasure. That he loved her sincerely from the date of their imprudent
+marriage till the date of her death, which occurred just about six
+months before his elevation to the woolsack, there is abundant evidence.</p>
+
+<p>Judith died April 2, 1705, and in the September of the following year
+the Lord Keeper married Mary Clavering, the beautiful and virtuous lady
+of the bedchamber to Caroline Wilhelmina Dorothea, Princess of Wales.
+This lady was the Countess Cowper whose diary was published by Mr.
+Murray in the spring of 1864; and in every relation of life she was as
+good and noble a creature as her predecessor in William Cowper's
+affection. Of the loving terms on which she lived with her lord,
+conclusive testimony is found in their published letters and her diary.
+Frequently separated by his professional avocations and her duties of
+attendance upon the Princess of Wales, they maintained, during the
+periods of personal severance, a close and tender intercourse by written
+words; and at all other times, in sickness not less than in health, they
+were a fondly united couple. One pathetic entry in the countess's diary
+speaks eloquently of their nuptial tenderness and devotion:&mdash;"April 7th,
+1716. After dinner we went to Sir Godfrey Kneller's to see a picture of
+my lord, which he is drawing, and is the best that was ever done for
+him; it is for my drawing-room, and in the same posture that he watched
+me so many weeks in my great illness."</p>
+
+<p>Lord Cowper's second marriage was solemnized with a secrecy for which
+his biographers are unable to account. The event took place September,
+1706, about two months before his father's death, but it was not
+announced till the end of February, 1707, at which time Luttrell entered
+in his diary, "The Lord Keeper, who not long since was privately married
+to Mrs. Clavering of the bishoprick of Durham, brought her home this
+day." Mr. Foss, in his 'Judges of England,' suggests that the
+concealment of the union "may not improbably be explained by the Lord
+Keeper's desire not to disturb the last days of his father, who might
+perhaps have been disappointed that the selection had not fallen on some
+other lady to whom he had wished his son to be united." But this
+conjecture, notwithstanding its probability, is only a conjecture.
+Unless they had grave reasons for their conduct, the Lord Keeper and his
+lady had better have joined hands in the presence of the world, for the
+mystery of their private wedding nettled public curiosity, and gave new
+life to an old slander.</p>
+
+<p>Cowper's boyish <i>escapade</i> was not forgotten by the malicious. No sooner
+had he become conspicuous in his profession and in politics, than the
+story of his intercourse with Miss Culling was told in coffee-rooms with
+all the exaggerations that prurient fancy could devise or enmity
+dictate. The old tale of a secret marriage&mdash;or, still worse, of a mock
+marriage&mdash;was caught from the lips of some Hertford scandal-monger, and
+conveyed to the taverns and drawing-rooms of London. In taking Sir
+Robert Booth's daughter to Church, he was said to have committed bigamy.
+Even while he was in the House of Commons he was known by the name of
+'Will Bigamy;' and that <i>sobriquet</i> clung to him ever afterwards. Twenty
+years of wholesome domestic intercourse with his first wife did not free
+him from the abominable imputation, and his marriage with Miss Clavering
+revived the calumny in a new form. Fools were found to believe that he
+had married her during Judith Booth's life and that their union had been
+concealed for several years instead of a few months. The affair with
+Miss Culling was for a time forgotten, and the charge preferred against
+the keeper of the queen's conscience was bigamy of a much more recent
+date.</p>
+
+<p>In various forms this ridiculous accusation enlivens the squibs of the
+pamphleteers of Queen Anne's reign. In the 'New Atalantis' Mrs. Manley
+certified that the fair victim was first persuaded by his lordship's
+sophistries to regard polygamy as accordant with moral law. Having thus
+poisoned her understanding, he gratified her with a form of marriage, in
+which his brother Spencer, in clerical disguise, acted the part of a
+priest. It was even suggested that the bride in this mock marriage was
+the lawyer's ward. Never squeamish about the truth, when he could gain a
+point by falsehood, Swift endorsed the spiteful fabrication, and in the
+<i>Examiner</i>, pointing at Lord Cowper, wrote&mdash;"This gentleman, knowing
+that marriage fees were a considerable perquisite to the clergy, found
+out a way of improving them cent. per cent. for the benefit of the
+Church. His invention was to marry a second wife while the first was
+alive; convincing her of the lawfulness by such arguments as he did not
+doubt would make others follow the same example. <i>These he had drawn up
+in writing with intention to publish for the general good, and it is
+hoped he may now have leisure to finish them.</i>" It is possible that the
+words in italics were the cause of Voltaire's astounding statement:
+"Plusieurs curieux ont encore le petit livre que ce Chancelier composa
+en faveur de la Polygamie." On this point Lord Campbell, confidently
+advancing an opinion which can scarcely command unanimous assent, says,
+"The fable of the '<i>Treatise</i>' is evidently taken from the panegyric on
+'a plurality of wives,' which Mrs. Manley puts into the mouth of Lord
+Cowper, in a speech supposed to be addressed by Hernando to Lousia." But
+whether Voltaire accepted the 'New Atalantis,' or the <i>Examiner</i>, as an
+authority for the statements of his very laughable passage, it is
+scarcely credible that he believed himself to be penning the truth. The
+most reasonable explanation of the matter appears to be, that tickled
+by Swift's venomous lines, the sarcastic Frenchman in malice and gaiety
+adopted them, and added to their piquancy by the assurance that the
+Chancellor's book was not only published, but was preserved by
+connoisseurs as a literary curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>Like his elder brother, the Chancellor, Spencer Cowper married at an
+early age, lived to wed a second wife, and was accused of immorality
+that was foreign to his nature. The offence with which the younger
+Cowper was charged, created so wide and profound a sensation, and gave
+rise to such a memorable trial, that the reader will like to glance at
+the facts of the case.</p>
+
+<p>Born in 1669, Spencer Cowper was scarcely of age when he was called to
+the bar, and made Comptroller of the Bridge House Estate. The office,
+which was in the gift of the corporation of London, provided him with a
+good income, together with a residence in the Bridge House, St. Olave's,
+Southwark, and brought him in contact with men who were able to bring
+him briefs or recommend him to attorneys. For several years the
+boy-barrister was thought a singularly lucky fellow. His hospitable
+house was brightened by a young and lovely wife (Pennington, the
+daughter of John Goodeve), and he was so much respected in his locality
+that he was made a justice of the peace. In his profession he was
+equally fortunate: his voice was often heard at Westminster and on the
+Home Circuit, the same circuit where his brother William practised and
+his family interest lay. He found many clients.</p>
+
+<p>Envy is the shadow of success; and the Cowpers were watched by men who
+longed to ruin them. From the day when they armed and rode forth to
+welcome the Prince of Orange, the lads had been notably fortunate.
+Notwithstanding his reputation for immorality William Cowper had sprung
+into lucrative practice, and in 1695 was returned to Parliament as
+representative for Hartford, the other seat for the borough being filled
+by his father, Sir William Cowper.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of their comeliness and complaisant manners, the lightness of
+their wit and the <i>prestige</i> of their success, Hertford heard murmurs
+that the young Cowpers were <i>too</i> lucky by half, and that the Cowper
+interest was dangerously powerful in the borough. It was averred that
+the Cowpers were making unfair capital out of liberal professions: and
+when the Hertford Whigs sent the father and son to the House of Commons,
+the vanquished party cursed in a breath the Dutch usurper and his
+obsequious followers.</p>
+
+<p>It was resolved to damage the Cowpers:&mdash;by fair means or foul, to render
+them odious in their native town.</p>
+
+<p>Ere long the malcontents found a good cry.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely less odious to the Hertford Tories than the Cowpers themselves
+was an influential Quaker of the town, named Stout, who actively
+supported the Cowper interest. A man of wealth and good repute, this
+follower of George Fox exerted himself enthusiastically in the election
+contest of 1695: and in acknowledgment of his services the Cowpers
+honored him with their personal friendship. Sir William Cowper asked him
+to dine at Hertford Castle&mdash;the baronet's country residence; Sir
+William's sons made calls on his wife and daughter. Of course these
+attentions from Cowpers to 'the Shaker' were offensive to the Tory
+magnates of the place: and they vented their indignation in whispers,
+that the young men never entered Stout's house without kissing his
+pretty daughter.</p>
+
+<p>While these rumors were still young, Mr. Stout died leaving considerable
+property to his widow, and to his only child&mdash;the beauteous Sarah; and
+after his death the intercourse between the two families became yet more
+close and cordial. The lawyers advised the two ladies about the
+management of their property: and the baronet gave them invitations to
+his London House in Hatton Garden, as well as to Hertford Castle. The
+friendship had disastrous consequences. Both the brothers were very
+fascinating men&mdash;men, moreover, who not only excelled in the art of
+pleasing, but who also habitually exercised it. From custom,
+inclination, policy, they were very kind to the mother and daughter;
+probably paying the latter many compliments which they would never have
+uttered had they been single men. Coming from an unmarried man the
+speech is often significant of love, which on the lips of a husband is
+but the language of courtesy. But, unfortunately, Miss ('Mistress' is
+her style in the report of a famous trial) Sarah Stout fell madly in
+love with Spencer Cowper notwithstanding the impossibility of marriage.</p>
+
+<p>Not only did she conceive a dangerous fondness for him, but she openly
+expressed it&mdash;by speech and letters. She visited him in the Temple, and
+persecuted him with her embarrassing devotion whenever he came to
+Hertford. It was a trying position for a young man not thirty years of
+age, with a wife to whom he was devotedly attached, and a family whose
+political influence in his native town might be hurt by publication of
+the girl's folly. Taking his elder brother into his confidence, he asked
+what course he ought to pursue. To withdraw totally and abruptly from
+the two ladies, would be cruel to the daughter, insulting to the mother;
+moreover, it would give rise to unpleasant suspicions and prejudicial
+gossip in the borough. It was decided that Spencer must repress the
+girl's advances&mdash;must see her loss frequently&mdash;and, by a reserved and
+frigid manner, must compel her to assume an appearance of womanly
+discretion. But the plan failed.</p>
+
+<p>At the opening of the year 1699 she invited him to take up his quarters
+in her mother's house, when he came to Hertford at the next Spring
+Assizes. This invitation he declined, saying that he had arranged to
+take his brother's customary lodgings in the house of Mr. Barefoot, in
+the Market Place, but with manly consideration he promised to call upon
+her. "I am glad," Sarah wrote to him on March 5, 1699, "you have not
+quite forgot there is such a person as I in being: but I am willing to
+shut my eyes and not see anything that looks like unkindness in you, and
+rather content myself with what excuses you are pleased to make, than be
+inquisitive into what I must not know: I am sure the winter has been too
+unpleasant for me to desire the continuance of it: and I wish you were
+to endure the sharpness of it but for one short hour, as I have done for
+many long nights and days, and then I believe it would move that rocky
+heart of yours that can be so thoughtless of me as you are."</p>
+
+<p>On Monday, March 13, following the date of the words just quoted,
+Spencer Cowper rode into Hertford, alighted at Mrs. Stout's house, and
+dined with the ladies. Having left the house after dinner, in order that
+he might attend to some business, he returned in the evening and supped
+with the two women. Supper over, Mrs. Stout retired for the night,
+leaving her daughter and the young barrister together. No sooner had the
+mother left the room, than a distressing scene ensued.</p>
+
+<p>Unable to control or soothe her, Spencer gently divided the clasp of her
+hands, and having freed himself from her embrace, hastened from the room
+and abruptly left the house. He slept at his lodgings; and the next
+morning he was horror-struck on hearing that Sarah Stout's body had been
+found drowned in the mill-stream behind her old home. That catastrophe
+had actually occurred. Scarcely had the young barrister reached the
+Market Place, when the miserable girl threw herself into the stream from
+which her lifeless body was picked on the following morning. At the
+coroner's inquest which ensued, Spencer Cowper gave his evidence with
+extreme caution, withholding every fact that could be injurious to
+Sarah's reputation; and the jury returned a verdict that the deceased
+gentlewoman had killed herself whilst in a state of insanity.</p>
+
+<p>In deep dejection Spencer Cowper continued the journey of the circuit.</p>
+
+<p>But the excitement of the public was not allayed by the inquest and
+subsequent funeral. It was rumored that it was no case of self-murder,
+but a case of murder by the barrister, who had strangled his dishonored
+victim, and had then thrown her into the river. Anxious to save their
+sect from the stigma of suicide the Quakers concurred with the Tories in
+charging the young man with a hideous complication of crimes. The case
+against Spencer was laid before Chief Justice Holt, who at first
+dismissed the accusation as absurd, but was afterwards induced to commit
+the suspected man for trial; and in the July of 1699 the charge actually
+came before a jury at the Hertford Assizes. Four prisoners&mdash;Spencer
+Cowper, two attorneys, and a law-writer&mdash;were placed in the dock on the
+charge of murdering Sarah Stout.</p>
+
+<p>On the present occasion there is no need to recapitulate the ridiculous
+evidence and absurd misconduct of the prosecution in this trial; though
+criminal lawyers who wish to know what unfairness and irregularities
+were permitted in such inquiries in the seventeenth century cannot do
+better than to peruse the full report of the proceedings, which may be
+found in every comprehensive legal library. In this place it is enough
+to say that though the accusation was not sustained by a shadow of
+legal testimony, the prejudice against the prisoners, both on the part
+of a certain section of the Hertford residents and the presiding judge,
+Mr. Baron Hatsel, was such that the verdict for acquittal was a
+disappointment to many who heard it proclaimed by the foreman of the
+jury. Narcissus Luttrell, indeed, says that the verdict was "to the
+satisfaction of the auditors;" but in this statement the diarist was
+unquestionably wrong, so far as the promoters of the prosecution were
+concerned. Instead of accepting the decision without demur, they
+attempted to put the prisoners again on their trial by the obsolete
+process of "appeal of murder;" but this endeavor proving abortive, the
+case was disposed of, and the prisoners' minds set at rest.</p>
+
+<p>The barrister who was thus tried on a capital charge, and narrowly
+escaped a sentence that would have consigned him to an ignominious
+death, resumed his practice in the law courts, sat in the House of
+Commons and rose to be a judge in the Court of Common Pleas. It is said
+that he "presided on many trials for murder; ever cautious and
+mercifully inclined&mdash;remembering the great peril which he himself had
+undergone."</p>
+
+<p>The same writer who aspersed Somers with her unchaste thoughts, and
+reiterated the charge of bigamy against Lord Chancellor Cowper, did not
+omit to give a false and malicious version to the incidents which had
+acutely wounded the fine sensibilities of the younger Cowper. But enough
+notice has been taken of the 'New Atalantis' in this chapter. To that
+repulsive book we refer those readers who may wish to peruse Mrs.
+Manley's account of Sarah Stout's death.</p>
+
+<p>A distorted tradition of Sarah Stout's tragic end, and of Lord Cowper's
+imputed bigamy, was contributed to an early number of the 'European' by
+a clerical authority&mdash;the Rev. J. Hinton, Rector of Alderton, in
+Northamptonshire. "Mrs. Sarah Stout," says the writer, "whose death was
+charged upon Spencer Cowper, was strangled accidentally by drawing the
+steenkirk too tight upon her neck, as she, with four or five young
+persons, were at a game of romp upon the staircase; but it was not done
+by Mr. Cowper, though one of the company. Mrs. Clavering, Lord
+Chancellor Cowper's second wife, whom he married during the life of his
+first, was there too; they were so confounded with the accident, that
+they foolishly resolved to throw her into the water, thinking it would
+pass that she had drowned herself." This charming paragraph illustrates
+the vitality of scandal, and at the same time shows how ludicrously
+rumor and tradition mistell stories in the face of evidence.</p>
+
+<p>Spencer Cowper's second son, the Rev. John Cowper, D.D., was the father
+of William Cowper, the poet.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>EARLY MARRIAGES.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>Notwithstanding his illustrious descent, Simon Harcourt raised himself
+to the woolsack by his own exertions, and was in no degree indebted to
+powerful relatives for his elevation. The son of a knight, whose loyalty
+to the House of Stuart had impoverished his estate, he spent his
+student-days at Pembroke, Oxford, and the Inner Temple, in resolute
+labor, and with few indulgences. His father could make him but a slender
+allowance; and when he assumed the gown of a barrister, the future
+Chancellor, like Erskine in after years, was spurred to industry by the
+voices of his wife and children. Whilst he was still an undergraduate of
+the university, he fell in love with Rebecca Clark, daughter of a pious
+man, of whose vocation the modern peerages are ashamed. Sir Philip
+Harcourt (the Chancellor's father) in spite of his loyalty quarrelled
+with the Established Church, and joined the Presbyterians: and Thomas
+Clark was his Presbyterian chaplain, secretary, and confidential
+servant. Great was Sir Philip's wrath on learning that his boy had not
+only fallen in love with Rebecca Clark, but had married her privately.
+It is probable that the event lowered the worthy knight's esteem for the
+Presbyterian system; but as anger could not cut the nuptial bond, the
+father relented&mdash;gave the young people all the assistance he could, and
+hoped that they would live long without repenting their folly. The match
+turned out far better than the old knight feared. Taking his humble
+bride to modest chambers, young Harcourt applied sedulously to the study
+of the law; and his industry was rewarded by success, and by the
+gratitude of a dutiful wife. In unbroken happiness they lived together
+for a succession of years, and their union was fruitful of children.</p>
+
+<p>Harcourt fared better with his love-match than Sergeant Hill with his
+heiress, Miss Medlycott of Cottingham, Northamptonshire. On the morning
+of his wedding the eccentric sergeant, having altogether forgotten his
+most important engagement for the day, received his clients in chambers
+after his usual practice, and remained busy with professional cares
+until a band of devoted friends forcibly carried him to the church,
+where his bride had been waiting for him more than an hour. The ceremony
+having been duly performed, he hastened back to his chambers, to be
+present at a consultation. Notwithstanding her sincere affection for
+him, the lady proved but an indifferent wife to the black-letter lawyer.
+Empowered by Act of Parliament to retain her maiden-name after
+marriage, she showed her disesteem for her husband's patronymic by her
+mode of exercising the privilege secured to her by special law; and many
+a time the sergeant indignantly insisted that she should use his name in
+her signatures. "My name is Hill, madam; my father's name was Hill,
+madam; all the Hills have been named Hill, madam; Hill is a good
+name&mdash;and by &mdash;&mdash;, madam, you <i>shall</i> use it." On other matters he was
+more compliant&mdash;humoring her old-maidish fancies in a most docile and
+conciliating manner. Curiously neat and orderly, Mrs. Medlycott took
+great pride in the faultlessness of her domestic arrangements, so far as
+cleanliness and precise order were concerned. To maintain the whiteness
+of the pipe-clayed steps before the front door of her Bedford Square
+mansion was a chief object of her existence; and to gratify her in this
+particular, Sergeant Hill use daily to leave his premises by the kitchen
+steps. Having outlived the lady, Hill observed to a friend who was
+condoling with him on his recent bereavement, "Ay, my poor wife is gone!
+She was a good sort of woman&mdash;in <i>her</i> way a <i>very</i> good sort of woman.
+I do honestly declare my belief that in <i>her</i> way she had no equal.
+But&mdash;but&mdash;I'll tell you something in confidence. If ever I marry again,
+<i>I won't marry merely for money</i>." The learned sergeant died in his
+ninety-third year without having made a second marriage.</p>
+
+<p>Like Harcourt, John Scott married under circumstances that called forth
+many warm expressions of censure; and like Harcourt, he, in after life,
+reflected on his imprudent marriage as one of the most fortunate steps
+of his earlier career. The romance of the law contains few more pleasant
+episodes than the story of handsome Jack Scott's elopement with Bessie
+Surtees. There is no need to tell in detail how the comely Oxford
+scholar danced with the banker's daughter at the Newcastle assemblies;
+how his suit was at first recognised by the girl's parents, although the
+Scotts were but rich 'fitters,' whereas Aubone Surtees, Esquire, was a
+banker and gentleman of honorable descent; how, on the appearance of an
+aged and patrician suitor for Bessie's hand, papa and mamma told Jack
+Scott not to presume on their condescension, and counseled Bessie to
+throw her lover over and become the lady of Sir William Blackett; how
+Bessie was faithful, and Jack was urgent; how they had secret interviews
+on Tyne-side and in London, meeting clandestinely on horseback and on
+foot, corresponding privately by letters and confidential messengers;
+how, eventually, the lovers, to the consternation of 'good society' in
+Newcastle, were made husband and wife at Blackshiels, North Britain. Who
+is ignorant of the story? Does not every visitor to Newcastle pause
+before an old house in Sandhill, and look up at the blue pane which
+marks the window from which Bessie descended into her lover's arms?</p>
+
+<p>Jack and Bessie were not punished with even that brief period of
+suffering and uncertainty which conscientious novelists are accustomed,
+for the sake of social morals, to assign to run-away lovers before the
+merciful guardian or tender parent promises forgiveness and a liberal
+allowance, paid in quarterly installments. In his old age Eldon used to
+maintain that their plight was very pitiable on the third morning after
+their rash union. "Our funds were exhausted: we had not a home to go to,
+and we knew not whether our friends would ever speak to us again." In
+this strain ran the veteran's story, which, like all other anecdotes
+from the same source, must be received with caution. But even the old
+peer, ever ready to exaggerate his early difficulties, had not enough
+effrontery to represent that their dejection lasted more than three
+days. The fathers of the bride and bridegroom soon met and came to
+terms, and with the beginning of the new year Bessie Scott was living in
+New Inn Hall, Oxford, whilst her husband read Vinerian Lectures, and
+presided over that scholastic house. The position of Scott at this time
+was very singular. He was acting as substitute for Sir Robert Chambers,
+the principal of New Inn Hall and Vinerian Professor of Law, who
+contrived to hold his university preferments, whilst he discharged the
+duties of a judge in India. To give an honest color to this indefensible
+arrangement, it was provided that the lectures read from the Vinerian
+Chair should actually be written by the Professor, although they were
+delivered by deputy. Scott, therefore, as the Professor's mouth-piece,
+on a salary of &pound;60 a year, with free quarters in the Principal's house,
+was merely required to read a series of treatises sent to him by the
+absent teacher. "The law-professor," the ex-Chancellor used to relate
+with true Eldonian humor and <i>fancy</i>&mdash;"sent me the first lecture, which
+I had to read immediately to the students, and which I began without
+knowing a single word that was in it. It was upon the statute (4 and 5
+P. and M. c. 8), 'of young men running away with maidens.' Fancy me
+reading, with about 140 boys and young men all giggling at the
+Professor! Such a tittering audience no one ever had." If this incident
+really occurred on the occasion of his 'first reading,' the laughter
+must have been inextinguishable; for, of course, Jack Scott's run-away
+marriage had made much gossip in Oxford Common Rooms, and the singular
+loveliness of his girlish wife (described by an eye-witness as being "so
+very young as to give the impression of childhood,") stirred the heart
+of every undergraduate who met her in High Street.</p>
+
+<p>There is no harm done by laughter at the old Chancellor's romantic
+fictions about the poverty which he and his Bessie encountered, hand in
+hand, at the outset of life; for the laughter blinds no one to the
+genuine affection and wholesome honesty of the young husband and wife.
+One has reason to wish that marriages such as theirs were more frequent
+amongst lawyers in these ostentatious days. At present the young
+barrister, who marries before he has a clear fifteen hundred a year, is
+charged with reckless imprudence; and unless his wife is a woman of
+fortune, or he is able to settle a heavy sum of money upon her, his
+anxious friends terrify him with pictures of want and sorrow stored up
+for him in the future. Society will not let him live after the fashion
+of 'juniors' eighty or a hundred years since. He must maintain two
+establishments&mdash;his chambers for business, his house in the west-end of
+town for his wife. Moreover, the lady must have a brougham and liberal
+pin money, or four or five domestic servants and a drawing-room well
+furnished with works of art and costly decorations. They must give state
+dinners and three or four routs every season; and in all other matters
+their mode of life must be, or seem to be, that of the upper ten
+thousand. Either they must live in this style, or be pushed aside and
+forgotten. The choice for them lies between very expensive society or
+none at all&mdash;that is to say, none at all amongst the rising members of
+the legal profession, and the sort of people with whom young barristers,
+from prudential motives, wish to form acquaintance. Doubtless many a
+fair reader of this page is already smiling at the writer's simplicity,
+and is saying to herself, "Here is one of the advocates of marriage on
+three hundred a year."</p>
+
+<p>But this writer is not going to advocate marriage on that or any other
+particular sum. From personal experience he knows what comfort a married
+man may have for an outlay of three or four hundred per annum; and from
+personal observation he knows what privations and ignominious poverty
+are endured by unmarried men who spend twice the larger of those sums
+on chamber-and-club life. He knows that there are men who shiver at the
+bare thought of losing caste by marriage with a portionless girl, whilst
+they are complacently leading the life which, in nine cases out of ten,
+terminates in the worst form of social degradation&mdash;matrimony where the
+husband blushes for his wife's early history, and dares not tell his own
+children the date of his marriage certificate. If it were his pleasure
+he could speak sad truths about the bachelor of modest income, who is
+rich enough to keep his name on the books of two fashionable clubs, to
+live in a good quarter of London, and to visit annually continental
+capitals, but far too poor to think of incurring the responsibilities of
+marriage. It could be demonstrated that in a great majority of instances
+this wary, prudent, selfish gentleman, instead of being the social
+success which many simple people believe him, is a signal and most
+miserable failure; that instead of pursuing a career of various
+enjoyments and keen excitements, he is a martyr to <i>ennui</i>, bored by the
+monotony of an objectless existence, utterly weary of the splendid
+clubs, in which he is presumed by unsophisticated admirers to find an
+ample compensation for want of household comfort and domestic affection:
+that as soon as he has numbered forty years, he finds the roll of his
+friends and cordial acquaintances diminish, and is compelled to retire
+before younger men, who snatch from his grasp the prizes of social
+rivalry; and that, as each succeeding lustre passes, he finds the chain
+of his secret disappointments and embarrassments more galling and heavy.</p>
+
+<p>It is not a question of marriage on three hundred a year without
+prospects, but a marriage on five or six hundred a year with good
+expectations. In the Inns of Court there are, at the present time,
+scores of clever, industrious fine-hearted gentlemen who have sure
+incomes of three or four hundred pounds per annum. In Tyburnia and
+Kensington there is an equal number of young gentlewomen with incomes
+varying between &pound;150 and &pound;300 a year. These men and women see each other
+at balls and dinners, in the parks and at theatres; the ladies would not
+dislike to be wives, the men are longing to be husbands. But that
+hideous tyrant, social opinion, bids them avoid marriage.</p>
+
+<p>In Lord Eldon's time the case was otherwise. Society saw nothing
+singular or reprehensible in his conduct when he brought Bessie to live
+in the little house in Cursitor Street. No one sneered at the young
+law-student, whose home was a little den in a dingy thoroughfare. At a
+later date, the rising junior, whose wife lived over his business
+chambers in Carey Street, was the object of no unkind criticism because
+his domestic arrangements were inexpensive, and almost frugal. Had his
+success been tardy instead of quick and decisive, and had circumstances
+compelled him to live under the shadow of Lincoln's Inn wall for thirty
+years on a narrow income, he would not on that account have suffered
+from a single disparaging criticism. Amongst his neighbors in adjacent
+streets, and within the boundaries of his Inn, he would have found
+society for himself and wife, and playmates for his children. Good
+fortune coming in full strong flood, he was not compelled to greatly
+change his plan of existence. Even in those days, when costly
+ostentation characterized aristocratic society&mdash;he was permitted to live
+modestly&mdash;and lay the foundation of that great property which he
+transmitted to his ennobled descendants.</p>
+
+<p>When satire has done its worst with the miserly propensities of the
+great lawyer and his wife, their long familiar intercourse exhibits a
+wealth of fine human affection and genuine poetry which sarcasm cannot
+touch. Often as he had occasion to regret Lady Eldon's peculiarities&mdash;the
+stinginess which made her grudge the money paid for a fish or a basket of
+fruit; the nervous repugnance to society, which greatly diminished his
+popularity; and the taste for solitude and silence which marked her
+painfully towards the close of her life&mdash;the Chancellor never even hinted
+to her his dissatisfaction. When their eldest daughter, following her
+mother's example, married without the permission of her parents, it was
+suggested to Lord Eldon that her ladyship ought to take better care of
+her younger daughter, Lady Frances, and entering society should play the
+part of a vigilant <i>chaperon</i>. The counsel was judicious; but the
+Chancellor declined to act upon it, saying,&mdash;"When she was young and
+beautiful, she gave up everything for me. What she is, I have made her;
+and I cannot now bring myself to compel her inclinations. Our marriage
+prevented her mixing in society when it afforded her pleasure; it appears
+to give pain now, and why should I interpose?" In his old age, when she
+was dead, he visited his estate in Durham, but could not find heart to
+cross the Tyne bridge and look at the old house from which he took her
+in the bloom and tenderness of her girlhood. An urgent invitation to
+visit Newcastle drew from him the reply&mdash;"I know my fellow-townsmen
+complain of my not coming to see them; but <i>how can I pass that
+bridge?</i>" After a pause, he added, "Poor Bessie! if ever there was
+an angel on earth she was one. The only reparation which one man can
+make to another for running away with his daughter, is to be exemplary
+in his conduct towards her."</p>
+
+<p>In pecuniary affairs not less prudent than his brother, Lord Stowell in
+matters of sentiment was capable of indiscretion. In the long list of
+legal loves there are not many episodes more truly ridiculous than the
+story of the older Scott's second marriage. On April 10, 1813, the
+decorous Sir William Scott, and Louisa Catharine, widow of John,
+Marquis of Sligo, and daughter of Admiral Lord Howe, were united in the
+bonds of holy wedlock, to the infinite amusement of the world of
+fashion, and to the speedy humiliation of the bridegroom. So incensed
+was Lord Eldon at his brother's folly, that he refused to appear at the
+wedding; and certainly the Chancellor's displeasure was not without
+reason, for the notorious absurdity of the affair brought ridicule on
+the whole of the Scott family connexion. The happy couple met for the
+first time in the Old Bailey, when Sir William Scott and Lord
+Ellenborough presided at the trial of the marchioness's son, the young
+Marquis of Sligo, who had incurred the anger of the law by luring into
+his yacht, in Mediterranean waters, two of the king's seamen. Throughout
+the hearing of that <i>cause c&eacute;l&egrave;bre</i>, the marchioness sat in the fetid
+court of the Old Bailey, in the hope that her presence might rouse
+amongst the jury or in the bench feelings favorable to her son. This
+hope was disappointed. The verdict having been given against the young
+peer, he was ordered to pay a fine of &pound;5000, and undergo four months'
+incarceration in Newgate, and&mdash;worse than fine and imprisonment&mdash;was
+compelled to listen to a parental address from Sir William Scott on the
+duties and responsibilities of men of high station. Either under the
+influence of sincere admiration for the judge, or impelled by desire for
+vengeance on the man who had presumed to lecture her son in a court of
+justice, the marchioness wrote a few hasty words of thanks to Sir
+William Scott for his salutary exhortation to her boy. She even went so
+far as to say that she wished the erring marquis could always have so
+wise a counsellor at his side. This communication was made upon a slip
+of paper, which the writer sent to the judge by an usher of the court.
+Sir William read the note as he sat on the bench, and having looked
+towards the fair scribe, he received from her a glance and smile that
+were fruitful of much misery to him. Within four months the courteous
+Sir William Scott was tied fast to a beautiful, shrill, voluble
+termagant, who exercised marvellous ingenuity in rendering him wretched
+and contemptible. Reared in a stately school of old-world politeness,
+the unhappy man was a model of decorum and urbanity. He took reasonable
+pride in the perfection of his tone and manner; and the
+marchioness&mdash;whose malice did not lack cleverness&mdash;was never more happy
+than when she was gravely expostulating with him, in the presence of
+numerous auditors, on his lamentable want of style, tact, and
+gentlemanlike bearing. It is said that, like Coke and Holt under similar
+circumstances, Sir William preferred the quietude of his chambers to the
+society of an unruly wife, and that in the cellar of his Inn he sought
+compensation for the indignities and sufferings which he endured at
+home. Fifty years since the crusted port of the Middle Temple could
+soothe the heart at night, without paining the head in the morning.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="PART_III" id="PART_III"></a>PART III.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'>MONEY.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>FEES TO COUNSEL.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>From time immemorial popular satire has been equally ready to fix the
+shame of avarice upon Divinity Physic, and Law; and it cannot be denied
+that in this matter the sarcasms of the multitude are often sustained by
+the indisputable evidence of history. The greed of the clergy for tithes
+and dues is not more widely proverbial than the doctor's thirst for
+fees, or the advocate's readiness to support injustice for the sake of
+gain. Of Guyllyam of Horseley, physician to Charles VI. of France,
+Froissart says, "All his dayes he was one of the greatest nygardes that
+ever was;" and the chronicler adds, "With this rodde lightly all
+physicians are beaten." In his address to the sergeants who were called
+soon after his elevation to the Marble Chair, the Lord Keeper Puckering,
+directing attention to the grasping habits which too frequently
+disgraced the leaders of the bar, observed: "I am to exhort you also not
+to embrace multitude of causes, or to undertake more places of hearing
+causes than you are well able to consider of or perform, lest thereby
+you either disappoint your clients when their causes be heard, or come
+unprovided, or depart when their causes be in hearing. For it is all
+one not to come, as either to come unprovided, or depart before it be
+ended." Notwithstanding Lingard's able defence of the Cardinal, scholars
+are still generally of opinion that Beaufort&mdash;the Chancellor who lent
+money on the king's crown, the bishop who sold the Pope's soldiers for a
+thousand marks&mdash;is a notable instance of the union of legal covetousness
+and ecclesiastical greed.</p>
+
+<p>The many causes which affect the value of money in different ages create
+infinite perplexity for the antiquarian who wishes to estimate the
+prosperity of the bar in past times; but the few disjointed data, that
+can be gathered from old records, create an impression that in the
+fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the ordinary fees of
+eminent counsel were by no means exorbitant, although fortunate
+practitioners could make large incomes.</p>
+
+<p>Dugdale's 'Baronage' describes with delightful quaintness William de
+Beauchamp's interview with his lawyers when that noble (on the death of
+John Hastings, Earl of Pembroke, <i>temp.</i> Richard II., without issue),
+claimed the earl's estates under an entail, in opposition to Edward
+Hastings, the earl's heir-male of the half-blood. "Beauchamp," says
+Dugdale, "invited his learned counsel to his house in Paternoster Row,
+in the City of London; amongst whom were Robert Charlton (then a judge),
+William Pinchbek, William Branchesley, and John Catesby (all learned
+lawyers); and after dinner, coming out of his chapel, in an angry mood,
+threw to each of them a piece of gold, and said, 'Sirs, I desire you
+forthwith to tell me whether I have any right or title to Hastings'
+lordship and lands.' Whereupon Pinchbek stood up (the rest being silent,
+fearing that he suspected them), and said, 'No man here nor in England
+dare say that you have any right in them, except Hastings do quit his
+claim therein; and should he do it, being now under age, it would be of
+no validitie.'" Had Charlton, the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas,
+taken gold for his opinion on a case put before him in his judicial
+character, he would have violated his judicial oath. But in the earl's
+house in Paternoster Row he was merely a counsellor learned in the law,
+not a judge. Manifest perils attend a system which permits a judge in
+his private character to give legal opinions concerning causes on which
+he may be required to give judgment from the bench; but notwithstanding
+those perils, there is no reason for thinking that Charlton on this
+occasion either broke law or etiquette. The fair inference from the
+matter is, that in the closing years of the fourteenth century judges
+were permitted to give opinions for money to their private clients,
+although they were forbidden to take gold or silver from any person
+having "plea or process hanging before them."</p>
+
+<p>In the year of our Lord 1500 the corporation of Canterbury paid for
+advice regarding their civic interests 3<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> to each of three
+sergeants, and gave the Recorder of London 6<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i> as a
+retaining-fee. Five years later, Mr. Serjeant Wood received a fee of
+10<i>s.</i> from the Goldsmiths' Company; and it maybe fairly assumed, that
+so important and wealthy a body paid the sergeant on a liberal scale. In
+the sixteenth century it was, and for several generations had been,
+customary for clients to provide food and drink for their counsel. Mr.
+Foss gives his readers the following list of items, taken from a bill of
+costs, made in the reign of Edward IV.:&mdash;</p>
+
+<table summary='fees' cellpadding='10'>
+<tr>
+<td>
+</td>
+<td align='center'><i>s.</i>
+</td>
+<td align='center'><i>d.</i>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>For a breakfast at Westminster spent on our counsel
+</td>
+<td align='right'>1
+</td>
+<td align='right'>6
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>To another time for boat-hire in and out, and a<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">breakfast for two days</span>
+</td>
+<td align='right'>1
+</td>
+<td align='right'>6
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>In like manner the accountant of St. Margaret's, Westminster, entered in
+the parish books, "Also, paid to Roger Fylpott, learned in the law, for
+his counsel given, 3<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i>, with 4<i>d.</i> for his dinner."</p>
+
+<p>A yet more remarkable custom was that which enabled clients to hire
+counsel to plead for them at certain places, for a given time, in
+whatever causes their eloquence might be required. There still exists
+the record of an agreement by which, in the reign of Henry VII.,
+Sergeant Yaxley bound himself to attend the assizes at York, Nottingham
+and Derby, and speak in court at each of those places, whenever his
+client, Sir Robert Plumpton&mdash;"that perpetual and always unfortunate
+litigant," as he is called by Sergeant Manning&mdash;required him to do so.
+This interesting document runs thus&mdash;"This bill, indented at London the
+18th day of July, the 16th yeare of the reigne of King Henry the 7th,
+witnesseth that John Yaxley, Sergeant-at-Law, shall be at the next
+assizes to be holden at York, Nottin., and Derb., if they be holden and
+kept, and there to be of council with Sir Robert Plumpton, knight, such
+assizes and actions as the said Sir Robert shall require the said John
+Yaxley, for the which premises, as well as for his costs and his
+labours, John Pulan, gentleman, bindeth him by thease presents to
+content and pay to the said John Yaxley 40 marks sterling at the feast
+of the Nativetie of our Lady next coming, or within eight days next
+following, with 5 li paid aforehand, parcell of paiment of the said 40
+marks. Provided alway that if the said John Yaxley have knowledg and
+warning only to cum to Nottin. and Derby, then the said John Yaxley is
+agread by these presents to take only xv li besides the 5 li aforesaid.
+Provided alwaies that if the said John Yaxley have knowledg and warning
+to take no labour in this matter, then he to reteine and hold the said 5
+li resaived for his good will and labour. In witness hereof, the said
+John Yaxley, serjeant, to the part of this indenture remaining with the
+said John Pulan have put his seale the day and yeare above-written.
+Provided also that the said Robert Plumpton shall beare the charges of
+the said John Yaxley, as well at York as at Nottingham and Derby, and
+also to content and pay the said money to the said John Yaxley comed to
+the said assizes att Nott., Derb., and York. <span class="smcap">John Yaxley.</span>"</p>
+
+<p>This remarkable agreement&mdash;made after Richard III. had vainly endeavored
+to compose by arbitration the differences between Sir Robert and Sir
+Robert's heir-general&mdash;certifies that Sir Robert Plumpton engaged to
+provide the sergeant with suitable entertainment at the assize towns,
+and also throws light upon the origin of retaining-fees. It appears from
+the agreement that in olden time a retaining fee was merely part
+(surrendered in advance) of a certain sum stipulated to be paid for
+certain services. In principle it was identical with the payment of the
+shilling, still given in rural districts, to domestic servants on an
+agreement for service, and with the transfer of the queen's shilling
+given to every soldier on enlistment. There is no need to mention the
+classic origin of this ancient mode of giving force to a contract.</p>
+
+<p>From the 'Household and Privy Purse Expenses of the Le Stranges of
+Hunstanton,' published in the Arch&aelig;ologia, may be gleamed some
+interesting particulars relating to the payment of counsel in the reign
+of Henry VIII. In 1520, Mr. Cristofer Jenney received from the Le
+Stranges a half-yearly fee of ten shillings; and this general retainer
+was continued on the same terms till 1527, when the fee was raised from
+&pound;1 per annum to a yearly payment of &pound;2 13<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> To Mr. Knightley was
+paid the sum of 8<i>s.</i> 11<i>d.</i> "for his fee, and that money yt he layde
+oute for suying of Simon Holden;" and the same lawyer also received at
+another time 14<i>s.</i> 3<i>d.</i> "for his fee and cost of sute for iii termes."
+A fee of 6<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i> was paid to "Mr. Spelman, s'jeant, for his counsell
+in makyng my answer in ye Duchy Cham.;" and the same serjeant received
+a fee of 3<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> "for his counsell in putting in of the answer."
+Fees of 3<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> were in like manner given "for counsell" to Mr.
+Knightley and Mr. Whyte; and in 1534, Mr. Yelverton was remunerated "for
+his counsell" with the unusually liberal honorarium of twenty shillings.
+From the household book of the Earl of Northumberland, it appears that
+order was made, in this same reign, for "every oone of my lordes
+counsaill to have c's. fees, if he have it in household and not by
+patent." After the earl's establishment was reduced to forty-two
+persons, it still retained "one of my lordes counsaill for annswering
+and riddying of causes, whenne sutors cometh to my lord." At a time when
+every lord was required to administer justice to his tenants and the
+inferior people of his territory, a counsellor learned in the law, was
+an important and most necessary officer in a grand seigneur's retinue.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst Sir Thomas More lived in Bucklersbury, he "gained, without grief,
+not so little as &pound;400 by the year." This income doubtless accrued from
+the emoluments of his judicial appointment in the City, as well as from
+his practice at Westminster and elsewhere. In Henry VIII.'s time it was
+a very considerable income, such as was equalled by few leaders of the
+bar not holding high office under the Crown.</p>
+
+<p>In Elizabeth's reign, and during the time of her successor, barristers'
+fees show a tendency toward increase; and the lawyers who were employed
+as advocates for the Crown, or held judicial appointments, acquired
+princely incomes, and in some cases amassed large fortunes. Fees of
+20<i>s.</i> were more generally paid to counsel under the virgin queen, than
+in the days of her father; but still half that fee was not thought too
+small a sum for an opinion given by Her Majesty's Solicitor General.
+Indeed, the ten-shilling fee was a very usual fee in Elizabeth's reign;
+and it long continued an ordinary payment for one opinion on a case, or
+for one speech in a cause of no great importance and of few
+difficulties. 'A barrister is like Balaam's ass, only speaking when he
+sees the angel,' was a familiar saying in the seventeenth century. In
+Chancery, however, by an ordinance of the Lords Commissioners passed in
+1654, to regulate the conduct of suits and the payments to masters,
+counsel, and solicitors, it was arranged that on the hearing of a cause,
+utter-barristers should receive &pound;1 fees, whilst the Lord Protector's
+counsel and sergeants-at-law should receive &pound;2 fees, <i>i.e.</i>, 'double
+fees.'</p>
+
+<p>The archives of Lyme Regis show that under Elizabeth the usage was
+maintained of supplying counsel with delicacies of the table, and also
+of providing them with means of locomotion. Here are some items in an
+old record of disbursements made by the corporation of Lyme
+Regis:&mdash;"<span class="smcap">A.D.</span> Paid for Wine carried with us to Mr. Poulett&mdash;&pound;0
+3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>; Wine and sugar given to Mr. Poulett, &pound;0 3<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i>;
+Horse-hire, and for the Sergeant to ride to Mr. Walrond, of Bovey, and
+for a loaf of sugar, and for conserves given there to Mr. Poppel, &pound;1
+1<i>s.</i> 0<i>d.</i>; Wine and sugar given to Judge Anderson, &pound;0 3<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> A
+bottle and sugar given to Mr. Gibbs (a lawyer)."</p>
+
+<p>Under Elizabeth, the allowance made to Queen's Sergeants was &pound;26 6<i>s.</i>
+8<i>d.</i> for fee, reward, and robes; and &pound;20. for his services whenever a
+Queen's Sergeant travelled circuit as Justice of Assize. The fee for her
+Solicitor General was &pound;50. When Francis Bacon was created King's Counsel
+to James I., an annual salary of forty pounds was assigned to him from
+the royal purse; and down to William IV.'s time, King's Counsel received
+a stipend of &pound;40 a year, and an allowance for stationery. Under the last
+mentioned monarch, however, the stipend and allowance were both
+withdrawn; and at present the status of a Q.C. is purely an affair of
+professional precedence, to which no fixed emolument is attached.</p>
+
+<p>But a list of the fees, paid from the royal purse to each judge or crown
+lawyer under James I., would afford no indication as to the incomes
+enjoyed by the leading members of the bench and bar at that period. The
+salaries paid to those officers were merely retaining fees, and their
+chief remuneration consisted of a large number of smaller fees. Like the
+judges of prior reigns, King James's judges were forbidden to accept
+<i>presents</i> from actual suitors; but no suitor could obtain a hearing
+from any one of them, until he had paid into court certain fees, of
+which the fattest was a sum of money for the judge's personal use. At
+one time many persons labored under an erroneous impression, that as
+judges were forbidden to accept presents from actual suitors, the honest
+judge of past times had no revenue besides his specified salary and
+allowance. Like the king's judges, the king's counsellors frequently
+made great incomes by fees, though their nominal salaries were
+invariably insignificant. At a time when Francis Bacon was James's
+Attorney General, and received no more than &pound;81 6<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i> for his
+yearly salary, he made &pound;6000 per annum in his profession; and of that
+income&mdash;a royal income in those days&mdash;the greater portion consisted of
+fees paid to him for attending to the king's business. "I shall now,"
+Bacon wrote to the king, "again make oblation to your Majesty,&mdash;first of
+my heart, then of my service; thirdly, of my place of Attorney, which I
+think is honestly worth &pound;6000 per annum; and fourthly, of my place in
+the Star Chamber, which is worth &pound;1600 per annum, and with the favor and
+countenance of a Chancellor, much more." Coke had made a still larger
+income during his tenure of the Attorney's place, the fees from his
+private official practice amounting to no loss a sum than seven
+thousand pounds in a single year.</p>
+
+<p>At later periods of the seventeenth century barristers made large
+incomes, but the fees seem to have been by no means exorbitant. Junior
+barristers received very modest payments, and it would appear that
+juniors received fees from eminent counsel for opinions and other
+professional services. Whilst he acted as treasurer of the Middle
+Temple, at an early period of his career, Whitelock received a fee from
+Attorney General Noy. "Upon my carrying the bill," writes Whitelock, "to
+Mr. Attorney General Noy for his signature, with that of the other
+benchers, he was pleased to advise with me about a patent the king had
+commanded him to draw, upon which he gave me a fee for it out of his
+little purse, saying, 'Here, take those single pence,' which amounted to
+eleven groats, 'and I give you more than an attorney's fee, because you
+will be a better man than the Attorney General. This you will find to be
+true.' After much other drollery, wherein he delighted and excelled, we
+parted, abundance of company attending to speak to him all this time."
+Of course the payment itself was no part of the drollery to which
+Whitelock alludes, for as a gentleman he could not have taken money
+proffered to him in jest, unless etiquette encouraged him to look for
+it, and allowed him to accept it. The incident justifies the inference
+that the services of junior counsel to senior barristers&mdash;services at
+the present time termed 'devilling'&mdash;were formerly remunerated with cash
+payments.</p>
+
+<p>Toward the close of Charles I.'s reign&mdash;at a time when political
+distractions were injuriously affecting the legal profession, especially
+the staunch royalists of the long robe&mdash;Maynard, the Parliamentary
+lawyer, received on one round of the Western Circuit, &pound;700, "which,"
+observes Whitelock, to whom Maynard communicated the fact, "I believe
+was more than any one of our profession got before."</p>
+
+<p>Concerning the incomes made by eminent counsel in Charles II.'s time,
+many <i>data</i> are preserved in diaries and memoirs. That a thousand a year
+was looked upon as a good income for a flourishing practitioner of the
+'merry monarch's' Chancery bar, may be gathered from a passage in
+'Pepys's Diary,' where the writer records the compliments paid to him
+regarding his courageous and eloquent defence of the Admiralty, before
+the House of Commons, in March, 1668. Under the influence of half-a-pint
+of mulled sack and a dram of brandy, the Admiralty clerk made such a
+spirited and successful speech in behalf of his department, that he was
+thought to have effectually silenced all grumblers against the
+management of his Majesty's navy. Compliments flowed in upon the orator
+from all directions. Sir William Coventry pledged his judgment that the
+fame of the oration would last for ever in the Commons; silver-tongued
+Sir Heneage Finch, in the blandest tones, averred that no other living
+man could have made so excellent a speech; the placemen of the Admiralty
+vied with each other in expressions of delight and admiration; and one
+flatterer, whose name is not recorded, caused Mr. Pepys infinite
+pleasure by saying that the speaker who had routed the accusers of a
+government office, might easily earn a thousand a year at the Chancery
+bar.</p>
+
+<p>That sum, however, is insignificant when it is compared with the incomes
+made by the most fortunate advocates of that period. Eminent speakers of
+the Common Law Bar made between &pound;2000 and &pound;3500 per annum on circuit and
+at Westminster, without the aid of king's business; and still larger
+receipts were recorded in the fee-books of his Majesty's attorneys and
+solicitors. At the Chancery bar of the second Charles, there was at
+least one lawyer, who in one year made considerably more than four times
+the income that was suggested to Pepys's vanity and self-complacence. At
+Stanford Court, Worcestershire, is preserved a fee-book kept by Sir
+Francis Winnington, Solicitor-General to the 'merry monarch,' from
+December 1674 to January 13, 1679, from the entries of which record the
+reader may form a tolerably correct estimate of the professional
+revenues of successful lawyers at that time. In Easter Term, 1671, Sir
+Francis pocketed &pound;459; in Trinity Term &pound;449 10s.; in Michaelmas Term
+&pound;521; and in Hilary Term 1672, &pound;361 10s.; the income for the year being
+&pound;1791, without his earnings on the Oxford Circuit and during vacation.
+In 1673, Sir Francis received &pound;3371; in 1674, he earned &pound;3560;<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> and in
+1675&mdash;<i>i.e.</i>, the first year of his tenure of the Solicitor's
+office&mdash;his professional income wars &pound;4066, of which sum &pound;429 were
+office fees. Concerning the Attorney-General's receipts about this time,
+we have sufficient information from Roger North, who records that his
+brother, whilst Attorney General, made nearly seven thousand pounds in
+one year, from private and official business. It is noteworthy that
+North, as Attorney General, made the same income which Coke realized in
+the same office at the commencement of the century. But under the
+Stuarts this large income of &pound;7000&mdash;in those days a princely
+revenue&mdash;was earned by work so perilous and fruitful of obloquy, that
+even Sir Francis, who loved money and cared little for public esteem,
+was glad to resign the post of Attorney and retire to the Pleas with
+&pound;4000 a year. That the fees of the Chancery lawyers under Charles II.
+were regulated upon a liberal scale we know from Roger North, and the
+record of Sir John King's success. Speaking of his brother Francis, the
+biographer says: "After he, as king's counsel, came within the bar, he
+began to have calls into the Court of Chancery; which he liked very
+well, because the quantity of the business, <i>as well as the fees</i>, was
+greater; but his home was the King's Bench, where he sat and reported
+like as other practitioners." And in Sir John King's memoirs it is
+recorded that in 1676 he made &pound;4700, and that he received from &pound;40 to
+&pound;50 a day during the last four days of his appearance in court. Dying in
+1677,<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> whilst his supremacy in his own court was at its height, Sir
+John King was long spoken of as a singularly successful Chancery
+barrister.</p>
+
+<p>Of Francis North's mode of taking and storing his fees, the 'Life of
+Lord Keeper Guildford' gives the following picture: "His business
+increased, even while he was Solicitor, to be so much as to have
+overwhelmed one less dexterous; but when he was made Attorney General,
+though his gains by his office were great, they were much greater by his
+practice; for that flowed in upon him like an orage, enough to overset
+one that had not an extraordinary readiness in business. His skull-caps,
+which he wore when he had leisure to observe his constitution, as I
+touched before, were now destined to lie in a drawer to receive the
+money that came in by fees. One had the gold, another the crowns and
+half-crowns, and another the smaller money. When these vessels were
+full, they were committed to his friend (the Hon. Roger North), who was
+constantly near him, to tell out the cash, and put it into the bags
+according to the contents; and so they went to his treasurers, Blanchard
+and Child, goldsmiths, Temple Bar."<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> In the days of wigs, skull-caps
+like those which Francis North used as receptacles for money, were very
+generally worn by men of all classes and employments. On returning to
+the privacy of his home, a careful citizen usually laid aside his costly
+wig, and replaced it with a cheap and durable skull-cap, before he sat
+down in his parlor. So also, men careful of their health often wore
+skull-caps <i>under</i> their wigs, on occasions when they were required to
+endure a raw atmosphere without the protection of their beavers. In days
+when the law-courts were held in the open hall of Westminster, and
+lawyers practising therein, were compelled to sit or speak for hours
+together, exposed to sharp currents of cold air, it was customary for
+wearers of the long robe to place between their wigs and natural hair
+closely-fitting caps, made of stout silk or soft leather. But more
+interesting than the money-caps, are the fees which they contained. The
+ringing of the gold pieces, the clink of the crowns with the
+half-crowns, and the rattle of the smaller money, led back the barrister
+to those happier and remote times, when the 'inferior order' of the
+profession paid the superior order with 'money down;' when, the advocate
+never opened his mouth till his fingers had closed upon the gold of his
+trustful client; when 'credit' was unknown in transactions between
+counsel and attorney;&mdash;that truly <i>golden</i> age of the bar, when the
+barrister was less suspicious of the attorney, and the attorney held
+less power over the barrister.</p>
+
+<p>Having profited by the liberal payments of Chancery whilst he was an
+advocate, Lord Keeper Guildford destroyed one source of profit to
+counsel from which Francis North, the barrister, had drawn many a capful
+of money. Saith Roger, "He began to rescind all motions for speeding and
+delaying the hearing of causes besides the ordinary rule of court; and
+this lopped off a limb of the motion practice. I have heard Sir John
+Churchill, a famous Chancery practitioner, say, that in his walk from
+Lincoln's Inn down to the Temple Hall, where, in the Lord Keeper
+Bridgman's time, causes and motions out of term were heard, he had taken
+&pound;28. with breviates only for motions and defences for hastening and
+retarding hearings. His lordship said, that the rule of the court
+allowed time enough for any one to proceed or defend; and if, for
+special reasons, he should give way to orders for timing matters, it
+would let in a deluge of vexatious pretenses, which, true or false,
+being asserted by the counsel with equal assurance, distracted the
+court and confounded the suitors."</p>
+
+<p>Let due honor be rendered to one Caroline, lawyer, who was remarkable
+for his liberality to clients, and carelessness of his own pecuniary
+interests. From his various biographers, many pleasant stories may be
+gleaned concerning Hale's freedom from base love of money. In his days,
+and long afterward, professional etiquette permitted clients and counsel
+to hold intercourse without the intervention of an attorney. Suitors,
+therefore, frequently addressed him personally and paid for his advice
+with their own hands, just as patients are still accustomed to fee their
+doctors. To these personal applicants, and also to clients who
+approached him by their agents, he was very liberal. "When those who
+came to ask his counsel gave him a piece, he used to give back the half,
+and to make ten shillings his fee in ordinary matters that did not
+require much time or study." From this it may be inferred that whilst
+Hale was an eminent member of the bar, twenty shillings was the usual
+fee to a leading counsel, and an angel the customary honorarium to an
+ordinary practitioner. As readers have already been told, the angel<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a>
+was a common fee in the seventeenth century; but the story of Hale's
+generous usage implies that his more distinguished contemporaries were
+wont to look for and accept a double fee. Moreover, the anecdote would
+not be told in Hale's honor, if etiquette had fixed the double fee as
+the minimum of remuneration for a superior barrister's opinion. He was
+frequently employed in arbitration cases, and as an arbitrator he
+steadily refused payment for his services to legal disputants, saying,
+in explanation of his moderation, "In these cases I am made a judge, and
+a judge ought to take no money." The misapprehension as to the nature of
+an arbitrator's functions, displayed in these words, gives an
+instructive insight into the mental constitution of the judge who wrote
+on natural science, and at the same time exerted himself to secure the
+conviction of witches. A more pleasant and commendable illustration of
+his conscientiousness in pecuniary matters, is found in the steadiness
+with which he refused to throw upon society the spurious coin which he
+had taken from his clients. In a tone of surprise that raises a smile at
+the average morality of our forefathers, Bishop Burnet tells of Hale:
+"Another remarkable instance of his justice and goodness was, that when
+he found ill money had been put into his hands, he would never suffer it
+to be vented again; for he thought it was no excuse for him to put false
+money in other people's hands, because some had put it into his. A great
+heap of this he had gathered together, for many had so abused his
+goodness as to mix base money among the fees that were given him." In
+this particular case, the judge's virtue was its own reward. His house
+being entered by burglars, this accumulation of bad money attracted the
+notice of the robbers, who selected it from a variety of goods and
+chattels, and carried it off under the impression that it was the
+lawyer's hoarded treasure. Besides large sums expended on unusual acts
+of charity, this good man habitually distributed amongst the poor a
+tithe of his professional earnings.</p>
+
+<p>In the seventeenth century, General Retainers were very common, and the
+counsel learned in the law, were ready to accept them from persons of
+low extraction and questionable repute. Indeed, no upstart deemed
+himself properly equipped for a campaign at court, until he had recorded
+a fictitious pedigree at the Herald's College, taken a barrister as well
+as a doctor into regular employment, and hired a curate to say grace
+daily at his table. In the summer of his vile triumph, Titus Oates was
+attended, on public occasions, by a robed counsel and a physician.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> In his 'Survey of the State of England in 1685,'
+Macauley&mdash;giving one of those misleading references with which his
+history abounds&mdash;says: "A thousand a year was thought a large income for
+a barrister. Two thousand a year was hardly to be made in the Court of
+King's Bench, except by crown lawyers." Whilst making the first
+statement, he doubtless remembered the passage in 'Pepys's Diary.' For
+the second statement, he refers to 'Layton's Conversation with Chief
+Justice Hale.' It is fair to assume that Lord Macauley had never seen
+Sir Francis Winnington's fee-book.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> In the fourth day of his fever, he being att the Chancery
+Bar, he fell so ill of the fever, that he was forced to leave the Court
+and come to his chambers in the Temple, with one of his clerks, which
+constantly wayted on him and carried his bags of writings for his
+pleadings, and there told him that he should return to every clyent his
+breviat and his fee, for he could serve them no longer, for he had done
+with this world, and thence came home to his house in Salisbury Court,
+and took his bed.... And there he sequestered himself to meditation
+between God and his own soul, without the least regret, and quietly and
+patiently contented himself with the will of God.&mdash;<i>Vide Memoir of Sir
+John King, Knt., written by his Father.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> The lawyers of the seventeenth century were accustomed to
+make a show of their fees to the clients who called upon them.
+Hudibras's lawyer (Hud., Part iii. cant. 3) is described as sitting in
+state with his books and money before him:
+</p>
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;"><br />
+"To this brave man the knight repairs<br />
+For counsel in his law affairs,<br />
+And found him mounted in his pew,<br />
+With books and money placed for shew,<br />
+Like nest-eggs, to make clients lay,<br />
+And for his false, opinion pay:<br />
+To whom the knight, with comely grace,<br />
+Put off his hat to put his case,<br />
+Which he as proudly entertain'd<br />
+As the other courteously strain'd;<br />
+And to assure him 'twas not that<br />
+He looked for, bid him put on's hat."<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+Under Victoria, the needy junior is compelled, for the sake of
+appearances, to furnish his shelves with law books, and cover his table
+with counterfeit briefs. Under the Stuarts, he placed a bowl of spurious
+money amongst the sham papers that lay upon his table.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> In the 'Serviens ad Legem,' Mr. Sergeant Manning raises
+question concerning the antiquity of <i>guineas</i> and half-guineas, with
+the following remarks:&mdash;"Should any cavil be raised against this jocular
+allusion, on the ground that guineas and half-guineas were unknown to
+sergeants who flourished in the sixteenth century, the objector might be
+reminded, that in antique records, instances occur in which the
+'guianois d'or,' issued from the ducal mint at Bordeaux, by the
+authority of the Plantagenet sovereigns of Guienne, were by the same
+authority, made current among their English subjects; and it might be
+suggested that those who have gone to the coast of Africa for the origin
+of the modern guinea, need not have carried their researches beyond the
+Bay of Biscay. <i>Qu&aelig;re</i>, whether the Guinea Coast itself may not owe its
+name to the 'guianois d'or' for which it furnished the raw material."</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>RETAINERS GENERAL AND SPECIAL.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>Pemberton's fees for his services in behalf of the Seven Bishops show
+that the most eminent counsel of his time were content with very modest
+remuneration for advice and eloquence. From the bill of an attorney
+employed in that famous trial, it appears that the ex-Chief Justice was
+paid a retaining-fee of five guineas, and received twenty guineas with
+his brief. He also pocketed three guineas for a consultation. At the
+present date, thirty times the sum of these paltry payments would be
+thought an inadequate compensation for such zeal, judgment, and ability
+as Francis Pemberton displayed in the defence of his reverend clients.</p>
+
+<p>But, though lawyers were paid thus moderately in the seventeenth
+century, the complaints concerning their avarice and extortions were
+loud and universal. This public discontent was due to the inordinate
+exactions of judges and place-holders rather than to the conduct of
+barristers and attorneys; but popular displeasure seldom cares to
+discriminate between the blameless and the culpable members of an
+obnoxious system, or to distinguish between the errors of ancient custom
+and the qualities of those persons who are required to carry out old
+rules. Hence the really honest and useful practitioners of the law
+endured a full share of the obloquy caused by the misconduct of venal
+justices and corrupt officials. Counsel, attorneys, and even scriveners
+came in for abuse. It was averred that they conspired to pick the public
+pocket; that eminent conveyancers not less than copying clerks, swelled
+their emoluments by knavish tricks. They would talk for the mere purpose
+of protracting litigation, injure their clients by vexations and
+bootless delays, and do their work so that they might be fed for doing
+it again. Draughtsmen find their clerks wrote loosely and wordily,
+because they were paid by the folio. "A term," writes the quaint author
+of 'Saint Hillaries Teares,' in 1642, "so like a vacation; the prime
+court, the Chancery (wherein the clerks had wont to dash their clients
+out of countenance with long dashes); the examiners to take the
+depositions in hyperboles, and roundabout <i>Robinhood</i> circumstances with
+<i>saids</i> and <i>aforesaids</i>, to enlarge the number of sheets." 'Hudibras'
+contains, amongst other pungent satires against the usages of lawyers,
+an allusion to this characteristic custom of legal draughtsmen, who
+being paid by the sheet, were wont</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+"To make 'twixt words and lines large gaps,<br />
+Wide as meridians in maps;<br />
+To squander paper and spare ink,<br />
+Or cheat men of their words some think."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>In the following century the abuses consequent on the objectionable
+system of folio-payment were noticed in a parliamentary report (bearing
+date November 8, 1740), which was the most important result of an
+ineffectual attempt to reform the superior courts of law and to lessen
+the expenses of litigation.</p>
+
+<p>More is known about the professional receipts of lawyers since the
+Revolution of 1688 than can be discovered concerning the incomes of
+their precursors in Westminster Hall. For six years, commencing with
+Michaelmas Term, 1719, Sir John Cheshire, King's Sergeant, made an
+average annual income of 3241<i>l.</i> Being then sixty-three years of age,
+he limited his practice to the Common Pleas, and during the next six
+years made in that one court 1320<i>l.</i> per annum. Mr. Foss, to whom the
+present writer is indebted for these particulars with regard to Sir John
+Cheshire's receipts, adds: "The fees of counsel's clerks form a great
+contrast with those that are now demanded, being only threepence on a
+fee of half-a-guinea, sixpence for a guinea, and one shilling for two
+guineas." Of course the increase of clerk's fees tells more in favor of
+the master than the servant. At the present time the clerk of a
+barrister in fairly lucrative practice costs his master nothing.
+Bountifully paid by his employer's clients, he receives no salary from
+the counsellor whom he serves; whereas, in old times, when his fees were
+fixed at the low rate just mentioned, the clerk could not live and
+maintain a family upon them, unless his master belonged to the most
+successful grade of his order.</p>
+
+<p>Horace Walpole tells his readers that Charles Yorke "was reported to
+have received 100,000 guineas in fees;" but his fee-book shows that his
+professional rise was by no means so rapid as those who knew him in his
+sunniest days generally supposed. The story of his growing fortunes is
+indicated in the following statement of successive incomes:&mdash;1st year of
+practice at the bar, 121<i>l.</i> 2nd, 201<i>l.</i>; 3rd and 4th, between 300<i>l.</i>
+and 400<i>l.</i> per annum; 5th, 700<i>l.</i>; 6th, 800<i>l.</i>; 7th, 1000<i>l.</i>; 9th,
+1600<i>l.</i>; 10th, 2500<i>l.</i> Whilst Solicitor General he made 3400<i>l.</i> in
+1757; and in the following year he earned 5000<i>l.</i> His receipts during
+the last year of his tenure of the Attorney Generalship amounted to
+7322<i>l.</i> The reader should observe that as Attorney General he made but
+little more than Coke had realized in the same office,&mdash;a fact serving
+to show how much better paid were Crown lawyers in times when they held
+office like judges during the Sovereign's pleasure, than in these latter
+days when they retire from place together with their political parties.</p>
+
+<p>The difference between the incomes of Scotch advocates and English
+barristers was far greater in the eighteenth century than at the present
+time, although in our own day the receipts of several second-rate
+lawyers of the Temple and Lincoln's Inn far surpass the revenues of the
+most successful advocates of the Edinburgh faculty. A hundred and thirty
+years since a Scotch barrister who earned 500<i>l.</i> per annum by his
+profession was esteemed notably successful.</p>
+
+<p>Just as Charles Yorke's fee-book shows us the pecuniary position of an
+eminent English barrister in the middle of the last century, John
+Scott's list of receipts displays the prosperity of a very fortunate
+Crown lawyer in the next generation. Without imputing motives the
+present writer, may venture to say that Lord Eldon's assertions with
+regard to his earnings at the bar, and his judicial incomes, were not in
+strict accordance with the evidence of his private accounts. He used to
+say that his first year's earnings in his profession amounted to
+half-a-guinea, but there is conclusive proof that he had a considerable
+quantity of lucrative business in the same year. "When I was called to
+the bar," it was his humor to say, "Bessie and I thought all our
+troubles were over, business was to pour in, and we were to be rich
+almost immediately. So I made a bargain with her that during the
+following year all the money I should receive in the first eleven
+months should be mine, and whatever I should get in the twelfth month
+should be hers. That was our agreement, and how do you think it turned
+out? In the twelfth month I received half-a-guinea&mdash;eighteenpence went
+for charity, and Bessy got nine shillings. In the other eleven months I
+got one shilling." John Scott, be it remembered, was called to the bar
+on February 9, 1776, and on October 2, of the same year, William Scott
+wrote to his brother Henry&mdash;"My brother Jack seems highly pleased with
+his circuit business. I hope it is only the beginning of future
+triumphs. All appearances speak strongly in his favor." There is no need
+to call evidence to show that Eldon's success was more than respectable
+from the outset of his career, and that he had not been called many
+years before he was in the foremost rank of his profession. His fee-book
+gives the following account of his receipts in thirteen successive
+years:&mdash;1786, 6833<i>l.</i> 7<i>s.</i>; 1787, 7600<i>l.</i> 7<i>s.</i>; 1788, 8419<i>l.</i>
+14<i>s.</i>; 1789, 9559<i>l.</i> 10<i>s.</i>; 1790, 9684<i>l.</i> 15<i>s.</i>; 1791, 10,213<i>l.</i>
+13<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>; 1792, 9080<i>l.</i> 9<i>s.</i>; 1793, 10,330<i>l.</i> 1<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i>; 1794,
+11,592<i>l.</i>; 1795, 11,149<i>l.</i> 15<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i>; 1796, 12,140<i>l.</i> 15<i>s.</i>
+8<i>d.</i>; 1797, 10,861<i>l.</i> 5<i>s.</i> 8<i>d</i>; 1798, 10,557<i>l.</i> 17<i>s.</i> During the
+last six of the above-mentioned years he was Attorney General, and
+during the preceding four years Solicitor General.</p>
+
+<p>Although General Retainers are much less general than formerly, they are
+by no means obsolete. Noblemen could be mentioned who at the present
+time engage counsel with periodical payments, special fees of course
+being also paid for each professional service. But the custom is dying
+out, and it is probable that after the lapse of another hundred years it
+will not survive save amongst the usages of ancient corporations. Notice
+has already been taken of Murray's conduct when he returned nine hundred
+and ninety-five out of a thousand guineas to the Duchess of
+Marlborough, informing her that the professional fee with the general
+retainer was neither more nor less than five guineas. The annual salary
+of a Queen's Counsel in past times was in fact a fee with a general
+retainer; but this periodic payment is no longer made to wearers of
+silk.</p>
+
+<p>In his learned work on 'The Judges of England,' Mr. Foss observes: "The
+custom of retaining counsel in fee lingered in form, at least in one
+ducal establishment. By a formal deed-poll between the proud Duke of
+Somerset and Sir Thomas Parker, dated July 19, 1707, the duke retains
+him as his 'standing counsell in ffee,' and gives and allows him 'the
+yearly ffee of four markes, to be paid by my solicitor' at Michaelmas,
+'to continue during my will and pleasure.'" Doubtless Mr. Foss is aware
+that this custom still 'lingers in form;' but the tone of his words
+justifies the opinion that he underrates the frequency with which
+general retainers are still given. The 'standing counsel' of civic and
+commercial companies are counsel with general retainers, and usually
+their general retainers have fees attached to them.</p>
+
+<p>The payments of English barristers have varied much more than the
+remunerations of English physicians. Whereas medical practitioners in
+every age have received a certain definite sum for each consultation,
+and have been forbidden by etiquette to charge more or less than the
+fixed rate, lawyers have been allowed much freedom in estimating the
+worth of their labor. This difference between the usages of the two
+professions is mainly due to the fact, that the amount of time and
+mental effort demanded by patients at each visit or consultation is very
+nearly the same in all cases, whereas the requirements of clients are
+much more various. To get up the facts of a law-case may be the work of
+minutes, or hours, or days, or even weeks; to observe the symptoms of a
+patient, and to write a prescription, can be always accomplished within
+the limits of a short morning call. In all times, however, the legal
+profession has adopted certain scales of payment&mdash;that fixed the
+<i>minimum</i> of remuneration, but left the advocate free to get more, as
+circumstances might encourage him to raise his demands. Of the many good
+stories told of artifices by which barristers have delicately intimated
+their desire for higher payment, none is better than an anecdote
+recorded of Sergeant Hill. A troublesome case being laid before this
+most erudite of George III.'s sergeants, he returned it with a brief
+note, that he "saw more difficulty in the case than, <i>under all the
+circumstances</i>, he could well solve." As the fee marked upon the case
+was only a guinea, the attorney readily inferred that its smallness was
+one of the circumstances which occasioned the counsel's difficulty. The
+case, therefore, was returned, with a fee of two guineas. Still
+dissatisfied, Sergeant Hill wrote that "he saw no reason to change his
+opinion."</p>
+
+<p>By the etiquette of the bar no barrister is permitted to take a brief on
+any circuit, save that on which he habitually practises, unless he has
+received a special retainer; and no wearer of silk can be specially
+retained with a less fee than three hundred guineas. Erskine's first
+special retainer was in the Dean of St. Asaph's case, his first speech
+in which memorable cause was delivered when he had been called to the
+bar but little more than five years. From that time till his elevation
+to the bench he received on an average twelve special retainers a year,
+by which at the minimum of payment he made &pound;3600 per annum. Besides
+being lucrative and honorable, this special employment greatly augmented
+his practice in Westminster Hall, as it brought him in personal contact
+with attorneys in every part of the country, and heightened his
+popularity amongst all classes of his fellow-countrymen. In 1786 he
+entirely withdrew from ordinary circuit practice, and confined his
+exertions in provincial courts to the causes for which he was specially
+retained. No advocate since his time has received an equal number of
+special retainers; and if he did not originate the custom of special
+retainers,<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> he was the first English barrister who ventured to reject
+all other briefs.</p>
+
+<p>There is no need to recapitulate all the circumstances of Erskine's
+rapid rise in his profession&mdash;a rise due to his effective brilliance and
+fervor in political trial: but this chapter on lawyers' fees would be
+culpably incomplete, if it failed to notice some of its pecuniary
+consequences. In the eighth month after his call to the bar he thanked
+Admiral Keppel for a splendid fee of one thousand pounds. A few years
+later a legal gossip wrote: "Everybody says that Erskine will be
+Solicitor General, and if he is, and indeed whether he is or not, he
+will have had the most rapid rise that has been known at the bar. It is
+four years and a half since he was called, and in that time he has
+cleared &pound;8000 or &pound;9000, besides paying his debts&mdash;got a silk gown, and
+business of at least &pound;3000 a year&mdash;a seat in Parliament&mdash;and, over and
+above, has made his brother Lord Advocate."</p>
+
+<p>Merely to mention large fees without specifying the work by which they
+were earned would mislead the reader. During the railway mania of 1845,
+the few leaders of the parliamentary bar received prodigious fees; and
+in some cases the sums were paid for very little exertion. Frequently it
+happened that a lawyer took heavy fees in causes, at no stage of which
+he either made a speech or read a paper in the service of his too
+liberal employers. During that period of mad speculation the
+committee-rooms of the two Houses were an El Dorado to certain favored
+lawyers, who were alternately paid for speech and <i>silence</i> with
+reckless profusion. But the time was so exceptional, that the fees
+received and the fortunes made in it by a score of lucky advocates and
+solicitors cannot be fairly cited as facts illustrating the social
+condition of legal practitioners. As a general rule, it may be stated
+that large fortunes are not made at the bar by large fees. Our richest
+lawyers have made the bulk of their wealth by accumulating sufficient
+but not exorbitant payments. In most cases the large fee has not been a
+very liberal remuneration for the work done. Edward Law's retainer for
+the defence of Warren Hastings brought with it &pound;500&mdash;a sum which caused
+our grandfathers to raise their hands in astonishment at the nabob's
+munificence; but the sum was in reality the reverse of liberal. In all,
+Warren Hastings paid his leading advocate considerably less than four
+thousand pounds; and if Law had not contrived to win the respect of
+solicitors by his management of the defence, the case could not be said
+to have paid him for his trouble. So also the eminent advocate, who in
+the great case of Small <i>v.</i> Attwood received a fee of &pound;6000, was
+actually underpaid. When he made up the account of the special outlay
+necessitated by that cause, and the value of business which the
+burdensome case compelled him to decline, he had small reason to
+congratulate himself on his remuneration.</p>
+
+<p>A statement of the incomes made by chamber-barristers, and of the sums
+realized by counsel in departments of the profession that do not invite
+the attention of the general public, would astonish those uninformed
+persons who estimate the success of a barrister by the frequency with
+which his name appears in the newspaper reports of trials and suits. The
+talkers of the bar enjoy more <i>&eacute;clat</i> than the barristers who confine
+themselves to chamber practice, and their labors lead to the honors of
+the bench; but a young lawyer, bent only on the acquisition of wealth,
+is more likely to achieve his ambition by conveyancing or
+arbitration-business than by court-work. Kenyon was never a popular or
+successful advocate, but he made &pound;3000 a year by answering cases.
+Charles Abbott at no time of his life could speak better than a
+vestryman of average ability; but by drawing informations and
+indictments, by writing opinions on cases, he made the greater part of
+the eight thousand pounds which he returned as the amount of his
+professional receipts in 1807. In our own time, when that popular common
+law advocate, Mr. Edwin James, was omnipotent with juries, his income
+never equalled the incomes of certain chamber-practitioners whose names
+are utterly unknown to the general body of English society.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Lord Campbell observes: "Some say that special retainers
+began with Erskine; but I doubt the fact." It is strange that there
+should be uncertainty as to the time when special retainers&mdash;unquestionably
+a comparatively recent innovation in legal practice&mdash;came into vogue.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>JUDICIAL CORRUPTION.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>To a young student making his first researches beneath the surface of
+English history, few facts are more painful and perplexing than the
+judicial corruption which prevailed in every period of our country's
+growth until quiet recent times&mdash;darkening the brightest pages of our
+annals, and disfiguring some of the greatest chieftains of our race.</p>
+
+<p>Where he narrates the fall and punishment of De Weyland towards the
+close of the thirteenth century, Speed observes: "While the Jews by
+their cruel usuries had in one way eaten up the people, the justiciars,
+like another kind of Jews, had ruined them with delay in their suits,
+and enriched themselves with wicked convictions." Of judicial corruption
+in the reigns of Edward I. and Edward II. a vivid picture is given in a
+political ballad, composed in the time of one or the other of those
+monarchs. Of this poem Mr. Wright, in his 'Political Songs,' gives a
+free version, a part of which runs thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+"Judges there are whom gifts and favorites control,<br />
+Content to serve the devil alone and take from him a toll;<br />
+If nature's law forbids the judge from selling his decree,<br />
+How dread to those who finger bribes the punishment shall be.<br />
+<br />
+"Such judges have accomplices whom frequently they send<br />
+To get at those who claim some land, and whisper as a friend,<br />
+''Tis I can help you with the judge, if you would wish to plead,<br />
+Give me but half, I'll undertake before him you'll succeed.'<br />
+<br />
+"The clerks who sit beneath the judge are open-mouthed as he,<br />
+As if they were half-famished and gaping for a fee;<br />
+Of those who give no money they soon pronounce the state,<br />
+However early they attend, they shall have long to wait.<br />
+<br />
+"If comes some noble lady, in beauty and in pride,<br />
+With golden horns upon her head, her suit he'll soon decide;<br />
+But she who has no charms, nor friends, and is for gifts too poor,<br />
+Her business all neglected, she's weeping shown the door.<br />
+<br />
+"But worse than all, within the court we some relators meet,<br />
+Who take from either side at once, and both their clients cheat;<br />
+The ushers, too, to poor men say, 'You labor here in vain,<br />
+Unless you tip us all around, you may go back again.'<br />
+<br />
+"The sheriff's hard upon the poor who cannot pay for rest,<br />
+Drags them about to every town, on all assizes press'd<br />
+Compell'd to take the oath prescrib'd without objection made,<br />
+For if they murmur and can't pay, upon their backs they're laid.<br />
+<br />
+"They enter any private house, or abbey that they choose,<br />
+Where meat and drink and all things else are given as their dues;<br />
+And after dinner jewels too, or this were all in vain,<br />
+Bedels and gar&ccedil;ons must receive, and all that form the train.<br />
+<br />
+"And next must gallant robes be sent as presents to their wives,<br />
+Or from the manor of the host some one his cattle drives;<br />
+While he, poor man, is sent to gaol upon some false pretence,<br />
+And pays at last at double cost, ere he gets free from thence.<br />
+<br />
+"I can't but laugh to see their clerks, whom once I knew in need,<br />
+When to obtain a bailiwick they may at last succeed;<br />
+With pride in gait and countenance and with their necks erect<br />
+They lands and houses quickly buy and pleasant rents collect.<br />
+<br />
+"Grown rich they soon the poor despise, and new-made laws display,<br />
+Oppress their neighbors and become the wise men of their day;<br />
+Unsparing of the least offence, when they can have their will,<br />
+The hapless country all around with discontent they fill."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>In the fourteenth century judicial corruption was so general and
+flagrant, that cries came from every quarter for the punishment of
+offenders. The Knights Hospitallers' Survey, made in the year 1338,
+gives us revelations that confound the indiscreet admirers of feudal
+manners. From that source of information it appears that regular
+stipends were paid to persons "tam in curia domini regis quam
+justiciariis, clericis, officiariis et aliis ministris, in diversis
+curiis suis, ac etiam aliis familaribus magnatum tam pro terris
+tenementis redditbus et libertatibus Hospitalis, quam Templariorum, et
+maxime pro terris Templariorum manutenendis." Of pensions to the amount
+of &pound;440 mentioned in the account, &pound;60 were paid to judges, clerks, and
+minor officers of courts. Robert de Sadington, the Chief Baron, received
+40 marks annually; twice a year the Knights Hospitallers presented caps
+to one hundred and forty officers of the Exchequer; and they expended
+200 marks <i>per annum</i> on gifts that were distributed in law courts,
+"<i>pro favore habendo</i>, et pro placitis habendis, et expensis
+parliamentorum." In that age, and for centuries later, it was customary
+for wealthy men and great corporations to make valuable presents to the
+judges and chief servants the king's courts; but it was always presumed
+that the offerings were simple expressions of respect&mdash;not tribute
+rendered, "pro favore habendo."</p>
+
+<p>Bent on purifying the moral atmosphere of his courts, Edward III. raised
+the salaries of his judges, and imposed upon them such oaths that none
+of their order could pervert justice, or even encourage venal practices,
+without breaking his solemn vow<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> to the king's majesty.</p>
+
+<p>From the amounts of the <i>royal</i> fees or stipends paid to Edward III.'s
+judges, it may be vaguely estimated how far they were dependent on gifts
+and <i>court</i> fees for the means of living with appropriate state. John
+Knyvet, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, has &pound;40 and 100 marks per
+annum. The annual fee of Thomas de Ingleby, the solitary puisne judge
+of the King's Bench at that time, was at first 40 marks; but he obtained
+an additional &pound;40 when the 'fees' were raised, and he received moreover
+&pound;20 a year as a judge of assize. The Chief of the Common Pleas, Robert
+de Thrope, received &pound;40 per annum, payable during his tenure of office,
+and another annual sum of &pound;40 payable during his life. John de Mowbray,
+William de Wychingham, and William de Fyncheden, the other judges of the
+Common Pleas, received 40 marks each as official salary, and &pound;20 per
+annum for their services at assizes. Mowbray's stipend was subsequently
+increased by 40 marks, whilst Wychingham and Fyncheden received an
+additional &pound;40 par annum. To the Chief Baron and the other two Barons of
+the Exchequer annual fees of 40 marks each were paid, the Chief Baron
+receiving &pound;20 per annum as Justice of Assize, and one of the puisne
+Barons, Almaric de Shirland, getting an additional 40 marks for certain
+special services. The 'Issue Roll of 44 Edward III., 1370,' also shows
+that certain sergeants-at-law acted as Justices of Assize, receiving for
+their service &pound;20 per annum.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout his reign Edward III. strenuously exerted himself to purge
+his law courts of abuses, and to secure his subjects from evils wrought
+by judicial dishonesty; and though there is reason to think that he
+prosecuted his reforms, and punished offending judges with more
+impulsiveness than consistency&mdash;with petulance rather than
+firmness<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a>&mdash;his action must have produced many beneficial results. But
+it does not seem to have occurred to him that the system adopted by his
+predecessors, and encouraged by the usages of his own time, was the
+real source of the mischief, and that so long as judges received the
+greater part of their remuneration from suitors, fees and the donations
+of the public, enactments and proclamations would be comparatively
+powerless to preserve the streams of justice from pollution. The
+fee-system poisoned the morality of the law-courts. From the highest
+judge to the lowest usher, every person connected with a court of
+justice was educated to receive small sums of money for trifling
+services, to be always looking out for paltry dues or gratuities, to
+multiply occasions for demanding, and reasons for pocketing petty coins,
+to invent devices for legitimate peculation. In time the system produced
+such complications of custom, right, privilege, claim, that no one could
+say definitely how much a suitor was actually bound to pay at each stage
+of a suit. The fees had an equally bad influence on the public. Trained
+to approach the king's judges with costly presents, to receive them on
+their visits with lavish hospitality, to send them offerings at the
+opening of each year, the rich and the poor learnt to look on judicial
+decisions as things that were bought and sold. In many cases this
+impression was not erroneous. Judges were forbidden to accept gifts from
+actual suitors, or to take payments <i>for</i> judgments after their
+delivery; but on the judgment-seat they were often influenced by
+recollections of the conduct of suitors who <i>had been</i> munificent before
+the commencement of proceedings, and most probably would be equally
+munificent six months after delivery of a judgment favorable to their
+claims. Humorous anecdotes heightened the significance of patent facts.
+Throughout a shire it would be told how this suitor won a judgment by a
+sumptuous feast; how that suitor bought the justice's favor with a flask
+of rare wine, a horse of excellent breed, a hound of superior sagacity.</p>
+
+<p>In the fifteenth century the judge whose probity did not succumb to an
+excellent dinner was deemed a miracle of virtue. "A lady," writes Fuller
+of Chief Justice Markham, who was dismissed from his place in 1470,
+"would traverse a suit of law against the will of her husband, who was
+contented to buy his quiet by giving her her will therein, though
+otherwise persuaded in his judgment the cause would go against her. This
+lady, dwelling in the shire town, invited the judge to dinner, and
+(though thrifty enough herself) treated him with sumptuous
+entertainment. Dinner being done, and the cause being called, the judge
+gave it against her. And when, in passion, she vowed never to invite the
+judge again, 'Nay, wife,' said he, 'vow never to invite a <i>just judge</i>
+any more.'" It may be safely affirmed that no English lady of our time
+ever tried to bribe Sir Alexander Cockburn or Sir Frederick Pollock with
+a dinner <i>&agrave; la Russe</i>.</p>
+
+<p>By his eulogy of Chief Justice Dyer, who died March 24, 1582, Whetstone
+gives proof that in Elizabethan England purity was the exception rather
+than the rule with judges:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+"And when he spake he was in speeche reposde;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">His eyes did search the simple suitor's harte;</span><br />
+To put by bribes his hands were ever closde,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">His processe juste, he tooke the poore man's parte.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He ruld by lawe and listened not to arte,</span><br />
+Those foes to truthe&mdash;loove, hate, and private gain,<br />
+Which most corrupt, his conscience could not staine."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>There is no reason to suppose that the custom of giving and receiving
+presents was more general or extravagant in the time of Elizabeth than
+in previous ages; but the fuller records of her splendid reign give
+greater prominence to the usage than it obtained in the chronicles of
+any earlier period of English history. On each New Year's day her
+courtiers gave her costly presents&mdash;jewels, ornaments of gold or silver
+workmanship, hundreds of ounces of silver-gilt plate, tapestry, laces,
+satin dresses, embroidered petticoats. Not only did she accept such
+costly presents from men of rank and wealth, but she graciously received
+the donations of tradesmen and menials. Francis Bacon made her majesty
+"a poor oblation of a garment;" Charles Smith, the dustman, threw upon
+the pile of treasure "two bottes of cambric." The fashion thus
+countenanced by the queen was followed in all ranks of society; all men,
+from high to low, receiving presents, as expressions of affection when
+they came from their equals, as declarations of respect when they came
+from their social inferiors. Each of her great officers of state drew a
+handsome revenue from such yearly offerings. But though the burdens and
+abuses of this system were excessive under Elizabeth, they increased in
+enormity and number during the reigns of the Stuarts.</p>
+
+<p>That the salaries of the Elizabethan judges were small in comparison
+with the sums which they received in presents and fees may be seen from
+the following Table of stipends and allowances annually paid, towards
+the close of the sixteenth century:&mdash;</p>
+
+<table summary='salaries' width='70%' cellpadding='1'>
+<tr>
+<td>
+</td>
+<td align ='center'>&pound;
+</td>
+<td  align ='center'><i>s.</i>
+</td>
+<td  align ='center'><i>d.</i>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>The Lord Cheefe Justice of England:&mdash;
+</td>
+<td>
+</td>
+<td>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fee, Reward and Robes</span>
+</td>
+<td align='right'>208
+</td>
+<td align='right'>6
+</td>
+<td align='right'>8
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wyne, 2 tunnes at &pound;5 the tunne</span>
+</td>
+<td align='right'>10
+</td>
+<td align='right'>0
+</td>
+<td align='right'>0
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Allowance for being Justice of Assize</span>
+</td>
+<td align='right'>20
+</td>
+<td align='right'>0
+</td>
+<td align='right'>0
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>The Lord Cheefe Justice of the Common Pleas:&mdash;
+</td>
+<td>
+</td>
+<td>
+</td>
+<td>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fee, Reward, and Robes</span>
+</td>
+<td align='right'>141
+</td>
+<td align='right'>13
+</td>
+<td align='right'>4
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wyne, two tunnes</span>
+</td>
+<td align='right'>8
+</td>
+<td align='right'>0
+</td>
+<td align='right'>0
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Allowance as Justice of Assize</span>
+</td>
+<td align='right'>20
+</td>
+<td align='right'>0
+</td>
+<td align='right'>0
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fee for keeping the Assize in the Augmentation Court</span>
+</td>
+<td align='right'>12
+</td>
+<td align='right'>10
+</td>
+<td align='right'>8
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Each of the three Justices in these two Courts:&mdash;
+</td>
+<td>
+</td>
+<td>
+</td>
+<td>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fee, Reward and Robes</span>
+</td>
+<td align='right'>123
+</td>
+<td align='right'>6
+</td>
+<td align='right'>8
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Allowance as Justice of Assize</span>
+</td>
+<td align='right'>20
+</td>
+<td align='right'>0
+</td>
+<td align='right'>0
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>The Lord Cheefe Baron of the Exchequer:&mdash;
+</td>
+<td>
+</td>
+<td>
+</td>
+<td>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fee</span>
+</td>
+<td align='right'>100
+</td>
+<td align='right'>0
+</td>
+<td align='right'>0
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lyvery</span>
+</td>
+<td align='right'>12
+</td>
+<td align='right'>17
+</td>
+<td align='right'>8
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Allowance as Justice of the Assize</span>
+</td>
+<td  align='right'>20
+</td>
+<td align='right'>0
+</td>
+<td align='right'>0
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Each of the three Barons:&mdash;
+</td>
+<td>
+</td>
+<td>
+</td>
+<td>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fee</span>
+</td>
+<td  align='right'>46
+</td>
+<td  align='right'>12
+</td>
+<td  align='right'>4
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lyvery a peece</span>
+</td>
+<td  align='right'>12
+</td>
+<td  align='right'>17
+</td>
+<td  align='right'>4
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Allowance as Justice of Assize</span>
+</td>
+<td  align='right'>20
+</td>
+<td  align='right'>0
+</td>
+<td  align='right'>0
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Prior to and in the earlier part of Elizabeth's reign, the sheriffs had
+been required to provide diet and lodging for judges travelling on
+circuit, each sheriff being responsible for the proper entertainment of
+judges within the limits of his jurisdiction. This arrangement was very
+burdensome upon the class from which the sheriffs were elected, as the
+official host had not only to furnish suitable lodging and cheer for the
+justices themselves, but also to supply the wants of their attendants
+and servants. The ostentatious and costly hospitality which law and
+public opinion thus compelled or encouraged them to exercise towards
+circuiteers of all ranks had seriously embarrassed a great number of
+country gentlemen; and the queen was assailed with entreaties for a
+reform that should free a sheriff of small estate from the necessity of
+either ruining himself, or incurring a reputation for stinginess. In
+consequence of these urgent representations, an order of council,
+bearing date February 21, 1574, decided "the justices shall have of her
+majesty several sums of money out of her coffers for their daily diet."
+Hence rose the usage of 'circuit allowances.' The sheriffs, however,
+were still bound to attend upon the judges, and make suitable provision
+for the safe conduct of the legal functionaries from assize town to
+assize town;&mdash;the sheriff of each county being required to furnish a
+body-guard for the protection of the sovereign's representatives. This
+responsibility lasted till the other day, when an innovation (of which
+Mr. Arcedeckne, of Glevering Hall, Suffolk, was the most notorious,
+though not the first champion), substituted guards of policemen, paid by
+county-rates, for bands of javelin-men equipped and rewarded by the
+sheriffs. In some counties the javelin-men&mdash;remote descendants of the
+mail-clad knights and stalwart men-at-arms who formerly mustered at the
+summons of sheriffs&mdash;still do duty with long wands and fresh rosettes;
+but they are fast giving way to the wielders of short staves.</p>
+
+<p>Amongst the bad consequences of the system of gratuities was the color
+which it gave to idle rumors and malicious slander against the purity of
+upright judges.</p>
+
+<p>When Sir Thomas More fell, charges of bribery were preferred against him
+before the Privy Council. A disappointed suitor, named Parnell, declared
+that the Chancellor had been bribed with a gift-cup to decide in favor
+of his (Parnell's) adversary. Mistress Vaughan, the successful suitor's
+wife, had given Sir Thomas the cup with her own hands. The fallen
+Chancellor admitting that "he had received the cup as a New Year's
+Gift," Lord Wiltshire cried, with unseemly exultation, "Lo! did I not
+tell you, my lords, that you would find this matter true?" It seemed
+that More had pleaded guilty, for his oath did not permit him to receive
+a New Year's Gift from an actual suitor. "But, my lords," continued the
+accused man, with one of his characteristic smiles, "hear the other part
+of my tale. After having drunk to her of wine, with which my butler had
+filled the cup, and when she had pledged me, I restored it to her, and
+would listen to no refusal." It is possible that Mistress Vaughan did
+not act with corrupt intention, but merely in ignorance of the rule
+which forbade the Chancellor to accept her present. As much cannot be
+said in behalf of Mrs. Croker, who, being opposed in a suit to Lord
+Arundel, sought to win Sir Thomas More's favor by presenting him with a
+pair of gloves containing forty angels. With a courteous smile he
+accepted the gloves, but constrained her to take back the gold. The
+gentleness of this rebuff is charming; but the story does not tell more
+in favor of Sir Thomas than to the disgrace of the lady and the moral
+tone of the society in which she lived.</p>
+
+<p>Readers should bear in mind the part which New Year's Gifts and other
+customary gratuities played in the trumpery charges against Lord Bacon.
+Adopting an old method of calumny, the conspirators against his fair
+fame represented that the gifts made to him, in accordance with ancient
+usage, were bribes. For instance Reynel's ring, presented on New Year's
+day, was so construed by the accusers; and in his comment upon the
+charge, Bacon, who had inadvertently accepted the gift during the
+progress of a suit, observes, "This ring was received certainly
+<i>pendente lite</i>, and though it were at New Year's tide, yet it was too
+great a value for a New Year's Gift, though, as I take it, nothing near
+the value mentioned in the articles." So also Trevor's gift was a New
+Year's present, of which Bacon says, "I confess and declare that I
+received at New Year's tide an hundred pounds from Sir John Trevor, and
+because it came as a New Year's Gift, I neglected to inquire whether the
+cause was ended or depending; but since I find that though the cause was
+then dismissed to a trial at law, yet the equity is reserved, so as it
+was in that kind <i>pendente lite</i>." Bacon knew that this explanation
+would be read by men familiar with the history of New Year's Gifts, and
+all the circumstances of the ancient usage; and it is needless to say
+that no man of honor thought the less highly of Bacon at that time,
+because his pure and guiltless acceptance of customary presents was by
+ingenious and unscrupulous adversaries made to assume an appearance of
+corrupt compliance.</p>
+
+<p>How far the Chancellors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
+depended upon customary gratuities for their revenues may be seen from
+the facts which show the degree of state which they were required to
+maintain, and the inadequacy of the ancient fees for the maintenance of
+that pomp. When Elizabeth pressed Hatton for payment of the sums which
+he owed her, the Chancellor lamented his inability to liquidate her just
+claims, and urged in excuse that the <i>ancient fees</i> were very inadequate
+to the expenses of the Chancellor's office. But though Elizabethan
+Chancellors could not live upon their ancient fees, they kept up palaces
+in town and country, fed regiments of lackeys, and surpassed the ancient
+nobility in the grandeur of their equipages. Egerton&mdash;the needy and
+illegitimate son of a rural knight, a lawyer who fought up from the
+ranks&mdash;not only sustained the costly dignities of office, but left to
+his descendants a landed estate worth &pound;8000 per annum. Bacon's successor
+in the 'marble chair,' Lord Keeper Williams, assured Buckingham that in
+Egerton's time the Chancellor's lawful income was less than three
+thousand per annum. "The lawful revenue of the office stands thus,"
+wrote Williams, speaking from his intimate knowledge of Ellesmere's
+affairs, "or not much above it at anytime:&mdash;in fines certain, &pound;1300 per
+annum, or thereabouts; in fines casual, &pound;1250 or thereabouts; in greater
+writs, &pound;140; for impost of wine, &pound;100&mdash;in all, &pound;2790; and these are all
+the true means of that great office." It is probable that Williams
+under-stated the revenue, but it is certain that the income, apart from
+gratuities, was insufficient.</p>
+
+<p>The Chancellor was not more dependent on customary gratuities than the
+chief of the three Common Law courts. At Westminster and on circuit,
+whenever he was required to discharge his official functions, the
+English judge extended his hand for the contributions of the
+well-disposed. No one thought of blaming judges for their readiness to
+take customary benevolences. To take gifts was a usage of the
+profession, and had its parallel in the customs of every calling and
+rank of life. The clergy took dues in like manner: from the earliest
+days of feudal life the territorial lords had supplied their wants in
+the same way; amongst merchants and yeomen, petty traders and servants,
+the system existed in full force. These presents were made without any
+secrecy. The aldermen of borough towns openly voted presents to the
+judges; and the judges received their offerings&mdash;not as benefactions,
+but as legitimate perquisites. In 1620&mdash;just a year before Lord Bacon's
+fall&mdash;the municipal council of Lyme Regis left it to the "mayor's
+discretion" to decide "what gratuity he will give to the Lord Chief
+Baron and his men" at the next assizes. The system, it is needless to
+say, had disastrous results. Empowering the chief judge of every court
+to receive presents not only from the public, but from subordinate
+judges, inferior officers, and the bar; and moreover empowering each
+place-holder to take gratuities from persons officially or by profession
+concerned in the business of the courts, it produced a complicated
+machinery for extortion. By presents the chief justices bought their
+places from the crown or a royal favorite; by presents the puisne
+justices, registrars, counsel bought place or favor from the chief; by
+presents the attorneys, sub-registrars, and outside public sought to
+gain their ends with the humbler place-holders. The meanest ushers of
+Westminster Hall took coins from ragged scriveners. Hence every place
+was actually bought and sold, the sum being in most cases very high.
+Sir James Ley offered the Duke of Buckingham &pound;10,000 for the Attorney's
+place. At the same period the Solicitor General's office was sold for
+&pound;4000. Under Charles I. matters grew still worse than they had been
+under his father. When Sir Charles C&aelig;sar consulted Laud about the worth
+of the vacant Mastership of the Rolls, the archbishop frankly said,
+"that as things then stood, the place was not likely to go without more
+money than he thought any wise man would give for it." Disregarding this
+intimation, Sir Charles paid the king &pound;15,000 for the place, and added a
+loan of &pound;2000. Sir Thomas Richardson, at the opening of the reign, gave
+&pound;17,000 for the Chiefship of the Common Pleas. If judges needed gifts
+before the days when vacant seats were put up to auction, of course they
+stood all the more in need of them when they bought their promotions
+with such large sums. It is not wonderful that the wearers of ermine
+repaid themselves by venal practices. The sale of judicial offices was
+naturally followed by the sale of judicial decisions. The judges having
+submitted to the extortions of the king, the public had to endure the
+extortions of the judges. Corruption on the bench produced corruption at
+the bar. Counsel bought the attention and compliance of 'the court,' and
+in some cases sold their influence with shameless rascality. They would
+take fees to speak from one side in a cause and fees to be silent from
+the other side&mdash;selling their own clients as coolly as judges sold the
+suitors of their courts. Sympathizing with the public, and stung by
+personal experience of legal dishonesty, the clergy sometimes denounced
+from the pulpit the extortions of corrupt judges and unprincipled
+barristers. The assize sermons of Charles I.'s reign were frequently
+seasoned with such animadversions. At Thetford Assizes, March, 1630,
+the Rev. Mr. Ramsay, in the assize-sermon, spoke indignantly of judges
+who "favored causes," and of "counsellors who took fees to be silent."
+In the summer of 1631, at the Bury Assizes, "one Mr. Scott made a sore
+sermon in discovery of corruption in judges and others." At Norwich, the
+same authority, viz., 'Sir John Rous's Diary,' informs us&mdash;"Mr. Greene
+was more plaine, insomuch that Judge Harvey, in his charge, broke out
+thus: 'It seems by the sermon that we are corrupt, but we know that we
+can use conscience in our places as well as the best clergieman of
+all.'"</p>
+
+<p>In his 'Life and Death of Sir Matthew Hale,' Bishop Burnet tells a good
+story of the Chief's conduct with regard to a customary gift. "It is
+also a custom," says the biographer, "for the Marshall of the King's
+Bench to present the judges of that court with a piece of plate for a
+New Year's Gift, that for the Chief Justice being larger than the rest.
+This he intended to have refused, but the other judges told him it
+belonged to his office, and the refusing it would be a prejudice to his
+successors; so he was persuaded to take it, but he sent word to the
+marshall, that instead of plate he should bring him the value of it in
+money, and when he received it, he immediately sent it to the prisons
+for the relief and discharge of the poor there."</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> A portion of the oath prescribed for judges in the
+'Ordinances for Justices,' 20 Edward III., will show the reader the
+evils which called for correction and the care taken to effect their
+cure. "Ye shall swear," ran the injunction to which each judge was
+required to vow obedience, "that well and lawfully ye shall serve our
+lord the king and his people in the office of justice; ... and that ye
+take not by yourself or by other, privily or apertly, gift or reward of
+gold or silver, nor any other thing which may turn to your profit,
+unless it be meat nor drink, and that of small value, <i>of any man that
+shall have plea or process before you, as long as the same process shall
+be so hanging, nor after for the same cause: and that ye shall take no
+fee as long as ye shall be justice, nor robes of any man, great or
+small</i>, but of the king himself: and that ye give none advice or counsel
+to no man, great or small, in any case where the king is party; &amp;c. &amp;c.
+&amp;c." The clause forbidding the judge to receive gifts of actual suitors
+was a positive recognition of his right to customary gifts rendered by
+persons who had no process hanging before him. It should, moreover, be
+observed that in the passage, "ye shall take no fee as long as ye shall
+be justice, nor robes of any man," the word "fee" signifies "salary,"
+and not a single payment or gratuity. The Judge was forbidden to receive
+from any man a fixed stipend (by the acceptance of which he would become
+the donor's servant), or robes (the assumption of which would be open
+declaration of service); but he was at liberty to accept the offerings
+which the public were wont to make to men of his condition, as well as
+the sums (or 'fees,' as they would be termed at the present day) due on
+different processes of his court. That the word 'fee' is thus used in
+the ordinance may be seen from the words "for this cause we have
+increased the fees (les feez) of the same our justices, in such manner
+as it ought reasonably to suffice them," by which language attention is
+drawn to the increase of judicial salaries.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> Mr. Foss observes: "In 1350, William de Thrope, Chief
+Justice of the King's Bench, was convicted on his own confession of
+receiving bribes to stay justice; but though his property was forfeited
+to the Crown on his condemnation, the king appears to have relented, and
+to have made him second Baron of the Exchequer in May, 1352, unless I am
+mistaken in supposing the latter to have been the same person."</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>GIFTS AND SALES.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>By degrees the public ceased to make presents to the principal judges of
+the kingdom; but long after the Chancellor and the three Chiefs had
+taken the last offerings of general society, they continued to receive
+yearly presents from the subordinate judges, placemen, and barristers
+of their respective courts. Lord Cowper deserves honor for being the
+holder of the seals who, by refusing to pocket these customary
+donations, put an end to a very objectionable system, so far as the
+Court of Chancery was concerned.</p>
+
+<p>On being made Lord Keeper, he resolved to depart from the custom of his
+predecessors for many generations, who on the first day of each new year
+had invariably entertained at breakfast the persons from whom tribute
+was looked for. Very droll were these receptions in the old time. The
+repast at an end, the guests forthwith disburdened themselves of their
+gold&mdash;the payers approaching the holder of the seals in order of rank,
+and laying on his table purses of money, which the noble payee accepted
+with his own hands. Sometimes his lordship was embarrassed by a ceremony
+that required him to pick gold from the fingers of men, several of whom
+he knew to be in indigent circumstances. In Charles II.'s time it was
+observed that the silver-tongued Lord Nottingham on such occasions
+always endeavored to hide his confusion under a succession of nervous
+smiles and exclamations&mdash;"Oh, Tyrant Cuthtom!&mdash;Oh, Tyrant Cuthtom!"</p>
+
+<p>It is noteworthy that in relinquishing the benefit of these exactions,
+the Lord Keeper feared unfriendly criticism much more than he
+anticipated public commendation. In his diary, under date December 30,
+Cowper wrote:&mdash;"I acquainted my Lord Treasurer with my design to refuse
+New Year's Gifts, if he had no objection against it, as spoiling, in
+some measure, a place of which he had the conferring. He answered it was
+not expected of me, but that I might do as my predecessors had done; but
+if I refused, he thought nobody could blame me for it." Anxious about
+the consequences of his innovation, the new Lord Keeper gave notice that
+on January 1, 1705-6, he would receive no gifts; but notwithstanding
+this proclamation, several officers of Chancery and counsellors came to
+his house with tribute, and were refused admittance. "New Year's Gifts
+turned back," he wrote in his diary at the close of the eventful day,
+"and pray God it doth me more credit and good than hurt, by making
+secret enemies <i>in f&aelig;ce Romuli</i>." His fears were in a slight degree
+fulfilled. The Chiefs of the three Common Law Courts were greatly
+displeased with an innovation which they had no wish to adopt; and their
+warm expressions of dissatisfaction induced the Lord Keeper to cover his
+disinterestedness with a harmless fiction. To pacify the indignant
+Chiefs and the many persons who sympathized with them, he pretended that
+though he had declined intentionally the gifts of the Chancery
+barristers, he had not designed to exercise the same self-denial with
+regard to the gifts of Chancery officers.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p>
+
+<p>The common law chiefs were slow to follow in the Lord Keeper's steps,
+and many years passed before the reform, effected in Chancery by
+accident or design, or by a lucky combination of both, was adopted in
+the other great courts. In his memoir of Lord Cowper, Campbell observes:
+"His example with respect to New Year's Gifts was not speedily followed;
+and it is said that till very recently the Chief Justice of the Common
+Pleas invited the officers of his court to a dinner at the beginning of
+the year, when each of them deposited under his plate a present in the
+shape of a Bank of England note, instead of a gift of oxen roaring at
+his levee, as in ruder times." There is no need to remind the reader in
+this place of the many veracious and the many apocryphal stories
+concerning the basket justices of Fielding's time&mdash;stories showing that
+in law courts of the lowest sort applicants for justice were accustomed
+to fee the judges with victuals and drink until a comparatively recent
+date.</p>
+
+<p>Lucky would it have been for the first Earl of Macclesfield if the
+custom of selling places in Chancery had been put an end to forever by
+the Lord Keeper who abolished the custom of New Year's Gifts; but the
+judge who at the sacrifice of one-fourth of his official income swept
+away the pernicious usage which had from time immemorial marked the
+opening of each year, saw no reason why he should purge Chancery of
+another scarcely less objectionable practice. Following the steps of
+their predecessors, the Chancellors Cowper, Harcourt, and Macclesfield
+sold subordinate offices in their court; and whereas all previous
+Chancellors had been held blameless for so doing, Lord Macclesfield was
+punished with official degradation, fine, imprisonment, and obloquy.</p>
+
+<p>By birth as humble<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> as any layman who before or since his time has
+held the seals, Thomas Parker raised himself to the woolsack by great
+talents and honorable industry. As an advocate he won the respect of
+society and his profession; as a judge he ranks with the first
+expositors of English law. Although for imputed corruption he was hurled
+with ignominy from his high place, no one has ventured to charge him
+with venality on the bench. That he was a spotless character, or that
+his career was marked by grandeur of purpose, it would be difficult to
+establish; but few Englishmen could at the present time be found to deny
+that he was in the main an upright peer, who was not wittingly
+neglectful of his duty to the country which had loaded him with wealth
+and honors.</p>
+
+<p>Amongst the many persons ruined by the bursting of the South Sea Bubble
+were certain Masters of Chancery, who had thrown away on that wild
+speculation large sums of which they were the official guardians. Lord
+Macclesfield was one of the victims on whom the nation wreaked its wrath
+at a crisis when universal folly had produced universal disaster. To
+punish the masters for their delinquencies was not enough; greater
+sacrifices than a few comparatively obscure placemen were demanded by
+the suitors and wards whose money had been squandered by the fraudulent
+trustees. The Lord Chancellor should be made responsible for the
+Chancery defalcations. That was the will of the country. No one
+pretended that Lord Macclesfield had originated the practice which
+permitted Masters in Chancery to speculate with funds placed under their
+care; attorneys and merchants were well aware that in the days of
+Harcourt, Cowper, Wright, and Somers, it had been usual for masters to
+pocket interest accruing from suitors' money; notorious also was it
+that, though the Chancellor was theoretically the trustee of the money
+confided to his court, the masters were its actual custodians. Had the
+Chancellor known that the masters were trafficking in dangerous
+investments to the probable loss of the public, duty would have required
+him to examine their accounts and place all trust-moneys beyond their
+reach; but until the crash came, Lord Macclesfield knew neither the
+actual worthlessness of the South Sea Stock, nor the embarrassed
+circumstances of the defaulting masters, nor the peril of the persons
+committed to his care. The system which permitted the masters to
+speculate with money not their own was execrable, but the Lord
+Chancellor was not the parent of that system.</p>
+
+<p>Infuriated by the national calamity, in which they were themselves great
+sufferers, the Commons impeached the Chancellor, charging him with high
+crimes and misdemeanors, of which the peers unanimously declared him
+guilty. In this famous trial the great fact established against his
+lordship was that he had sold masterships to the defaulters. It appeared
+that he had not only sold the places, but had stood out for very high
+prices; the inference being, that in consideration of these large sums
+he had left the purchasers without the supervision usually exercised by
+Chancellors over such officers, and had connived at the practices which
+had been followed by ruinous results. To this it was replied, that if
+the Chancellor had sold the places at higher prices than his
+predecessors, he had done so because the places had become much more
+valuable; that at the worst he had but sold them to the highest bidder,
+after the example of his precursors; that the inference was not
+supported by any direct testimony.</p>
+
+<p>Very humorous was some of the evidence by which the sale of the
+masterships was proved. Master Elde deposed that he bought his office
+for 5000 guineas, the bargain being finally settled and fulfilled after
+a personal interview with the accused lord. Master Thurston, another
+purchaser at the high rate of 5000 guineas, paid his money to Lady
+Macclesfield. It must be owned that these sums were very large, but
+their magnitude does not fix fraudulent purpose upon the Chancellor.
+That he believed himself fairly entitled to a moderate present on
+appointing to a mastership is certain; that he regarded &pound;2000 as the
+gratuity which he might accept, without blushing at its publication, may
+be inferred from the restitution of &pound;3250 which he made to one of the
+purchasers for &pound;5250 at a time when he anticipated an inquiry into his
+conduct; that he felt himself acting indiscreetly if not wrongfully in
+pressing for such large sums is testified by the caution with which he
+conferred with the purchasers and the secrecy with which he accepted
+their money.</p>
+
+<p>His defence before the peers admitted the sales of the places, but
+maintained that the transactions were legitimate.</p>
+
+<p>The defence was of no avail. When the question of guilty or not guilty
+was put to the peers, each of the noble lords present answered, "Guilty,
+upon my honor." Sentenced to pay a fine of &pound;30,000, and undergo
+imprisonment until the mulct was paid, the unfortunate statesman
+bitterly repented the imprudence which had exposed him to the vengeance
+of political adversaries and to the enmity of the vulgar. Whilst the
+passions roused by the prosecution were at their height, the fallen
+Chancellor was treated with much harshness by Parliament, and with
+actual brutality by the mob. Ever ready to vilify lawyers, the rabble
+seized on so favorable an occasion for giving expression to one of their
+strongest prejudices. Amongst the crowds who followed the Earl to the
+Tower with curses, voices were heard to exclaim that "Staffordshire had
+produced the three greatest scoundrels of England&mdash;Jack Sheppard,
+Jonathan Wilde, and Tom Parker." Jonathan Wilde was executed in
+1725&mdash;the year of Lord Macclesfield's impeachment; and Jack Sheppard
+died on the gallows at Tyburn, November 16, 1724.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout the inquiry, and after the adverse verdict, George I.
+persisted in showing favor to the disgraced Chancellor; and when the
+violent emotions of the crisis had passed away it was generally admitted
+by enlightened critics of public events that Lord Macclesfield had been
+unfairly treated. The scape-goat of popular wrath, he suffered less for
+his own faults, than for the evil results of a bad system; and at the
+present time&mdash;when the silence of more than a hundred and thirty years
+rests upon his tomb&mdash;Englishmen, with one voice, acknowledge the
+valuable qualities that raised him to eminence, and regret the
+proceedings which consigned him in his old age to humiliation and gloom.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> It should be observed that many persons are of opinion
+that the Lord Keeper's assertion on this point was not an artifice, but
+a simple statement of fact. To those who take this view, his lordship's
+position seems alike ridiculous and respectable&mdash;respectable because he
+actually intended to forbear from taking the barrister's money;
+ridiculous because, through clumsy and inadequate arrangements, he
+missed the other and not less precious gifts which he did not mean to
+decline. Anyhow, the critics admit that credit is due to him for
+persisting in a change&mdash;wrought in the first instance partly by
+honorable design and partly by accident.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> The cases of John Scott, Philip Yorke, and Edward Sugden
+are before the mind of the present writer, when he pens the sentence to
+which this note refers. The social extraction of the English bar will be
+considered in a later chapter of this work.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>A ROD PICKLED BY WILLIAM COLE.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>"A proneness to take bribes may be generated from the habit of taking
+fees," said Lord Keeper Williams in his Inaugural Address, making an
+ungenerous allusion to Francis Bacon, whilst he uttered a statement
+which was no calumny upon King James's Bench and Bar, though it is
+signally inapplicable to lawyers of the present day.</p>
+
+<p>Of Williams, tradition preserves a story that illustrates the prevalence
+of judicial corruption in the seventeenth century, and the jealousy with
+which that Right Reverend Lord Keeper watched for attempts to tamper
+with his honesty. Whilst he was taking exercise in the Great Park of
+Nonsuch House, his attention was caught by a church recently erected at
+the cost of a rich Chancery suitor. Having expressed satisfaction with
+the church, Williams inquired of George Minors, "Has he not a suit
+depending in Chancery?" and on receiving an answer in the affirmative,
+observed, "he shall not fare the worse for building of churches." These
+words being reported to the pious suitor, he not illogically argued that
+the Keeper was a judge likely to be influenced in making his decisions
+by matters distinct from the legal merits of the case put before him.
+Acting on this impression, the good man forthwith sent messengers to
+Nonsuch House, bearing gifts of fruits and poultry to the holder of the
+seals. "Nay, carry them back," cried the judge, looking with a grim
+smile from the presents to George Minors; "nay, carry them back, George,
+and tell your friend that he shall not fare the better for sending of
+presents."</p>
+
+<p>Rich in satire directed against law and its professors, the literature
+of the Commonwealth affords conclusive testimony of the low esteem in
+which lawyers were held in the seventeenth century by the populace, and
+shows how universal was the belief that wearers of ermine and gentlemen
+of the long robe would practice any sort of fraud or extortion for the
+sake of personal advantage. In the pamphlets and broadsides, in the
+squibs and ballads of the period, may be found a wealth of quaint
+narrative and broad invective, setting forth the rascality of judges and
+attorneys, barristers and scriveners. Any literary effort to throw
+contempt upon the law was sure of success. The light jesters, who made
+merry with the phraseology and costumes of Westminster Hall, were only a
+few degrees less welcome than the stronger and more indignant scribes
+who cried aloud against the sins and sinners of the courts. When simple
+folk had expended their rage in denunciations of venal eloquence and
+unjust judgments, they amused themselves with laughing at the antiquated
+verbiage of the rascals who sought to conceal their bad morality under
+worse Latin. 'A New Modell, or the Conversion of the Infidell Terms of
+the Law: For the Better promoting of misunderstanding according to
+Common Sense,' is a publication consisting of a cover or fly-leaf and
+two leaves, that appeared about a year before the Restoration. The wit
+is not brilliant; its humor is not free from uncleanness; but its comic
+renderings<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> of a hundred law terms illustrate the humor of the
+times.</p>
+
+<p>More serious in aim, but not less comical in result, is William Cole's
+'A Rod for the Lawyers. London, Printed in the year 1659.' The preface
+of this mad treatise ends thus&mdash;"I do not altogether despair but that
+before I dye I may see the Inns of Courts, or dens of Thieves, converted
+into Hospitals, which were a rare piece of justice; that as they
+formerly have immured those that robbed the poor of houses, so they may
+at last preserve the poor themselves."</p>
+
+<p>Another book touching on the same subject and belonging to the same
+period, is, 'Sagrir, or Doomsday drawing nigh; With Thunder and
+Lightning to Lawyers, (1653) by John Rogers.'</p>
+
+<p>Violent, even for a man holding Fifth-Monarchy views, John Rogers
+prefers a lengthy indictment against lawyers, for whose delinquencies
+and heinous offence he admits neither apology nor palliation. In his
+opinion all judges deserve the death of Arnold and Hall, whose last
+moments were provided for by the hangman. The wearers of the long robe
+are perjurers, thieves, enemies of mankind; their institutions are
+hateful, and their usages abominable. In olden time they were less
+powerful and rapacious. But prosperity soon exaggerated all their evil
+qualities. Sketching the rise of the profession, the author
+observes&mdash;"These men would get sometimes Parents, Friends, Brothers,
+Neighbors, sometimes <i>others</i> to be (in their absence) Agents, Factors,
+or Solicitors for them at Westminster, and as yet they had no stately
+houses or mansions to live in, as they have now (called Inns of Court),
+but they lodged like countrymen or strangers in ordinary Inns. But
+afterwards, when the interests of lawyers began to look big (as in
+Edward III.'s days), they got mansions or colleges, which they called
+Inns, and by the king's favor had an addition of honor, whence they were
+called Inns of Court."<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></p>
+
+<p>The familiar anecdotes which are told as illustrations of Chief Justice
+Hale's integrity are very ridiculous, but they serve to show that the
+judges of his time were believed to be very accessible to corrupt
+influences. During his tenure of the Chiefship of the Exchequer, Hale
+rode the Western Circuit, and met with the loyal reception usually
+accorded to judges on circuit in his day. Amongst other attentions
+offered to the judges on this occasion was a present of venison from a
+wealthy gentleman who was concerned in a cause that was in due course
+called for hearing. No sooner was the call made than Chief Baron Hale
+resolved to place his reputation for judicial honesty above suspicion,
+and the following scene occurred:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Lord Chief Baron.</i>&mdash;'Is this plaintiff the gentleman of the same name
+who hath sent me the venison?' <i>Judge's servant.</i>&mdash;'Yes, please you, my
+lord.' <i>Lord Chief Baron.</i>&mdash;'Stop a bit, then. Do not yet swear the
+jury. I cannot allow the trial to go on till I have paid him for his
+buck!' <i>Plaintiff.</i>&mdash;'I would have your lordship to know that neither
+myself nor my forefathers have ever sold venison, and I have done
+nothing to your lordship which we have not done to every judge that has
+come this circuit for centuries bygone.' <i>Magistrate of the
+County.</i>&mdash;'My lord, I can confirm what the gentleman says for truth, for
+twenty years back.' <i>Other Magistrates.</i>&mdash;'And we, my lord, know the
+same.' <i>Lord Chief Baron.</i>&mdash;'That is nothing to me. The Holy Scripture
+says, 'A gift perverteth the ways of judgment.' I will not suffer the
+trial to go on till the venison is paid for. Let my butler count down
+the full value thereof.' <i>Plaintiff.</i>&mdash;'I will not disgrace myself and
+my ancestors by becoming a venison butcher. From the needless dread of
+<i>selling</i> justice, your lordship <i>delays</i> it. I withdraw my record.'"</p>
+
+<p>As far as good taste and dignity were concerned, the gentleman of the
+West Country was the victor in this absurd contest: on the other hand,
+Hale had the venison for nothing, and was relieved of the trouble of
+hearing the cause.</p>
+
+<p>In the same manner Hale insisted on paying for six loaves of sugar which
+the Dean and Chapter of Salisbury sent to his lodgings, in accordance
+with ancient usage. Similar cases of the judge's readiness to construe
+courtesies as bribes may be found in notices of trials and books of
+<i>ana</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>A propos</i> of these stories of Hale's squeamishness, Lord Campbell tells
+the following good anecdote of Baron Graham: "The late Baron Graham
+related to me the following anecdote to show that he had more firmness
+than Judge Hale:&mdash;'There was a baronet of ancient family with whom the
+judges going the Western Circuit had always been accustomed to dine.
+When I went that circuit I heard that a cause, in which he was
+plaintiff, was coming on for trial: but the usual invitation was
+received, and lest the people might suppose that judges could be
+influenced by a dinner; I accepted it. The defendant, a neighboring
+squire, being dreadfully alarmed by this intelligence, said to himself,
+'Well, if Sir John entertains the judge hospitably, I do not see why I
+should not do the same by the jury.' So he invited to dinner the whole
+of the special jury summoned to try the cause. Thereupon the baronet's
+courage failed him, and he withdrew the record, so that the cause was
+not tried; and although I had my dinner, I escaped all suspicion of
+partiality."</p>
+
+<p>This story puts the present writer in mind of another story which he has
+heard told in various ways, the wit of it being attributed by different
+narrators to two judges who have left the bench for another world, and a
+Master of Chancery who is still alive. On the present occasion the
+Master of Chancery shall figure as the humorist of the anecdote.</p>
+
+<p>Less than twenty years since, in one of England's southern counties, two
+neighboring landed proprietors differed concerning their respective
+rights over some unenclosed land, and also about certain rights of
+fishing in an adjacent stream. The one proprietor was the richest
+baronet, the other the poorest squire of the county; and they agreed to
+settle their dispute by arbitration. Our Master in Chancery, slightly
+known to both gentlemen, was invited to act as arbitrator after
+inspecting the localities in dispute. The invitation was accepted and
+the master visited the scene of disagreement, on the understanding that
+he should give up two days to the matter. It was arranged that on the
+first day he should walk over the squire's estate, and hear the squire's
+uncontradicted version of the case, dining at the close of the day with
+both contendents at the squire's table; and that on the second day,
+having walked over the baronet's estate, and heard without interruption
+the other side of the story, he should give his award, sitting over wine
+after dinner at the rich man's table. At the close of the first day the
+squire entertained his wealthy neighbor and the arbitrator at dinner.
+In accordance with the host's means, the dinner was modest but
+sufficient. It consisted of three fried soles, a roast leg of mutton,
+and vegetables; three pancakes, three pieces of cheese, three small
+loaves of bread, ale, and a bottle of sherry. On the removal of the
+viands, three magnificent apples, together with a magnum of port, were
+placed on the table by way of dessert. At the close of the second day
+the trio dined at the baronet's table, when it appeared that, struck by
+the simplicity of the previous day's dinner, and rightly attributing the
+absence of luxuries to the narrowness of the host's purse, the wealthy
+disputant had resolved not to attempt to influence the umpire by giving
+him a superior repast. Sitting at another table the trio dined on
+exactly the same fare,&mdash;three fried soles, a roast leg of mutton, and
+vegetables; three pancakes, three pieces of cheese, three small loaves
+of bread, ale, and a bottle of sherry; and for dessert three magnificent
+apples, together with a magnum of port. The dinner being over, the
+apples devoured, and the last glass of port drunk, the arbitrator (his
+eyes twinkling brightly as he spoke) introduced his award with the
+following exordium:&mdash;"Gentlemen, I have with all proper attention
+considered your <i>sole</i> reasons: I have taken due notice of your <i>joint</i>
+reasons, and I have come to the conclusion that your <i>des(s)erts</i> are
+about equal."</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> Of these renderings the subjoined may be taken as
+favorable specimens:&mdash;"Breve originale, original sinne; capias, a catch
+to a sad tune; alias capias, another to the same (sad tune); habeas
+corpus, a trooper; capias ad satisfaciend., a hangman: latitat, bo-peep;
+nisi prius, first come first served; demurrer, hum and haw; scandal.
+magnat., down with the Lords."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> Even vacations stink in the nostrils of Mr. Rogers; for he
+maintains that they are not so much periods when lawyers cease from
+their odious practices, as times of repose and recreation wherein they
+gain fresh vigor and daring for the commission of further outrages, and
+allow their unhappy victims to acquire just enough wealth to render them
+worth the trouble of despoiling.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>CHIEF JUSTICE POPHAM.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>One of the strangest cases of corruption amongst English Judges still
+remains to be told on the slender authority which is the sole foundation
+of the weighty accusation. In comparatively recent times there have not
+been many eminent Englishmen to whom 'tradition's simple tongue' has
+been more hostile than Queen Elizabeth's Lord Chief Justice, Popham. The
+younger son of a gentle family, John Popham passed from Oxford to the
+Middle Temple, raised himself to the honors of the ermine, secured the
+admiration of illustrious contemporaries, in his latter years gained
+abundant praise for wholesome severity towards footpads, and at his
+death left behind him a name&mdash;which, tradition informs us, belonged to a
+man who in his reckless youth, and even after his call to the bar, was a
+cut-purse and highwayman. In mitigation of his conduct it is urged by
+those who credit the charge, that young gentlemen of his date were so
+much addicted to the lawless excitement of the road, that when he was
+still a beardless stripling, an act (1 Ed. VI. c. 12, s. 14) was passed,
+whereby any peer of the realm or lord of parliament, on a first
+conviction for robbery, was entitled to benefit of clergy, though he
+could not read. But bearing in mind the liberties which rumor is wont to
+take with the names of eminent persons, the readiness the multitude
+always display to attribute light morals to grave men, and the
+infrequency of the cases where a dissolute youth is the prelude to a
+manhood of strenuous industry and an old age of honor&mdash;the cautious
+reader will require conclusive testimony before he accepts Popham's
+connection with 'the road' as one of the unassailable facts of history.</p>
+
+<p>The authority for this grave charge against a famous judge is John
+Aubrey, the antiquary, who was born in 1627, just twenty years after
+Popham's death. "For severall yeares," this collector says of the Chief
+Justice, "he addicted himself but little to the studie of the lawes, but
+profligate company, and was wont to take a purse with them. His wife
+considered her and his condition, and at last prevailed with him to
+lead another life and to stick to the studie of the lawe, which, upon
+her importunity, he did, being then about thirtie yours old." As Popham
+was born in 1531, he withdrew, according to this account, from the
+company of gentle highwaymen about the year 1561&mdash;more than sixty years
+before Aubrey's birth, and more than a hundred years before the
+collector committed the scandalous story to writing. The worth of such
+testimony is not great. Good stories are often fixed upon eminent men
+who had no part in the transactions thereby attributed to them. If this
+writer were to put into a private note-book a pleasant but unauthorized
+anecdote imputing <i>kleptomania</i> to Chief Justice Wiles (who died in
+1761), and fifty years hence the note-book should be discovered in a
+dirty corner of a forgotten closet and published to the world&mdash;would
+readers in the twentieth century be justified in holding that Sir John
+Willes was an eccentric thief?</p>
+
+<p>But Aubrey tells a still stranger story concerning Popham, when he sets
+forth the means by which the judge made himself lord of Littlecote Hall
+in Wiltshire. The case must be given in the narrator's own words.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Richard Dayrell of Littlecot in com. Wilts. having got his lady's
+waiting-woman with child, when her travell came sent a servant with a
+horse for a midwife, whom he was to bring hoodwinked. She was brought,
+and layd the woman; but as soon as the child was born, she saw the
+knight take the child and murther it, and burn it in the fire in the
+chamber. She having done her business was extraordinarily rewarded for
+her paines, and went blindfold away. This horrid action did much run in
+her mind, and she had a desire to discover it, but knew not where 'twas.
+She considered with herself the time she was riding, and how many miles
+she might have rode at that rate in that time, and that it must be some
+great person's house, for the roome was twelve foot high: and she
+should know the chamber if she sawe it. She went to a justice of peace,
+and search was made. The very chamber found. The knight was brought to
+his tryall; and, to be short, this judge had this noble house, park, and
+manor, and (I think) more, for a bribe to save his life. Sir John Popham
+gave sentence according to lawe, but being a great person and a
+favorite, he procured a <i>nolle prosequi</i>."</p>
+
+<p>This ghastly tale of crime following upon crime has been reproduced by
+later writers with various exaggerations and modifications. Dramas and
+novels have been founded upon it; and a volume might be made of the
+ballads and songs to which it has given birth. In some versions the
+corrupt judge does not even go through the form of passing sentence, but
+secures an acquittal from the jury; according to one account, the
+mother, instead of the infant, was put to death; according to another,
+the erring woman was the murderer's daughter, instead of his wife's
+waiting-woman; another writer, assuming credit as a conscientious
+narrator of facts, places the crime in the eighteenth instead of the
+sixteenth century, and transforms the venal judge into a clever
+barrister.</p>
+
+<p>In a highly seasoned statement of the repulsive tradition communicated
+by Lord Webb Seymour to Walter Scott, the murder is described with
+hideous minuteness.</p>
+
+<p>Changing the midwife into 'a Friar of orders grey,' and murdering the
+mother instead of the baby, Sir Walter Scott revived the story in one of
+his most popular ballads. But of all the versions of the tradition that
+have come under this writer's notice, the one that departs most widely
+from Aubrey's statement is given in Mr. G.L. Rede's 'Anecdotes and
+Biography,' (1799).</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>JUDICIAL SALARIES.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>For the last three hundred years the law has been a lucrative
+profession, our great judges during that period having in many instances
+left behind them large fortunes, earned at the bar or acquired from
+official emoluments. The rental of Egerton's landed estates was &pound;8,000
+per annum&mdash;a royal income in the days of Elizabeth and James. Maynard
+left great wealth to his grand-daughters, Lady Hobart and Mary Countess
+of Stamford. Lord Mansfield's favorite investment was mortgage; and
+towards the close of his life the income which he derived for moneys
+lent on sound mortgages was &pound;30,000 per annum. When Lord Kenyon had lost
+his eldest son, he observed to Mr. Justice Allan Park&mdash;"How delighted
+George would be to take his poor brother from the earth and restore him
+to life, although he receives &pound;250,000 by his decease." Lord Eldon is
+said to have left to his descendants &pound;500,000; and his brother, Lord
+Stowell, to whom we are indebted for the phrase 'the elegant simplicity
+of the Three per Cents.,' also acquired property that at the time of his
+death yielded &pound;12,000 per annum.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Stowell's personalty was sworn under &pound;230,000, and he had invested
+considerable sums in land. It is noteworthy that this rich lawyer did
+not learn to be contented with the moderate interest of the Three per
+Cents. until he had sustained losses from bad speculations. Notable also
+is it that this rich lawyer&mdash;whose notorious satisfaction with three per
+cent. interest has gained for him a reputation of noble indifference to
+gain&mdash;was inordinately fond of money.</p>
+
+<p>These great fortunes were raised from fees taken in practice at the
+bar, from judicial salaries or pensions, and from other official
+gains&mdash;such as court dues, perquisites, sinecures, and allowances. Since
+the Revolution of 1688 these last named irregular or fluctuating sources
+of judicial income have steadily diminished, and in the present day have
+come to an end. Eldon's receipts during his tenure of the seals cannot
+be definitely stated, but more is known about them and his earnings at
+the bar than he intended the world to discover, when he declared in
+Parliament "that in no one year, since he had been made Lord Chancellor,
+had he received the same amount of profit which he enjoyed while at the
+bar." Whilst he was Attorney General he earned something more than
+&pound;10,000 a year; and in returns which he himself made to the House of
+Commons, he admits that in 1810 he received, as Lord Chancellor, a gross
+income of &pound;22,730, from which sum, after deduction of all expenses,
+there remained a net income of &pound;17,000 per annum. He was enabled also to
+enrich the members of his family with presentations to offices, and
+reversions of places.</p>
+
+<p>Until comparatively recent times, judges were dangerously dependent on
+the king's favor; for they not only held their offices during the
+pleasure of the crown, but on dismissal they could not claim a retiring
+pension. In the seventeenth century, an aged judge, worn out by toil and
+length of days, was deemed a notable instance of royal generosity, if he
+obtained a small allowance on relinquishing his place in court. Chief
+Justice Hale, on his retirement, was signally favored when Charles II.
+graciously promised to continue his salary till the end of his
+life&mdash;which was manifestly near its close. Under the Stuarts, the judges
+who lost their places for courageous fidelity to law, were wont to
+resume practice at the bar. To provide against the consequences of
+ejection from office, great lawyers, before they consented to exchange
+the gains of advocacy for the uncertain advantages of the woolsack, used
+to stipulate for special allowance&mdash;over and above the ancient
+emoluments of place. Lord Nottingham had an allowance of &pound;4000 per
+annum; and Lord Guildford, after a struggle for better times, was
+constrained, at a cost of mental serenity, to accept the seals, with a
+special salary of half that sum.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></p>
+
+<p>From 1688 down to the present time, the chronicler of changes in the
+legal profession, has to notice a succession of alterations in the
+system and scale of judicial payments&mdash;all of the innovations having a
+tendency to raise the dignity of the bench. Under William and Mary, an
+allowance (still continued), was made to holders of the seal on their
+appointment, for the cost of outfit and equipages. The amount of this
+special aid was &pound;2000, but fees reduced it to &pound;1843 13<i>s.</i> Mr. Foss
+observes&mdash;"The earliest existing record of this allowance, is dated June
+4, 1700, when Sir Nathan Wright was made Lord Keeper, which states it to
+be the same sum as had been allowed to his predecessor."</p>
+
+<p>At the same period, the salary of a puisne judge was but &pound;1000 a year&mdash;a
+sum that would have been altogether insufficient for his expenses. A
+considerable part of a puisne's remuneration consisted of fees,
+perquisites, and presents. Amongst the customary presents to judges at
+this time, may be mentioned the <i>white gloves</i>, which men convicted of
+manslaughter, presented to the judges when they pleaded the king's
+pardon; the <i>sugar loaves</i>, which the Warden of the Fleet annually sent
+to the judges of the Common Pleas; and the almanacs yearly distributed
+amongst the occupants of the bench by the Stationers' Company. From one
+of these almanacs, in which Judge Rokeby kept his accounts, it appears
+that in the year 1694, the casual profits of his place amounted to &pound;694,
+4<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> Here is the list of his official incomes, (net) for ten
+years:&mdash;in 1689, &pound;1378, 10<i>s.</i>; in 1690, &pound;1475, 10<i>s.</i> 10<i>d.</i>; in 1691,
+&pound;2063, 18<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i>; in 1692, &pound;1570, 1<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i>; in 1693, &pound;1569, 13<i>s.</i>
+1<i>d.</i>; in 1694, &pound;1629, 4<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>; in 1695, &pound;1443, 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>; in
+1696, &pound;1478, 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>; in 1697, &pound;1498, 11<i>s.</i> 11<i>d.</i>; in 1698, &pound;1631,
+10<i>s.</i> 11<i>d.</i> The fluctuation of the amounts in this list, is worthy of
+observation; as it points to one bad consequence of the system of paying
+judges by fees, gratuities, and uncertain perquisites. A needy judge,
+whose income in lucky years was over two thousand pounds, must have been
+sadly pinched in years when he did not receive fifteen hundred.</p>
+
+<p>Under the heading, "The charges of my coming into my judge's place, and
+the taxes upon it the first yeare and halfe," Judge Rokeby gives the
+following particulars:</p>
+
+<p>"1689, May 11. To Mr. Milton, Deputy Clerk of the Crown, as per note,
+for the patent and swearing privately, &pound;21, 6<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> May 30. To Mr.
+English, charges of the patent at the Secretary of State's Office, as
+per note, said to be a new fee, &pound;6, 10<i>s.</i> Inrolling the patent in
+Exchequer and Treasury, &pound;2, 3<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> Ju. 27. Wine given as a judge,
+as per vintner's note, &pound;23, 19<i>s.</i> Ju. 24. Cakes, given as a judge, as
+per vintner's note, &pound;5, 14<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> Second-hand judge's robes, with
+some new lining, &pound;31. Charges for my part of the patent for our salarys,
+to Aaron Smith, &pound;7, 15<i>s.</i>, and the dormant warrant &pound;3.&mdash;&pound;10,
+15<i>s.</i>&mdash;&pound;101, 8<i>s.</i> 2<i>d.</i></p>
+
+<p>"Taxes, &pound;420.</p>
+
+<p>"The charges of my being made a serjeant-at-law, and of removing myselfe
+and family to London, and a new coach and paire of horses, and of my
+knighthood (all which were within the first halfe year of my coming from
+York), upon the best calculation I can make of them, were att least
+&pound;600."</p>
+
+<p>Concerning the expenses attendant on his removal from the Common Pleas
+to the King's Bench in 1695&mdash;a removal which had an injurious result
+upon his income&mdash;the judge records: Nov. 1. To Mr. Partridge, the Crier
+of King's Bench, claimed by him as a fee due to the 2 criers, &pound;2. Nov.
+12. To Mr. Ralph Hall, in full of the Clerk of the Crown's bill for my
+patent, and swearing at the Lord Keeper's, and passing it through the
+offices, &pound;28, 14<i>s.</i> 2<i>d.</i> Dec. 6. To Mr. Carpenter, the Vintner, for
+wine and bottles, &pound;22, 10<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> To Gwin, the Confectioner, for
+cakes, &pound;5, 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> To Mr. Mand (his clerk), which he paid att the
+Treasury, and att the pell for my patent, allowed there, &pound;1, 15<i>s.</i> Tot.
+&pound;60, 2<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i> The charges for wine and cakes were consequences of a
+custom which required a new judge to send biscuits and macaroons, sack
+and claret, to his brethren of the bench.</p>
+
+<p>In the reign of George I. the salaries of the common law judges were
+raised&mdash;the pensions of the chiefs being doubled, and the <i>puisnes</i>
+receiving fifteen hundred instead of a thousand pounds.</p>
+
+<p>Cowper's incomes during his tenure of the seals varied between something
+over seven and something under nine thousand per annum: but there is
+some reason to believe that on accepting office, he stipulated for a
+handsome yearly salary, in case he should be called upon to relinquish
+the place. Evelyn, not a very reliable authority, but still a chronicler
+worthy of notice even on questions of fact, says:&mdash;"Oct. 1705. Mr.
+Cowper made Lord Keeper. Observing how uncertain greate officers are of
+continuing long in their places, he would not accept it unless &pound;2,000 a
+yeare were given him in reversion when he was put out, in consideration
+of his loss of practice. His predecessors, how little time soever they
+had the seal, usually got &pound;100,000, and made themselves barons." It is
+doubtful whether this bargain was actually made; but long after
+Cowper's time, lawyers about to mount the woolsack, insisted on having
+terms that should compensate them for loss of practice. Lord
+Macclesfield had a special salary of &pound;4000 per annum, during his
+occupancy of the marble chair, and obtained a grant of &pound;12,000 from the
+king;&mdash;a tellership in the Exchequer being also bestowed upon his eldest
+son. Lord King obtained even better terms&mdash;a salary of &pound;6000 per annum
+from the Post Office, and &pound;1200 from the Hanaper Office; this large
+income being granted to him in consideration of the injury done to the
+Chancellor's emoluments by the proceedings against Lord
+Macclesfield&mdash;whereby it was declared illegal for chancellors to sell
+the subordinate offices in the Court of Chancery. This arrangement&mdash;giving
+the Chancellor an increased salary in <i>lieu</i> of the sums which he
+could no longer raise by sales of offices&mdash;is conclusive testimony that
+in the opinion of the crown Lord Macclesfield had a right to sell the
+masterships. The terms made by Lord Northington, in 1766, on resigning
+the Seals and becoming President of the Council, illustrate this custom.
+On quitting the marble chair, he obtained an immediate pension of &pound;2000
+per annum; and an agreement that the annual payment should be made &pound;4000
+per annum, as soon as he retired from the Presidency: he also obtained
+a reversionary grant for two lives of the lucrative office of Clerk of
+the Hanaper in Chancery.</p>
+
+<p>In Lord Chancellor King's time, amongst the fees and perquisites which
+he wished to regulate and reform were the supplies of stationery,
+provided by the country for the great law-officers. It may be supposed
+that the sum thus expended on paper, pens, and wax was an insignificant
+item in the national expenditure; but such was not the case&mdash;for the
+chief of the courts were accustomed to place their personal friends on
+the free-list for articles of stationery. The Archbishop of Dublin, a
+dignitary well able to pay for his own writing materials, wrote to Lord
+King, April 10, 1733: "<span class="smcap">My Lord</span>,&mdash;Ever since I had the honor of
+being acquainted with Lord Chancellors, I have lived in England and
+Ireland upon Chancery paper, pens, and wax. I am not willing to lose an
+old advantageous custom. If your Lordship hath any to spare me by my
+servant, you will oblige your very humble servant,</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 25em;">
+"<span class="smcap">John Dublin</span>."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>So long as judges or subordinate officers were paid by casual
+perquisites and fees, paid directly to them by suitors, a taint of
+corruption lingered in the practice of our courts. Long after judges
+ceased to sell injustice, they delayed justice from interested motives,
+and when questions concerning their perquisites were raised, they would
+sometimes strain a point, for the sake of their own private advantage.
+Even Lord Ellenborough, whose fame is bright amongst the reputations of
+honorable men, could not always exercise self-control when attempts were
+made to lessen his customary profits, "I never," writes Lord Campbell,
+"saw this feeling at all manifest itself in Lord Ellenborough except
+once, when a question arose whether money paid into court was liable to
+poundage. I was counsel in the case, and threw him into a furious
+passion, by strenuously resisting the demand; the poundage was to go
+into his own pocket&mdash;being payable to the chief clerk&mdash;an office held in
+trust for him. If he was in any degree influenced by this consideration,
+I make no doubt that he was wholly unconscious of it."</p>
+
+<p>George III.'s reign witnessed the introduction of changes long required,
+and frequently demanded in the mode and amounts of judicial payments. In
+1779, puisne judges and barons received an additional &pound;400 per annum,
+and the Chief Baron an increase of &pound;500 a year. Twenty years later,
+Stat. 39, Geo. III., c. 110, gave the Master of the Rolls, &pound;4000 a
+year, the Lord Chief Baron &pound;4000 a year, and each of the puisne judges
+and barons, &pound;3000 per annum. By the same act also, life-pensions of
+&pound;4000 per annum were secured to retiring holders of the seal, and it was
+provided that after fifteen years of service, or in case of incurable
+infirmity, the Chief Justice of the King's Bench could claim, on
+retirement, &pound;3000 per annum, the Master of the Rolls, Chief of Common
+Pleas, and Chief Baron &pound;2500 per annum, and each minor judge of those
+courts or Baron of the coif, &pound;2000 a year. In 1809, (49 Geo. III., c.
+127) the Lord Chief Baron's annual salary was raised to &pound;5000; whilst a
+yearly stipend of &pound;4000 was assigned to each puisne judge or baron. By
+53 Geo. III., c. 153, the Chiefs and Master of the Rolls, received on
+retirement an additional yearly &pound;800, and the puisnes an additional
+yearly &pound;600. A still more important reform of George III.'s reign was
+the creation of the first Vice Chancellor in March, 1813. Rank was
+assigned to the new functionary next after the Master of the Rolls, and
+his salary was fixed at &pound;5000 per annum.</p>
+
+<p>Until the reign of George IV. judges continued to take fees and
+perquisites; but by 6 Geo. IV. c. 82, 83, 84, it was arranged that the
+fees should be paid into the Exchequer, and that the undernamed great
+officers of justice should receive the following salaries and pensions
+on retirement:&mdash;</p>
+
+<table summary='pensions' width='70%' cellpadding='1'>
+<tr>
+<td>
+</td>
+<td align='right'>An. Sal.
+</td>
+<td align='right'>An. Pension<br />on retirement.
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Lord Chief Justice of King's Bench
+</td>
+<td align='right'>&pound;10,000
+</td>
+<td align='right'>&pound;4000
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Lord Chief Justice of Common Pleas
+</td>
+<td align='right'>8000
+</td>
+<td align='right'>3750
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>The Master of the Rolls
+</td>
+<td align='right'>7000
+</td>
+<td align='right'>3750
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>The Vice Chancellor of England
+</td>
+<td align='right'>6000
+</td>
+<td align='right'>3750
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>The Chief Baron of the Exchequer
+</td>
+<td align='right'>7000
+</td>
+<td align='right'>3750
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Each Puisne Baron or Judge
+</td>
+<td align='right'>5500
+</td>
+<td align='right'>3500
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<p>Moreover by this Act, the second judge of the King's Bench was
+entitled, as in the preceding reign, to &pound;40 for giving charge to the
+grand jury in each term, and pronouncing judgment on malefactors.</p>
+
+<p>The changes with regard to judicial salaries under William IV. were
+comparatively unimportant. By 2 and 3 Will. IV. c. 116, the salaries of
+puisne judges and barons were reduced to &pound;5000 a year; and by 2 and 3
+Will. IV. c. 111, the Chancellor's pension, on retirement, was raised to
+&pound;5000, the additional &pound;1000 per annum being assigned to him in
+compensation of loss of patronage occasioned by the abolition of certain
+offices. These were the most noticeable of William's provisions with
+regard to the payment of his judges.</p>
+
+<p>The present reign, which has generously given the country two new
+judges, called Lord Justices, two additional Vice Chancellors, and a
+swarm of paid justices, in the shape of county court judges and
+stipendiary magistrates, has exercised economy with regard to judicial
+salaries. The annual stipends of the two Chief Justices, fixed in 1825
+at &pound;10,000 for the Chief of the King's Bench, and &pound;8000 for the Chief of
+the Common Pleas, have been reduced, in the former case to &pound;8000 per
+annum, in the latter to &pound;7000 per annum. The Chancellor's salary for his
+services as Speaker of the House of Lords, has been made part of the
+&pound;10,000 assigned to his legal office; so that his income is no more than
+ten thousand a year. The salary of the Master of the Rolls has been
+reduced from &pound;7000 to &pound;6000 a year; the same stipend, together with a
+pension on retirement of &pound;3750, being assigned to each of the Lords
+Justices. The salary of a Vice Chancellor is &pound;5000 per annum; and after
+fifteen years' service, or in case of incurable sickness, rendering him
+unable to discharge the functions of his office, he can retire with a
+pension of &pound;3500.</p>
+
+<p>Thurlow had no pension on retirement; but with much justice Lord
+Campbell observes: "Although there was no parliamentary retired
+allowance for ex-Chancellors, they were better off than at present.
+Thurlow was a Teller of the Exchequer, and had given sinecures to all
+his relations, for one of which his nephew now receives a commutation of
+&pound;9000 a year." Lord Loughborough was the first ex-Chancellor who
+enjoyed, on retirement, a pension of &pound;4000 per annum, under Stat. 39
+Geo. III. c. 110. The next claimant for an ex-Chancellor's pension was
+Eldon, on his ejection from office in 1806; and the third claimant was
+Erskine, whom the possession of the pension did not preserve from the
+humiliation of indigence.</p>
+
+<p>Eldon's obstinate tenacity of office, was attended with one good result.
+It saved the nation much money by keeping down the number of
+ex-Chancellors entitled to &pound;4000 per annum. The frequency with which
+Governments have been changed during the last forty years has had a
+contrary effect, producing such a strong bevy of lawyers&mdash;who are
+pensioners as well as peers&mdash;that financial reformers are loudly asking
+if some scheme cannot be devised for lessening the number of these
+costly and comparatively useless personages. At the time when this page
+is written, there are four ex-Chancellors in receipt of pensions&mdash;Lords
+Brougham, St. Leonards, Cranworth, and Westbury; but death has recently
+diminished the roll of Chancellors by removing Lords Truro and
+Lyndhurst. Not long since the present writer read a very able, but
+one-sided article in a liberal newspaper that gave the sum total spent
+by the country since Lord Eldon's death in ex-Chancellors' pensions; and
+in simple truth it must be admitted that the bill was a fearful subject
+for contemplation.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> During the Commonwealth, the people, unwilling to pay
+their judges liberally, decided that a thousand a year was a sufficient
+income for a Lord Commissioner of the Great Seal.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="PART_IV" id="PART_IV"></a>PART IV.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'>COSTUME AND TOILET.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>BRIGHT AND SAD.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>From the days of the Conqueror's Chancellor, Baldrick, who is reputed to
+have invented and christened the sword-belt that bears his name, lawyers
+have been conspicuous amongst the best dressed men of their times. For
+many generations clerical discipline restrained the members of the bar
+from garments of lavish costliness and various colors, unless high rank
+and personal influence placed them above the fear of censure and
+punishment; but as soon as the law became a lay-profession, its
+members&mdash;especially those who were still young&mdash;eagerly seized the
+newest fashions of costume, and expended so much time and money on
+personal decoration, that the governors of the Inns deemed it expedient
+to make rules, with a view to check the inordinate love of gay apparel.</p>
+
+<p>By these enactments, foppish modes of dressing the hair was
+discountenanced or forbidden, not less than the use of gaudy clothes and
+bright arms. Some of these regulations have a quaint air to readers of
+this generation; and as indications of manners in past times, they
+deserve attention.</p>
+
+<p>From Dugdale's 'Origines Juridiciales,' it appears that in the earlier
+part of Henry VIII.'s reign, the students and barristers of the Inns
+were allowed great licence in settling for themselves minor points of
+costume; but before that paternal monarch died, this freedom was
+lessened. Accepting the statements of a previous chronicler, Dugdale
+observes of the members of the Middle Temple under Henry&mdash;"They have no
+order for their apparell; but every man may go as him listeth, so that
+his apparell pretend no lightness or wantonness in the wearer; for, even
+as his apparell doth shew him to be, even so he shall be esteemed among
+them." But at the period when this licence was permitted in respect of
+costume, the general discipline of the Inn was scandalously lax; the
+very next paragraph of the 'Origines' showing that the templars forbore
+to shut their gates at night, whereby "their chambers were oftentimes
+robbed, and many other misdemeanors used."</p>
+
+<p>But measures were taken to rectify the abuses and evil manners of the
+schools. In the thirty-eighth year of Henry VIII. an order was made
+"that the gentlemen of this company" (<i>i.e.</i>, the Inner Temple) "should
+reform themselves in their cut or disguised apparel, and not to have
+long beards. And that the Treasurer of this society should confer with
+the other Treasurers of Court for an uniform reformation." The
+authorities of Lincoln's Inn had already bestirred themselves to reduce
+the extravagances of dress and toilet which marked their younger and
+more frivolous fellow-members. "And for decency in Apparel," writes
+Dugdale, concerning Lincoln's Inn, "at a council held on the day of the
+Nativity of St. John the Baptist, 23 Hen. VIII. it was ordered that for
+a continual rule, to be thenceforth kept in this house, no gentleman,
+being a fellow of this house, should wear any cut or pansid hose, or
+bryches; or pansid doublet, upon pain of putting out of the house."</p>
+
+<p>Ten years later the authorities of Lincoln's Inn (33 Hen. VIII.) ordered
+that no member of the society "being in commons, or at his repast,
+should wear a beard; and whoso did, to pay double commons or repasts in
+this house during such time as he should have any beard."</p>
+
+<p>By an order of 5 Maii, 1 and 2 Philip and Mary, the gentlemen of the
+Inner Temple were forbidden to wear long beards, no member of the
+society being permitted to wear a beard of more than three weeks'
+growth. Every breach of this law was punished by the heavy fine of
+twenty shillings. In 4 and 5 of Philip and Mary it was ordered that no
+member of the Middle Temple "should thenceforth wear any great bryches
+in their hoses, made after the Dutch, Spanish, or Almon fashion; or
+lawnde upon their capps; or cut doublets, upon pain of iii<sup>s</sup> iiii<sup>d</sup>
+forfaiture for the first default, and the second time to be expelled the
+house." At Lincoln's Inn, "in 1 and 2 Philip and Mary, one M<sup>r</sup> Wyde, of
+this house, was (by special order made upon Ascension day) fined at five
+groats, for going in his study gown in Cheapside, on a Sunday, about ten
+o'clock before noon; and in Westminister Hall, in the Term time, in the
+forenoon." Mr. Wyde's offence was one of remissness rather than of
+excessive care for his personal appearance. With regard to beards in the
+same reign Lincoln's Inn exacted that such members "as had beards should
+pay 12<i>d.</i> for every meal they continued them; and every man" was
+required "to be shaven upon pain of putting out of commons."</p>
+
+<p>The orders made under Elizabeth with regard to the same or similar
+matters are even more humorous and diverse. At the Inner Temple "it was
+ordered in 36 Elizabeth (16 Junii), that if any fellow in commons, or
+lying in the Louse, did wear either hat or cloak in the Temple Church,
+hall, buttry, kitchen, or at the buttry-barr, dresser, or in the garden,
+he should forfeit for every such offence vi<sup>s</sup> viii<sup>d</sup>. And in 42 Eliz.
+(8 Febr.) that they go not in cloaks, hatts, bootes, and spurs into the
+city, but when they ride out of the town." This order was most
+displeasing to the young men of the legal academies, who were given to
+swaggering amongst the brave gallants of city ordinaries, and delighted
+in showing their rich attire at Paul's. The Templar of the Inner Temple
+who ventured to wear arms (except his dagger) in hall committed a grave
+offence, and was fined five pounds. "No fellow of this house should come
+into the hall" it was enacted at the Inner Temple, 38 Eliz. (20 Dec.)
+"with any weapons, except his dagger, or his knife, upon pain of
+forfeiting the sum of five pounds." In old time the lawyers often
+quarrelled and drew swords in hall; and the object of this regulation
+doubtless was to diminish the number of scandalous affrays. The Middle
+Temple, in 26 Eliz., made six prohibitory rules with regard to apparel,
+enacting, "1. That no ruff should be worn. 2. Nor any White color in
+doublets or hoses. 3. Nor any facing of velvet in gownes, but by such as
+were of the bench. 4. That no gentleman should walk in the streets in
+their cloaks, but in gownes. 5. That no hat, or long, or curled hair be
+worn. 6. Nor any gown, but such as were of a sad color." Of similar
+orders made at Gray's Inn, during Elizabeth's reign, the following edict
+of 42 Eliz. (Feb. 11) may be taken as a specimen:&mdash;"That no gentleman of
+this society do come into the hall, to any meal, with their hats, boots,
+or spurs; but with their caps, decently and orderly, according to the
+ancient order of this house: upon pain, for every offence, to forfeit
+iii<sup>s</sup> 4<sup>d</sup>, and for the third offence expulsion. Likewise, that no
+gentleman of this society do go into the city, or suburbs, or to walk in
+the Fields, otherwise than in his gown, according to the ancient usage
+of the gentlemen of the Inns of Court, upon penalty of iii<sup>s</sup> iiii<sup>d</sup> for
+every offence; and for the third, expulsion and loss of his chamber."</p>
+
+<p>At Lincoln's Inn it was enacted, "in 38 Eliz., that if any Fellow of
+this House, being a commoner or repaster, should within the precinct of
+this house wear any cloak, boots and spurs, or long hair, he should pay
+for every offence five shillings for a fine, and also to be put out of
+commons." The attempt to put down beards at Lincoln's Inn failed.
+Dugdale says, in his notes on that Inn, "And in 1 Eliz. it was further
+ordered, that no fellow of this house should wear any beard above a
+fortnight's growth; and that whoso transgresses therein should for the
+first offence forfeit 3<i>s.</i> 4d., to be paid and cast with his commons;
+and for the second time 6<i>s.</i> 8d., in like manner to be paid and cast with
+his commons; and the third time to be banished the house. But the
+fashion at that time of wearing beards grew then so predominant, as that
+the very next year following, at a council held at this house, upon the
+27<sup>th</sup> of November, it was agreed and ordered, that all orders before
+that time touching beards should be void and repealed." In the same year
+in which the authorities of Lincoln's Inn forbade the wearing of beards,
+they ordered that no fellow of their society "should wear any sword or
+buckler; or cause any to be born after him into the town." This was the
+first of the seven orders made in 1 Eliz. for <i>all</i> the Inns of Court;
+of which orders the sixth runs thus:&mdash;"That none should wear any velvet
+upper cap, neither in the house nor city. And that none after the first
+day of January then ensuing, should wear any furs, nor any manner of
+silk in their apparel, otherwise than he could justifie by the stature
+of apparel, made <i>an.</i> 24 H. 8, under the penalty aforesaid." In the
+eighth year of the following reign it was ordained at Lincoln's Inn
+"that no rapier should be worn in this house by any of the society."</p>
+
+<p>Other orders made in the reign of James I., and similar enactments
+passed by the Inns in still more recent periods, can be readily found on
+reference to Dugdale and later writers upon the usages of lawyers.</p>
+
+<p>On such matters, however, fashion is all-powerful; and however grandly
+the benchers of an Inn might talk in their council-chamber, they could
+not prevail on their youngsters to eschew beards when beards were the
+mode, or to crop the hair of their heads when long tresses were worn by
+gallants at court. Even in the time of Elizabeth&mdash;when authority was
+most anxious that utter-barristers should in matters of costume maintain
+that reputation for 'sadness' which is the proverbial characteristic of
+apprentices of the law&mdash;counsellors of various degrees were conspicuous
+throughout the town for brave attire. If we had no other evidence
+bearing on the point, knowledge of human nature would make us certain
+that the bar imitated Lord Chancellor Hatton's costume. At Gray's Inn,
+Francis Bacon was not singular in loving rich clothes, and running into
+debt for satin and velvet, jewels and brocade, lace and feathers. Even
+of that contemner of frivolous men and vain pursuits, Edward Coke,
+biography assures us, "The jewel of his mind was put into a fair case, a
+beautiful body with comely countenance; a case which he did wipe and
+keep clean, delighting in good clothes, well worn; being wont to say
+that the outward neatness of our bodies might be a monitor of purity to
+our souls."</p>
+
+<p>The courts of James I. and his son drew some of their most splendid fops
+from the multitude of young men who were enjoined by the elders of their
+profession to adhere to a costume that was a compromise between the garb
+of an Oxford scholar and the guise of a London 'prentice. The same was
+the case with Charles II.'s London. Students and barristers outshone the
+brightest idlers at Whitehall, whilst within the walls of their Inns
+benchers still made a faint show of enforcing old restrictions upon
+costume. At a time when every Templar in society wore hair&mdash;either
+natural or artificial&mdash;long and elaborately dressed, Sir William Dugdale
+wrote, "To the office of the chief butler" (<i>i.e.</i>, of the Middle
+Temple) "it likewise appertaineth to take the names of those that be
+absent at the said solemn revells, and to present them to the bench, as
+also inform the bench of such as wear hats, bootes, <i>long hair</i>, or the
+like (for the which he is commonly out of the young gentlemen's favor)."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>MILLINERY.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>Saith Sir William Dugdale, in his chapter concerning the personal attire
+of judges&mdash;"That peculiar and decent vestments have, from great
+antiquity, been used in religious services, we have the authority of
+God's sacred precept to Moses, '<i>Thou shall make holy rayments for Aaron
+and his sons, that are to minister unto me, that they may be for glory
+and beauty</i>.'" In this light and flippant age there are men irreverent
+enough to smile at the habiliments which our judges wear in court, for
+the glory of God and the seemly embellishment of their own natural
+beauty.</p>
+
+<p>Like the stuff-gown of the utter-barrister, the robes of English judges
+are of considerable antiquity; but antiquaries labor in vain to discover
+all the facts relating to their origin and history. Mr. Foss says that
+at the Stuart Restoration English judges resumed the robes worn by their
+predecessors since the time of Edward I.; but though the judicial robes
+of the present day bear a close resemblance to the vestments worn by
+that king's judges, the costume of the bench has undergone many
+variations since the twentieth year of his reign.</p>
+
+<p>In the eleventh year of Richard II. a distinction was made between the
+costumes of the chiefs of the King's Bench and Common Pleas and their
+assistant justices; and at the same time the Chief Baron's inferiority
+to the Chief Justices was marked by costume.</p>
+
+<p>Henry VI.'s Chief Justice of the King's Bench, Sir John Fortescue, in
+his delightful treatise 'De Laudibus Legum Angli&aelig;,' describes the
+ceremony attending the creation of a justice, and minutely sets forth
+the chief items of judicial costume in the Bench and Common Pleas during
+his time. "Howbeit," runs Robert Mulcaster's rendering of the 'De
+Laudibus,' "the habite of his rayment, hee shall from time to time
+forwarde, in some pointes change, but not in all the ensignments
+thereof. For beeing serjeaunt at lawe, hee was clothed in a long robe
+priestlyke, with a furred cape about his shoulders, and thereupon a
+hoode with two labels such as Doctours of the Lawes use to weare in
+certayne universityes, with the above described quoyfe. But being once
+made a justice, in steede of his hoode, hee shall weare a cloake cloased
+upon his righte shoulder, all the other ornaments of a serjeant still
+remayning; sauing that a justyce shall weare no partye coloured vesture
+as a serjeant may. And his cape is furred with none other than menever,
+whereas the serjeant's cape is ever furred with whyte lambe."</p>
+
+<p>Judicial costume varied with the fashion of the day or the whim of the
+sovereign in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Subsequent
+generations saw the introduction of other changes; and in the time of
+Charles I. questions relating to the attire of the common law judges
+were involved in so much doubt, and surrounded with so many
+contradictory precedents and traditions, that the judges resolved to
+simplify matters by conference and unanimous action. The result of their
+deliberation was a decree, dated June 6, 1635, to which Sir John
+Bramston, Chief of the King's Bench, Sir John Finch, Chief of the Common
+Pleas, Sir Humphrey Davenport, Chief of the Exchequer, and all the minor
+judges of the three courts, gave subscription.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>WIGS.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>The changes effected in judicial costume during the Commonwealth, like
+the reformation introduced at the same period into the language of the
+law, were all reversed in 1660, when Charles II.'s judges resumed the
+attire and usages of their predecessors in the first Charles's reign.
+When he had satisfied himself that monarchical principles were sure of
+an enduring triumph, and that their victory would conduce to his own
+advantage, great was young Samuel Pepys's delight at seeing the ancient
+customs of the lawyers restored, one after another. In October, 1660, he
+had the pleasure of seeing "the Lord Chancellor and all the judges
+riding on horseback, and going to Westminster Hall, it being the first
+day of term." In the February of 1663-4 his eyes were gladdened by the
+revival of another old practice. "28th (Lord's Day). Up and walked to
+St. Paul's," he writes, "and, by chance, it was an extraordinary day for
+the Readers of Inns of the Court and all the Students to come to church,
+it being an old ceremony not used these twenty-five years, upon the
+first Sunday in Lent. Abundance there was of students, more than there
+was room to seat but upon forms, and the church mighty full. One Hawkins
+preached, an Oxford man, a good sermon upon these words, 'But the wisdom
+from above is first pure, then peaceable.'" Hawkins was no doubt a
+humorist, and smiled in the sleeve of his Oxford gown as he told the
+law-students that <i>peace</i> characterized the highest sort of <i>wisdom</i>.</p>
+
+<p>But, notwithstanding their zeal in reviving old customs, the lawyers of
+the Restoration introduced certain novelties into legal life. From Paris
+they imported the wig which still remains one of the distinctive
+adornments of the English barrister; and from the same centre of
+civilization they introduced certain refinements of cookery, which had
+been hitherto unknown in the taverns of Fleet Street and the Strand. In
+the earlier part of the 'merry monarch's' reign, the eating-house most
+popular with young barristers and law-students was kept by a French cook
+named Chattelin, who, besides entertaining his customers with delicate
+fare and choice wine, enriched our language with the word 'cutlet'&mdash;in
+his day spelt costelet.</p>
+
+<p>In the seventeenth century, until wigs were generally adopted, the
+common law judges, like their precursors for several past generations,
+wore in court velvet caps, coifs, and cornered caps. Pictures preserve
+to us the appearance of justices, with their heads covered by one or two
+of these articles of dress, the moustache in many instances adorning the
+lip, and a well-trimmed beard giving point to the judicial chin. The
+more common head-dress was the coif and coif-cap, of which it is
+necessary to say a few words.</p>
+
+<p>The coif was a covering for the head, made of white lawn or silk, and
+common law judges wore it as a sign that they were members of the
+learned brotherhood of sergeants. Speaking of the sergeants, Fortescue,
+in his 'De Laudibus,' says&mdash;"Wherefore to this state and degree hath no
+man beene hitherto admitted, except he hath first continued by the space
+of sixteene years in the said generall studio of the law, and in token
+or signe, that all justices are thus graduat, every one of them alwaies,
+while he sitteth in the Kinge's Courts, weareth a white quoyfe of silke;
+which is the principal and chiefe insignment of habite, wherewith
+serjeants-at-lawe in their creation are decked. And neither the justice,
+nor yet the serjeaunt, shall ever put off the quoyfe, no not in the
+kinge's presence, though he bee in talke with his majestie's highnesse."
+At times it was no easy matter to take the coif from the head; for the
+white drapery was fixed to its place with strings, which in the case of
+one notorious rascal were not untied without difficulty. In Henry III.'s
+reign, when William de Bossy was charged in open court with corruption
+and dishonesty, he claimed the benefit of clerical orders, and
+endeavored to remove his coif in order that he might display his
+tonsure; but before he could effect his purpose, an officer of the court
+seized him by the throat and dragged him off to prison. "Voluit," says
+Matthew Paris, "ligamenta coif&aelig; su&aelig; solvere, ut, palam monstraret se
+tonsuram habere clericalem; sed non est permissus. Satelles vero eum
+arripiens, non per coif&aelig; ligamina sed per guttur eum apprehendens,
+traxit ad carcerem." From which occurrence Spelman drew the untenable,
+and indeed, ridiculous inference, that the coif was introduced as a
+veil, beneath which ecclesiastics who wished to practice as judges or
+counsel in the secular courts, might conceal the personal mark of their
+order.</p>
+
+<p>The coif-cap is still worn in undiminished proportions by judges when
+they pass sentence of death, and is generally known as the 'black cap.'
+In old time the justice, on making ready to pronounce the awful words
+which consigned a fellow-creature to a horrible death, was wont to draw
+up the flat, square, dark cap, that sometimes hung at the nape of his
+neck or the upper part of his shoulder. Having covered the whiteness of
+his coif, and partially concealed his forehead and brows with the sable
+cloth, he proceeded to utter the dread sentence with solemn composure
+and firmness. At present the black cap is assumed to strike terror into
+the hearts of the vulgar; formerly it was pulled over the eyes, to hide
+the emotion of the judge.</p>
+
+<p>Shorn of their original size, the coif and the coif-cap may still be
+seen in the wigs worn by sergeants at the present day. The black blot
+which marks the crown of a sergeant's wig is generally spoken of as his
+coif, but this designation is erroneous. The black blot is the coif-cap;
+and those who wish to see the veritable coif must take a near view of
+the wig, when they will see that between the black silk and the
+horsehair there lies a circular piece of white lawn, which is the
+vestige of that pure raiment so reverentially mentioned by Fortescue. On
+the general adoption of wigs, the sergeants, like the rest of the bar,
+followed in the wake of fashion: but at first they wore their old coifs
+and caps over their false hair. Finding this plan cumbersome, they
+gradually diminished the size of the ancient covering, until the coif
+and cap became the absurd thing which resembles a bald place covered
+with court-plaster quite as much as the rest of the wig resembles human
+hair.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst the common law judges of the seventeenth century, before the
+introduction of wigs, wore the undiminished coif and coif-cap, the Lord
+Chancellor, like the Speaker of the House of Commons, wore a hat. Lord
+Keeper Williams, the last clerical holder of the seals, used to wear in
+the Court of Chancery a round, conical hat. Bradshaw, sitting as
+president of the commissioners who tried Charles I., wore a hat instead
+of the coif and cap which he donned at other times as a serjeant of law.
+Kennett tells us that "Mr. Sergeant Bradshaw, the President, was afraid
+of some tumult upon such new and unprecedented insolence as that of
+sitting judge upon his king; and therefore, beside other defence, he had
+a thick big-crowned beaver hat, lined with plated steel, to ward off
+blows." It is scarcely credible that Bradshaw resorted to such means for
+securing his own safety, for in the case of a tumult, a hat, however
+strong, would have been an insignificant protection against popular
+fury. If conspirators had resolved to take his life, they would have
+tried to effect their purpose by shooting or stabbing him, not by
+knocking him on the head. A steel-plated hat would have been but a poor
+guard against a bludgeon, and a still poorer defence against poignard or
+pistol. It is far more probable that in laying aside the ordinary
+head-dress of an English common law judge, and in assuming a
+high-crowned hat, the usual covering of a Speaker, Bradshaw endeavored
+to mark the exceptional character of the proceeding, and to remind the
+public that he acted under parliamentary sanction. Whatever the wearer's
+object, England was satisfied that he had a notable purpose, and
+persisted in regarding the act as significant of cowardice or of
+insolence, of anxiety to keep within the lines of parliamentary
+privilege or of readiness to set all law at defiance. At the time and
+long after Bradshaw's death, that hat caused an abundance of discussion;
+it was a problem which men tried in vain to solve, an enigma that
+puzzled clever heads, a riddle that was interpreted as an insult, a
+caution, a protest, a menace, a doubt. Oxford honored it with a Latin
+inscription, and a place amongst the curiosities of the university, and
+its memory is preserved to Englishmen of the present day in the familiar
+lines&mdash;</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+"Where England's monarch once uncovered sat,<br />
+And Bradshaw bullied in a broad-brimmed hat."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Judges were by no means unanimous with regard to the adoption of wigs,
+some of them obstinately refusing to disfigure themselves with false
+tresses, and others displaying a foppish delight in the new decoration.
+Sir Matthew Hale, who died in 1676, to the last steadily refused to
+decorate himself with artificial locks. The likeness of the Chief
+Justice that forms the frontispiece to Burnet's memoir of the lawyer,
+represents him in his judicial robes, wearing his SS collar, and having
+on his head a cap&mdash;not the coif-cap, but one of the close-fitting
+skull-caps worn by judges in the seventeenth century. Such skull-caps,
+it has been observed in a prior page of this work, were worn by
+barristers under their wigs, and country gentlemen at home, during the
+last century. Into such caps readers have seen Sir Francis North put his
+fees. The portrait of Sir Cresswell Levinz (who returned to the bar on
+dismissal from the bench in 1686) shows that he wore a full-bottomed wig
+whilst he was a judge; whereas Sir Thomas Street, who remained a judge
+till the close of James II.'s reign, wore his own hair and a coif-cap.</p>
+
+<p>When Shaftesbury sat in court as Lord High Chancellor of England he wore
+a hat, which Roger North is charitable enough to think might have been a
+black hat. "His lordship," says the 'Examen,' "regarded censure so
+little, that he did not concern himself to use a decent habit as became
+a judge of his station; for he sat upon the bench in an ash-colored gown
+silver-laced, and full-ribboned pantaloons displayed, without any black
+at all in his garb, unless it were his hat, which, now, I cannot
+positively say, though I saw him, was so."</p>
+
+<p>Even so late as Queen Anne's reign, which witnessed the introduction of
+three-cornered hats, a Lord Keeper wore his own hair in court instead
+of a wig, until he received the sovereign's order to adopt the venerable
+disguise of a full-bottomed wig. Lady Sarah Cowper recorded of her
+father, 1705:&mdash;"The queen after this was persuaded to trust a Whigg
+ministry, and in the year 1705, Octr., she made my father Ld. Keeper of
+the Great Seal, in the 41st year of his age&mdash;'tis said the youngest Lord
+Keeper that ever had been. He looked very young, and wearing his own
+hair made him appear yet more so, which the queen observing, obliged him
+to cut it off, telling him the world would say she had given the seals
+to a boy."</p>
+
+<p>The young Lord Keeper of course obeyed; and when he appeared for the
+first time at court in a wig, his aspect was so grave and reverend that
+the queen had to look at him twice before she recognized him. More than
+half a century later, George II. experienced a similar difficulty, when
+Lord Hardwicke, after the close of his long period of official service,
+showed himself at court in a plain suit of black velvet, with a bag and
+sword. Familiar with the appearance of the Chancellor dressed in
+full-bottomed wig and robes, the king failed to detect his old friend
+and servant in the elderly gentleman who, in the garb of a private
+person of quality, advanced and rendered due obeisance. "Sir, it is Lord
+Hardwicke," whispered a lord in waiting who stood near His Majesty's
+person, and saw the cause of the cold reception given to the
+ex-Chancellor. But unfortunately the king was not more familiar with the
+ex-Chancellor's title than his appearance, and in a disastrous endeavor
+to be affable inquired, with an affectation of interest, "How long has
+your lordship been in town?" The peer's surprise and chagrin were great
+until the monarch, having received further instruction from the courtly
+prompter at his elbow, frankly apologized in bad English and with noisy
+laughter. "Had Lord Hardwicke," says Campbell, "worn such a uniform as
+that invented by George IV. for ex-Chancellors (very much like a Field
+Marshal's), he could not have been mistaken for a common man."</p>
+
+<p>The judges who at the first introduction of wigs refused to adopt them
+were prone to express their dissatisfaction with those coxcombical
+contrivances when exhibited upon the heads of counsel; and for some
+years prudent juniors, anxious to win the favorable opinion of anti-wig
+justices, declined to obey the growing fashion. Chief Justice Hale, a
+notable sloven, conspicuous amongst common law judges for the meanness
+of his attire, just as Shaftesbury was conspicuous in the Court of
+Chancery for foppishness, cherished lively animosity for two sorts of
+legal practitioners&mdash;attorneys who wore swords, and young Templars who
+adorned themselves with periwigs. Bishop Burnet says of Hale: "He was a
+great encourager of all young persons that he saw followed their books
+diligently, to whom he used to give directions concerning the method of
+their study, with a humanity and sweetness that wrought much on all that
+came near him; and in a smiling, pleasant way he would admonish them, if
+he saw anything amiss in them; particularly if they went too fine in
+their clothes, he would tell them it did not become their profession. He
+was not pleased to see students wear long periwigs, or attorneys go with
+swords, so that such men as would not be persuaded to part with those
+vanities, when they went to him laid them aside and went as plain as
+they could, to avoid the reproof which they knew they might otherwise
+expect." In England, however, barristers almost universally wore wigs at
+the close of the seventeenth century; but north of the Tweed advocates
+wore cocked hats and powdered hair so late as the middle of the
+eighteenth century. When Alexander Wedderburn joined the Scotch bar in
+1754, wigs had not come into vogue with the members of his profession.</p>
+
+<p>Many are the good stories told of judicial wigs, and amongst the best of
+them, is the anecdote which that malicious talker Samuel Rogers
+delighted to tell at Edward Law's expense. "Lord Ellenborough," says the
+'Table-Talk,' "was once about to go on circuit, when Lady Ellenborough
+said that she should like to accompany him. He replied that he had no
+objection provided she did not encumber the carriage with bandboxes,
+which were his utter abhorrence. During the first day's journey Lord
+Ellenborough, happening to stretch his legs, struck his foot against
+something below the seat; he discovered that it was a bandbox. Up went
+the window, and out went the bandbox. The coachman stopped, and the
+footman, thinking that the bandbox had tumbled out of the window by some
+extraordinary chance, was going to pick it up, when Lord Ellenborough
+furiously called out, 'Drive on!' The bandbox, accordingly, was left by
+the ditch-side. Having reached the county town where he was to officiate
+as judge, Lord Ellenborough proceeded to array himself for his
+appearance in the court-house. 'Now,' said he, 'where's my wig?&mdash;where
+<i>is</i> my wig?' 'My lord,' replied his attendant, 'it was thrown out of
+the carriage window!'"</p>
+
+<p>Changing together with fashion, barristers ceased to wear their wigs in
+society as soon as the gallants and bucks of the West End began to
+appear with their natural tresses in theatres and ball rooms; but the
+conservative genius of the law has hitherto triumphed over the attempts
+of eminent advocates to throw the wig out of Westminster Hall. When Lord
+Campbell argued the great Privilege case, he obtained permission to
+appear without a wig; but this concession to a counsel&mdash;who, on that
+occasion, spoke for sixteen hours&mdash;was accompanied with an intimation
+that "it was not to be drawn into precedent."</p>
+
+<p>Less wise or less fortunate than the bar, the judges of England wore
+their wigs in society after advocates of all ranks and degrees had
+agreed to lay aside the professional head-gear during hours of
+relaxation. Lady Eldon's good taste and care for her husband's comfort,
+induced Lord Eldon, soon after his elevation to the pillow of the Common
+Pleas, to beg the king's permission that he might put off his judicial
+wig on leaving the courts, in which as Chief Justice he would be
+required to preside. The petition did not meet with a favorable
+reception. For a minute George III. hesitated; whereupon Eldon supported
+his prayer by observing, with the fervor of an old-fashioned Tory, that
+the lawyer's wig was a detestable innovation&mdash;unknown in the days of
+James I. and Charles the Martyr, the judges of which two monarchs would
+have rejected as an insult any proposal that they should assume a
+head-dress fit only for madmen at masquerades or mummers at country
+wakes. "What! what!" cried the king, sharply; and then, smiling
+mischievously, as he suddenly saw a good answer to the plausible
+argument, he added&mdash;"True, my lord, Charles the First's judges wore no
+wigs, but they wore beards. You may do the same, if you like. You may
+please yourself about wearing or not wearing your wig; but mind, if you
+please yourself by imitating the old judges, as to the head&mdash;you must
+please me by imitating them as to the chin. You may lay aside your wig;
+but if you do&mdash;you must wear a beard." Had he lived in these days, when
+barristers occasionally wear beards in court, and judges are not less
+conspicuous than the junior bar for magnitude of nose and whisker, Eldon
+would have accepted the condition. But the last year of the last
+century, was the very centre and core of that time which may be called
+the period of close shavers; and John Scott, the decorous and
+respectable, would have endured martyrdom rather than have grown a
+beard, or have allowed his whiskers to exceed the limits of mutton-chop
+whiskers.</p>
+
+<p>As Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and subsequently as Chancellor,
+Eldon wore his wig whenever he appeared in general society; but in the
+privacy of his own house he gratified Lady Eldon by laying aside the
+official head-gear. That this was his usage, the gossips of the
+law-courts knew well; and at Carlton House, when the Prince of Wales was
+most indignant with the Chancellor, who subsequently became his familiar
+friend, courtiers were wont to soothe the royal rage with diverting
+anecdotes of the attention which the odious lawyer lavished on the
+natural hair that gave his Bessie so much delight. On one occasion, when
+Eldon was firmly supporting the cause of the Princess of Wales, 'the
+first gentleman of Europe' forgot common decency so far, that he made a
+jeering allusion to this instance of the Chancellor's domestic
+amiability. "I am not the sort of person," growled the prince with an
+outbreak of peevishness, "to let my hair grow under my wig to please my
+wife." With becoming dignity Eldon answered&mdash;"Your Royal Highness
+condescends to be personal. I beg leave to withdraw;" and suiting his
+action to his words, the Chancellor made a low bow to the angry prince,
+and retired. The prince sneaked out of the position by an untruth,
+instead of an apology. On the following day he caused a written
+assurance to be conveyed to the Chancellor, that the offensive speech
+"was nothing personal, but simply a proverb&mdash;a proverbial way of saying
+a man was governed by his wife." It is needless to say that the
+expression was not proverbial, but distinctly and grossly personal. Lord
+Malmesbury's comment on this affair is "Very absurd of Lord Eldon; but
+explained by his having literally done what the prince said." Lord
+Eldon's conduct absurd! What was the prince's?</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>BANDS AND COLLARS.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>Bands came into fashion with Englishmen many years before wigs, but like
+wigs they were worn in general society before they became a recognized
+and distinctive feature of professional costume. Ladies of rank dyed
+their hair, and wore false tresses in Elizabethan England; but their
+example was not extensively followed by the men of their time&mdash;although
+the courtiers of the period sometimes donned 'periwinkes,' to the
+extreme disgust of the multitude, and the less stormy disapprobation of
+the polite. The frequency with which bands are mentioned in Elizabethan
+literature, affords conclusive evidence that they were much worn toward
+the close of the sixteenth century; and it is also matter of certainty
+that they were known in England at a still earlier period. Henry VIII.
+had "4 shirte bands of silver with ruffes to the same, whereof one was
+perled with golde;" and in 1638 Peacham observed, "King Henry VIII. was
+the first that ever wore a band about his neck, and that very plain,
+without lace, and about an inch or two in depth. We may see how the case
+is altered, he is not a gentleman, or in the fashion, whose band of
+Italian cutwork standeth him not at the least in three or four pounds;
+yea, a sempster in Holborn told me there are of threescore pound price
+apiece." That the fops of Charles I.'s reign were spending money on a
+fashion originally set by King Henry the Bluff, was the opinion also of
+Taylor the Water Poet, who in 1630 wrote&mdash;</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+"Now up alofte I mount unto the ruffe,<br />
+Which into foolish mortals pride doth puffe;<br />
+Yet ruffes' antiquity is here but small&mdash;<br />
+Within this eighty years not one at all;<br />
+For the Eighth Henry (so I understand)<br />
+Was the first king that ever wore a <i>band</i>;<br />
+And but a <i>falling-band</i>, plaine with a hem;<br />
+All other people knew no use of them.<br />
+Yet imitation in small time began<br />
+To grow, that it the kingdom overran;<br />
+The little falling-bands encreased to ruffes,<br />
+Ruffes (growing great) were waited on by cuffes,<br />
+And though our frailties should awake our care,<br />
+We make our ruffes as careless as we are."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>In regarding the falling-band as the germ of the ruff, the Water-Poet
+differs from those writers who, with greater appearance of reason,
+maintain that the ruff was the parent of the band. Into this question
+concerning origin of species, there is no occasion to enter on the
+present occasion. It is enough to state that in the earlier part of the
+seventeenth century bands or collars&mdash;bands stiffened and standing at
+the backward part, and bands falling upon the shoulder and breast&mdash;were
+articles of costume upon which men of expensive and modish habits spent
+large sums.</p>
+
+<p>In the days of James I., when standing bands were still the fashion, and
+falling-bands had not come in, the Inns of Court men were very
+particular about the stiffness, cut, and texture of their collars.
+Speaking of the Inns of Court men, Sir Thomas Overbury, (who was
+poisoned in 1613), says: "He laughs at every man whose band sits not
+well, or that hath not a fair shoe-type, and is ashamed to be in any
+man's company who wears not his cloathes well."</p>
+
+<p>If portraits may be trusted, the falling-band of Charles I.'s time, bore
+considerable resemblance to the falling neck-frill, which twenty years
+since was very generally worn by quite little boys, and is still sometimes
+seen on urchins who are about six years of age. The bands worn by the
+barristers and clergy of our own time are modifications of this antique
+falling-band, and like the coif cap of the modern sergeant, they bear only
+a faint likeness to their originals. But though bands&mdash;longer than those
+still worn by clergymen&mdash;have come to be a distinctive feature of legal
+costume, the bar was slow to adopt falling-collars&mdash;regarding them as a
+strange and fanciful innovation. Whitelock's personal narrative furnishes
+pleasant testimony that the younger gentry of Charles I.'s England adopted
+the new collar before the working lawyers.</p>
+
+<p>"At the Quarter-Sessions of Oxford," says Whitelock, speaking of the
+year 1635, when he was only thirty years of age, "I was put into the
+chair in court, though I was in colored clothes, a sword by my side, and
+a falling-band, which was unusual for lawyers in those days, and in this
+garb I gave the charge to the Grand Jury. I took occasion to enlarge on
+the point of jurisdiction in the temporal courts in matters
+ecclesiastical, and the antiquity thereof, which I did the rather
+because the spiritual men began in those days to swell higher than
+ordinary, and to take it as an injury to the Church that anything
+savoring of the spirituality, should be within the cognisance of
+ignorant laymen. The gentlemen and freeholders seemed well pleased with
+my charge, and the management of the business of the sessions; and said
+they perceived one might speak as good sense in a falling-band as in a
+ruff." At this time Whitelock had been about seven years at the bar; but
+at the Quarter-Sessions the young Templar was playing the part of
+country squire, and as his words show, he was dressed in a fashion that
+directly violated professional usage.</p>
+
+<p>Whitelock's speech seems to have been made shortly before the bar
+accepted the falling-band as an article of dress admissible in courts of
+law. Towards the close of Charles's reign, such bands were very
+generally worn in Westminster Hall by the gentlemen of the long robe;
+and after the Restoration, a barrister would as soon have thought of
+appearing at the King's Bench without his gown as without his band.
+Unlike the bar-bands of the present time&mdash;which are lappets of fine
+lawn, of simple make&mdash;the bands worn by Charles II.'s lawyers were
+dainty and expensive articles, such as those which Peacham exclaimed
+against in the preceding reign. At that date the Templar in prosperous
+circumstances had his bands made entirely of point lace, or of fine lawn
+edged with point lace; and as he wore them in society as well as in
+court, he was constantly requiring a fresh supply of them. Few accidents
+were more likely to ruffle a Templar's equanimity than a mishap to his
+band occurring through his own inadvertence or carelessness on the part
+of a servant. At table the pieces of delicate lace-work were exposed to
+many dangers. Continually were they stained with wine or soiled with
+gravy, and the young lawyer was deemed a marvel of amiability who could
+see his point lace thus defiled and abstain from swearing. "I remember,"
+observes Roger North, when he is showing the perfect control in which
+his brother Francis kept his temper, at his table a stupid servant spilt
+a glass of red wine upon his point band and clothes. "He only wiped his
+face and clothes with the napkin, and 'Here,' said he, 'take this away;'
+and no more."</p>
+
+<p>In 'The London Spy,' Ned Ward shows that during Queen Anne's reign legal
+practitioners of the lowest sort were particular to wear bands.
+Describing the pettifogger, Ward says, "He always talks with as great
+assurance as if he understood what he pretends to know; and always wears
+a band, in which lies his gravity and wisdom." At the same period a
+brisk trade was carried on in Westminster Hall by the sempstresses who
+manufactured bands and cuffs, lace ruffles, and lawn kerchiefs for the
+grave counsellors and young gallants of the Inns of Court. "From
+thence," says the author of 'The London Spy', "we walked down by the
+sempstresses, who were very nicely digitising and pleating turnsovers
+and ruffles for the young students, and coaxing them with amorous looks,
+obliging cant, and inviting gestures, to give so extravagant a price for
+what they buy."</p>
+
+<p>From collars of lace and lawn, let us turn to collars of precious metal.</p>
+
+<p>Antiquarians have unanimously rejected the fanciful legend adopted by
+Dugdale concerning the SS collar, as well as many not less ingenious
+interpretations of the mystic letters; and at the present time it is
+almost unanimously settled that the SS collar is the old Lancastrian
+badge, corresponding to the Yorkist collar of Roses and Suns, and that
+the S is either the initial of the sentimental word 'Souvenez,' or, as
+Mr. Beltz maintains, the initial letter of the sentimental motto,
+'Souvenez-vous de moi.' In Mr. Foss's valuable work, 'The Judges of
+England,' at the commencement of the seventh volume, the curious reader
+may find an excellent summary of all that has been or can be said about
+the origin of this piece of feudal livery, which, having at one time
+been very generally assumed by all gentle and fairly prosperous
+partisans of the House of Lancaster, has for many generations been the
+distinctive badge of a few official persons. In the second year of Henry
+IV. an ordinance forbade knights and Esquires to wear the collar, save
+in the king's presence; and in the reign of Henry VIII., the privilege
+of wearing the collar was taken away from simple esquires by the 'Acte
+for Reformacyon of Excesse in Apparayle,' 24 Henry VIII. c. 13, which
+ordained "That no man oneless he be a knight ... weare any color of
+Gold, named a color of S." Gradually knights and non-official persons
+relinquished the decoration; and in our own day the right to bear it is
+restricted to the two Chief Justices, the Chief Baron, the
+sergeant-trumpetor, and all the officers of the Heralds' College,
+pursuivants excepted; "unless," adds Mr. Foss, "the Lord Mayor of London
+is to be included, whose collar is somewhat similar, and is composed of
+twenty-eight SS, fourteen roses, thirteen knots; and measures sixty-four
+inches."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>BAGS AND GOWNS.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>On the stages of the Caroline theatres the lawyer is found with a green
+bag in his hand; the same is the case in the literature of Queen Anne's
+reign; and until a comparatively recent date green bags were generally
+carried in Westminster Hall and in provincial courts by the great body
+of legal practitioners. From Wycherley's 'Plain Dealer,' it appears that
+in the time of Charles II. angry clients were accustomed to revile their
+lawyers as 'green bag-carriers.' When the litigious Widow Blackacre
+upbraids the barrister who declines to argue for her, she
+exclaims&mdash;"Impertinent again, and ignorant to me! Gadsboddikins! you
+puny upstart in the law, to use me so, you green-bag carrier, you
+murderer of unfortunate causes, the clerk's ink is scarce off of your
+fingers." In the same drama, making much play with the green bag,
+Wycherley indicates the Widow Blackacre's quarrelsome disposition by
+decorating her with an enormous green reticule, and makes her son the
+law-student, stagger about the stage in a gown, and under a heavy burden
+of green bags.</p>
+
+<p>So also in the time of Queen Anne, to say that a man intended to carry a
+green bag, was the same as saying that he meant to adopt the law as a
+profession. In Dr. Arbuthnot's 'History of John Bull,' the prevalence of
+the phrase is shown by the passage, "I am told, Cousin Diego, you are
+one of those that have undertaken to manage me, and that you have said
+you will carry a green bag yourself, rather than we shall make an end of
+our lawsuit. I'll teach them and you too to manage." It must, however,
+be borne in mind that in Queen Anne's time, green bags, like white
+bands, were as generally adopted by solicitors and attorneys, as by
+members of the bar. In his 'character of a pettifogger' the author of
+'The London Spy' observes&mdash;"His learning is commonly as little as his
+honesty, and his conscience much larger than his green bag."</p>
+
+<p>Some years have elapsed since green bags altogether disappeared from our
+courts of law; but the exact date of their disappearance has hitherto
+escaped the vigilance and research of Colonel Landman, 'Causidicus,' and
+other writers who in the pages of that useful and very entertaining
+publication, <i>Notes and Queries</i>, have asked for information on that
+point and kindred questions. Evidence sets aside the suggestion that the
+color of the lawyer's bag was changed from green to red because the
+proceedings at Queen Caroline's trial rendered green bags odious to the
+public, and even dangerous to their bearers; for it is a matter of
+certainty that the leaders of the Chancery and Common Law bars carried
+red bags at a time considerably anterior to the inquiry into the queen's
+conduct.</p>
+
+<p>In a letter addressed to the editor of <i>Notes and Queries</i>, a writer who
+signs himself 'Causidicus,' observes&mdash;"When I entered the profession
+(about fifty years ago) no junior barrister presumed to carry a bag in
+the Court of Chancery, unless one had been presented to him by a King's
+Counsel; who, when a junior was advancing in practice, took an
+opportunity of complimenting him on his increase of business, and giving
+him his own bag to carry home his papers. It was then a distinction to
+carry a bag, and a proof that a junior was rising in his profession. I
+do not know whether the custom prevailed in other courts." From this it
+appears that fifty years since the bag was an honorable distinction at
+the Chancery bar, giving its bearer some such professional status as
+that which is conferred by 'silk' in these days when Queen's Counsel are
+numerous.</p>
+
+<p>The same professional usage seems to have prevailed at the Common Law
+bar more than eighty years ago; for in 1780, when Edward Law joined the
+Northern Circuit, and forthwith received a large number of briefs, he
+was complimented by Wallace on his success, and presented with a bag.
+Lord Campbell asserts that no case had ever before occurred where a
+junior won the distinction of a bag during the course of his first
+circuit. There is no record of the date when members of the junior bar
+received permission to carry bags according to their own pleasure; it is
+even matter of doubt whether the permission was ever expressly accorded
+by the leaders of the profession&mdash;or whether the old restrictive usage
+died a gradual and unnoticed death. The present writer, however, is
+assured that at the Chancery bar, long after <i>all</i> juniors were allowed
+to carry bags, etiquette forbade them to adopt bags of the same color as
+those carried by their leaders. An eminent Queen's Counsel, who is a
+member of that bar, remembers that when he first donned a stuff gown,
+he, like all Chancery jurors, had a purple bag&mdash;whereas the wearers of
+silk at the same period, without exception, carried red bags.</p>
+
+<p>Before a complete and satisfactory account can be given of the use of
+bags by lawyers, as badges of honor and marks of distinction, answers
+must be found for several questions which at present remain open to
+discussion. So late as Queen Anne's reign, lawyers of the lowest
+standing, whether advocates or attorneys, were permitted to carry
+bags;&mdash;a right which the junior bar appears to have lost when Edward Law
+joined the Northern Circuit. At what date between Queen Anne's day and
+1780 (the year in which Lord Ellenborough made his <i>d&eacute;but</i> in the
+North), was this change effected? Was the change gradual or sudden? To
+what cause was it due? Again, is it possible that Lord Campbell and
+Causidicus wrote under a misapprehension, when they gave testimony
+concerning the usages of the bar with regard to bags, at the close of
+the last and the beginning of the present century? The memory of the
+distinguished Queen's Counsel, to whom allusion is made in the preceding
+paragraph, is quite clear that in his student days Chancery jurors were
+forbidden by etiquette to carry <i>red</i> bags, but were permitted to carry
+blue bags; and he is strongly of opinion that the restriction, to which
+Lord Campbell and Causidicus draw attention, did not apply at any time
+to blue bags, but only concerned red bags, which, so late as thirty
+years since, unquestionably were the distinguishing marks of men in
+leading Chancery practice. Perhaps legal readers of this chapter will
+favor the writer with further information on this not highly important,
+but still not altogether uninteresting subject.</p>
+
+<p>The liberality which for the last five and-twenty years has marked the
+distribution of 'silk' to rising members of the bar, and the ease with
+which all fairly successful advocates may obtain the rank of Queen's
+Counsel, enable lawyers of the present generation to smile at a rule
+which defined a man's professional position by the color of his bag,
+instead of the texture of his gown; but in times when 'silk' was given
+to comparatively few members of the bar, and when that distinction was
+most unfairly withheld from the brightest ornaments of their profession,
+if their political opinions displeased the 'party in power,' it was
+natural and reasonable in the bar to institute for themselves an 'order
+of merit'&mdash;to which deserving candidates could obtain admission without
+reference to the prejudices of a Chancellor or the whims of a clique.</p>
+
+<p>At present the sovereign's counsel learned in the law constitute a
+distinct order of the profession; but until the reign of William IV.
+they were merely a handful of court favorites. In most cases they were
+sound lawyers in full employment; but the immediate cause of their
+elevation was almost always some political consideration&mdash;and sometimes
+the lucky wearer of a silk gown had won the right to put K.C. or Q.C.
+after his name by base compliance with ministerial power. That our
+earlier King's Counsel were not created from the purest motives or for
+the most honorable purposes will be readily admitted by the reader who
+reflects that 'silk gowns' are a legal species, for which the nation is
+indebted to the Stuarts. For all practical purposes Francis Bacon was a
+Q.C. during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. He enjoyed peculiar and
+distinctive <i>status</i> as a barrister, being consulted on legal matters by
+the Queen, although he held no place that in familiar parlance would
+entitle him to rank with her Crown Lawyers; and his biographers have
+agreed to call him Elizabeth's counsellor learned in the law. But a Q.C.
+holding his office by patent&mdash;that is to say, a Q.C. as that term is
+understood at the present time&mdash;Francis Bacon never was. On the
+accession, however, of James I., he received his formal appointment of
+K.C., the new monarch having seen fit to recognise the lawyer's claim to
+be regarded as a 'special counsel,' or 'learned counsel extraordinary.'
+Another barrister of the same period who obtained the same distinction
+was Sir Henry Montague, who, in a patent granted in 1608 to the two
+Temples, is styled "one of our counsel learned in the law." Thus
+planted, the institution of monarch's special counsel was for many
+generations a tree of slow growth. Until George III.'s reign the number
+of monarch's counsel, living and practising at the same time, was never
+large; and throughout the long period of that king's rule the fraternity
+of K.C. never assumed them agnitude and character of a professional
+order. It is uncertain what was the greatest number of contemporaneous
+K.C.'s during the Stuart dynasty; but there is no doubt that from the
+arrival of James I. to the flight of James II. there was no period when
+the K.C.'s at all approached the sergeants in name and influence. In
+Rymer's 'F[oe]dera' mention is made of four barristers who were
+appointed counsellors to Charles I., one of whom, Sir John Finch, in a
+patent of precedence is designated "King's Counsel;" but it is not
+improbable that the royal martyr had other special counsellors whose
+names have not been recorded. At different times of Charles II.'s reign,
+there were created some seventeen K.C.'s, and seven times that number of
+sergeants. James II. made ten K.C.'s; William and Mary appointed eleven
+special counsellors; and the number of Q.C.'s appointed by Anne was ten.
+The names of George I.'s learned counsel are not recorded; the list of
+George II.'s K.C.'s, together with barristers holding patents of
+precedence, comprise thirty names; George III. throughout his long
+tenure of the crown, gave 'silk' with or without the title of K.C., to
+ninety-three barristers; George IV. to twenty-six; whereas the list of
+William IV.'s appointments comprised sixty-five names, and the present
+queen has conferred the rank of Q.C. on about two hundred advocates&mdash;the
+law-list for 1865 mentioning one hundred and thirty-seven barristers who
+are Q.C.'s, or holders of patents of precedence; and only twenty-eight
+sergeants-at-law, not sitting as judges in any of the supreme courts.
+The diminution in the numbers of the sergeants is due partly to the loss
+of their old monopoly of business in the Common Pleas, and partly&mdash;some
+say chiefly&mdash;to the profuseness with which silk gowns, with Q.C. rank
+attached, have been thrown to the bar since the passing of the Reform
+Bill.</p>
+
+<p>Under the old system when 'silk' was less bountifully bestowed, eminent
+barristers not only led their circuits in stuff; but, after holding
+office as legal advisers to the crown and wearing silk gowns whilst they
+so acted with their political friends, they sometimes resumed their
+stuff gowns and places 'outside the bar,' on descending from official
+eminence. When Charles York in 1763 resigned the post of Attorney
+General, he returned to his old place in court without the bar, clad in
+the black bombazine of an ordinary barrister, whereas during his tenure
+of office he had worn silk and sat within the bar. In the same manner
+when Dunning resigned the Solicitor Generalship in 1770, he reappeared
+in the Court of King's Bench, attired in stuff, and took his place
+without the bar; but as soon as he had made his first motion, he was
+addressed by Lord Mansfield, who with characteristic courtesy informed
+him that he should take precedence in that court before all members of
+the bar, whatever might be their standing, with the exception of King's
+Counsel, Sergeants, and the Recorder of London. On joining the Northern
+Circuit in 1780, Edward Law found Wallace and Lee leading in silk, and
+twenty years later he and Jemmy Park were the K.C.'s of the same
+district; Of course the circuit was not without wearers of the coif, one
+of its learned sergeants being Cockell, who, before Law obtained the
+leading place, was known as 'the Almighty of the North;' and whose
+success, achieved in spite of an almost total ignorance of legal
+science, was long quoted to show that though knowledge is power, power
+may be won without knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>From pure dislike of the thought that younger men should follow closely
+or at a distance in his steps to the highest eminences of legal success,
+Lord Eldon was disgracefully stingy in bestowing honors on rising
+barristers who belonged to his own party, but his injustice and
+downright oppression to brilliant advocates in the Whig ranks merit the
+warmest expressions of disapproval and contempt. The most notorious
+sufferers from his rancorous intolerance were Henry Brougham and Mr.
+Denman, who, having worn silk gowns as Queen Caroline's Attorney General
+and Solicitor General, were reduced to stuff attire on that wretched
+lady's death.</p>
+
+<p>It is worthy of notice that in old time, when silk gowns were few, their
+wearers were sometimes very young men. From the days of Francis North,
+who was made K.C. before he was a barrister for seven full years'
+standing, down to the days of Eldon, who obtained silk after seven
+years' service in stuff, instances could be cited of the rapidity with
+which lucky youngsters rose to the honors of silk, whilst hard-worked
+veterans were to the last kept outside the bar. Thurlow was called to
+the bar in November, 1754, and donned silk in December, 1761. Six years
+had now elapsed since his call to the English bar, when Alexander
+Wedderburn was entitled to put the initials K.C. after his name, and
+wrote to his mother in Scotland, "I can't very well explain to you the
+nature of my preferment, but it is what most people at the bar are very
+desirous of, and yet most people run a hazard of losing money by it. I
+can scarcely expect any advantage from it for some time equal to what I
+give up; and, notwithstanding, I am extremely happy, and esteem myself
+very fortunate in having obtained it." Erskine's silk was won with even
+greater speed, for he was invited within the bar, but his silk gown
+came to him with a patent of precedence, giving him the status without
+the title of a King's Counsel.</p>
+
+<p>Bar mourning is no longer a feature of legal costume in England. On the
+death of Charles II. members of the bar donned gowns indicative of their
+grief for the national loss, and they continued, either universally or
+in a large number of cases, to wear these woful habiliments till 1697,
+when Chief Justice Holt ordered all barristers practising in his court
+to appear "in their proper gowns and not in mourning ones"&mdash;an order
+which, according to Narcissus Luttrell, compelled the bar to spend &pound;15
+per man. From this it may be inferred that (regard being had to change
+in value of money) a bar-gown at the close of the seventeenth century
+cost about ten times as much as it does at the present time.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>HATS.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>Not less famous in history than Bradshaw's broad-brimmed hat, nor less
+graceful than Shaftesbury's jaunty beaver, nor less memorable than the
+sailor's tarpaulin, under cover of which Jeffreys slunk into the Red
+Cow, Wapping, nor less striking than the black cap still worn by Justice
+in her sternest mood, nor less fanciful than the cocked hat which
+covered Wedderburn's powdered hair when he daily paced the High Street
+of Edinburgh with his hands in a muff&mdash;was the white hat which an
+illustrious Templar invented at an early date of the eighteenth century.
+Beau Brummel's original mind taught the human species to starch their
+white cravats; Richard Nash, having surmounted the invidious bar of
+plebeian birth and raised himself upon opposing circumstances to the
+throne of Bath, produced a white hat. To which of these great men
+society owes the heavier debt of gratitude thoughtful historians cannot
+agree; but even envious detraction admits that they deserve high rank
+amongst the benefactors of mankind. Brummel was a soldier; but Law
+proudly claims as her own the parent of the pale and spotless <i>chapeau</i>.</p>
+
+<p>About lawyers' cocked hats a capital volume might be written, that
+should contain no better story than the one which is told of Ned
+Thurlow's discomfiture in 1788, when he was playing a trickster's game
+with his friends and foes. Windsor Castle just then contained three
+distinct centres of public interest&mdash;the mad king in the hands of his
+keepers; on the one side of the impotent monarch the Prince of Wales
+waiting impatiently for the Regency; on the other side, the queen with
+equal impatience longing for her husband's recovery. The prince and his
+mother both had apartments in the castle, her majesty's quarters being
+the place of meeting for the Tory ministers, whilst the prince's
+apartments were thrown open to the select leaders of the Whig
+expectants. Of course the two coteries kept jealously apart; but
+Thurlow, who wished to be still Lord Chancellor, "whatever king might
+reign," was in private communication with the prince's friends. With
+furtive steps he passed from the queen's room (where he had a minute
+before been assuring the ministers that he would be faithful to the
+king's adherents), and made clandestine way to the apartment where
+Sheridan and Payne were meditating on the advantages of a regency
+without restriction. On leaving the prince, the wary lawyer used to
+steal into the king's chamber, and seek guidance or encouragement from
+the madman's restless eyes. Was the malady curable? If curable, how
+long a time would elapse before the return of reason? These were the
+questions which the Chancellor put to himself, as he debated whether he
+should break with the Tories and go over to the Whigs. Through the
+action of the patient's disease, the most delicate part of the lawyer's
+occupation was gone; and having no longer a king's conscience to keep,
+he did not care, by way of diversion&mdash;to keep his own.</p>
+
+<p>For many days ere they received clear demonstration of the Chancellor's
+deceit, the other members of the cabinet suspected that he was acting
+disingenuously, and when his double-dealing was brought to their sure
+knowledge, their indignation was not even qualified with surprise. The
+story of his exposure is told in various ways; but all versions concur
+in attributing his detection to an accident. Like the gallant of the
+French court, whose clandestine intercourse with a great lady was
+discovered because, in his hurried preparations for flight from her
+chamber, he appropriated one of her stockings, Thurlow, according to one
+account, was convicted of perfidy by the prince's hat, which he bore
+under his arm on entering the closet where the ministers awaited his
+coming. Another version says that Thurlow had taken his seat at the
+council-table, when his hat was brought to him by a page, with an
+explanation that he had left it in the prince's private room. A third,
+and more probable representation of the affair, instead of laying the
+scene in the council-chamber, makes the exposure occur in a more public
+part of the castle. "When a council was to be held at Windsor," said the
+Right Honorable Thomas Grenville, in his old age recounting the
+particulars of the mishap, "to determine the course which ministers
+should pursue, Thurlow had been there some time before any of his
+colleagues arrived. He was to be brought back to London by one of them,
+and the moment of departure being come, the Chancellor's hat was
+nowhere to be found. After a fruitless search in the apartment where the
+council had been held, a page came with the hat in his hand, saying
+aloud, and with great <i>na&iuml;vet&eacute;</i>, 'My lord, I found it in the closet of
+his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.' The other Ministers were still
+in the Hall, and Thurlow's confusion corroborated the inference which
+they drew." Cannot an artist be found to place upon canvas this scene,
+which furnishes the student of human nature with an instructive instance
+of</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+"That combination strange&mdash;a lawyer and a blush?"<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>For some days Thurlow's embarrassment and chagrim were very painful. But
+a change in the state of the king's health caused a renewal of the
+lawyer's attachment to Tory principles and to his sovereign.</p>
+
+<p>The lawyers of what may be termed the cocked hat period seldom
+maintained the happy mean between too little and too great care for
+personal appearance. For the most part they were either slovenly or
+foppish. From the days when as a student he used to slip into Nando's in
+a costume that raised the supercilious astonishment of his
+contemporaries, Thurlow to the last erred on the side of neglect. Camden
+roused the satire of an earlier generation by the miserable condition of
+the tiewig which he wore on the bench of Chancery, and by an undignified
+and provoking habit of "gartering up his stockings while counsel were
+the most strenuous in their eloquence." On the other hand Joseph
+Yates&mdash;the puisne judge whom Mansfield's jeers and merciless oppressions
+drove from the King's Bench to the Common Pleas, where he died within
+four months of his retreat&mdash;was the finest of fine gentlemen. Before he
+had demonstrated his professional capacity, the habitual costliness and
+delicacy of his attire roused the distrust of attorneys, and on more
+than one occasion wrought him injury. An awkward, crusty, hard-featured
+attorney entered the foppish barrister's chambers with a bundle of
+papers, and on seeing the young man in a superb and elaborate evening
+dress, is said to have inquired, "Can you say, sir, when Mr. Yates will
+return?" "Return, my good sir!" answered the barrister, with an air of
+surprise, "I am Mr. Yates, and it will give me the greatest pleasure to
+talk with you about those papers." Having taken a deliberate survey of
+the young Templar, and made a mental inventory of all the fantastic
+articles of his apparel, the honest attorney gave an ominous grunt,
+replaced the papers in one of the deep pockets of his long-skirted coat,
+twice nodded his head with contemptuous significance, and then, without
+another word&mdash;walked out of the room. It was his first visit to those
+chambers, and his last. Joseph Yates lost his client, before he could
+even learn his name; but in no way influenced by the occurrence he
+maintained his reputation for faultless taste in dress, and when he had
+raised himself to the bench, he was amongst the judges of his day all
+that Revell Reynolds was amongst the London physicians of a later date.</p>
+
+<p>Living in the midst of the fierce contentions which distracted Ireland
+in the days of our grandfathers, John Toler, first Earl of Norbury,
+would not have escaped odium and evil repute, had he been a merciful man
+and a scrupulous judge; but in consequence of failings and wicked
+propensities, which gave countenance to the slanders of his enemies and
+at the same time earned for him the distrust and aversion of his
+political coadjutors, he has found countless accusers and not a single
+vindicator. Resembling George Jeffreys in temper and mental capacity, he
+resembled him also in posthumous fame. A shrewd, selfish, overbearing
+man, possessing wit which was exercised with equal promptitude upon
+friends and foes, he alternately roused the terror and the laughter of
+his audiences. At the bar and in the Irish House of Commons he was alike
+notorious as jester and bully; but he was a courageous bully, and to the
+last was always as ready to fight with bullets as with epigrams, and
+though his humor was especially suited to the taste and passions of the
+rabble, it sometimes convulsed with merriment those who were shocked by
+its coarseness and brutality. Having voted for the abolition of the
+Irish Parliament, the Right Honorable John Toler was prepared to justify
+his conduct with hair-triggers or sarcasms. To the men who questioned
+his patriotism he was wont to answer, "Name any hour before my court
+opens to-morrow," but to the patriotic Irish lady who loudly charged him
+in a crowded drawing-room with having sold his country, he replied, with
+an affectation of cordial assent, "Certainly, madam, I have sold my
+country. It was very lucky for me that I had a country to sell&mdash;I wish I
+had another." On the bench he spared neither counsel nor suitors,
+neither witnesses nor jurors. When Daniel O'Connell, whilst he was
+conducting a cause in the Irish Court of Common Pleas, observed, "Pardon
+me, my lord, I am afraid your lordship does not apprehend me;" the Chief
+Justice (alluding to a scandalous and false report that O'Connell had
+avoided a duel by surrendering himself to the police) retorted, "Pardon
+me also; no one is more easily apprehended than Mr. O'Connell"&mdash;(a
+pause&mdash;and then with emphatic slowness of utterance)&mdash;"whenever he
+wishes to be apprehended." It is <i>said</i> that when this same judge passed
+sentence of death on Robert Emmett, he paused when he came to the point
+where it is usual for a judge to add in conclusion, "And may the Lord
+have mercy on your soul!" and regarded the brave young man with
+searching eyes. For a minute there was an awful silence in the court;
+the bar and the assembled crowd supposing that the Chief Justice had
+paused so that a few seconds of unbroken stillness might add to the
+solemnity of his last words. The disgust and indignation of the
+spectators were beyond the power of language, when they saw a smile of
+brutal sarcasm steal over the face of the Chief Justice as he rose from
+his seat of judgment without uttering another word.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst the state prosecutions were going forward, Lord Norbury appeared
+on the bench in a costume that accorded ill with the gravity of his
+office. The weather was intensely hot; and whilst he was at his morning
+toilet the Chief Justice selected from his wardrobe the dress which was
+most suited to the sultriness of the air. The garb thus selected for its
+coolness was a dress which his lordship had worn at a masquerade ball,
+and consisted of a green tabinet coat decorated with huge
+mother-of-pearl buttons, a waistcoat of yellow relieved by black
+stripes, and buff breeches. When he first entered the court, and
+throughout all the earlier part of the proceedings against a party of
+rebels, his judicial robes altogether concealed this grotesque attire;
+but unfortunately towards the close of the sultry day's work, Lord
+Norbury&mdash;oppressed by the stifling atmosphere of the court, and
+forgetting all about the levity as well as the lightness of his inner
+raiment&mdash;threw back his judicial robe and displayed the dress which
+several persons then present had seen him wear at Lady Castlereagh's
+ball. Ere the spectators recovered from their first surprise, Lord
+Norbury, quite unconscious of his indecorum, had begun to pass sentence
+of death on a gang of prisoners, speaking to them in a solemn voice that
+contrasted painfully with the inappropriateness of his costume.</p>
+
+<p>In the following bright and picturesque sentence, Dr. Dibdin gives a
+life-like portrait of Erskine, whose personal vanity was only equalled
+by the egotism which often gave piquancy to his orations, and never
+lessened their effect:&mdash;"Cocked hats and ruffles, with satin
+small-clothes and silk stockings, at this time constituted the usual
+evening dress. Erskine, though a good deal shorter than his brethren,
+somehow always seemed to take the lead both in pace and in discourse,
+and shouts of laughter would frequently follow his dicta. Among the
+surrounding promenaders, he and the one-armed Mingay seemed to be the
+main objects of attraction. Towards evening, it was the fashion for the
+leading counsel to promenade during the summer in the Temple Gardens,
+and I usually formed one in the thronging mall of loungers and
+spectators. I had analysed Blackstone, and wished to publish it under a
+dedication to Mr. Erskine. Having requested the favor of an interview,
+he received me graciously at breakfast before nine, attired in the smart
+dress of the times, a dark green coat, scarlet waistcoat, and silk
+breeches. He left his coffee, stood the whole time looking at the chart
+I had cut in copper, and appeared much gratified. On leaving him, a
+chariot-and-four drew up to wheel him to some provincial town on a
+special retainer. He was then coining money as fast as his chariot
+wheels rolled along." Erskine's advocacy was marked by that attention to
+trifles which has often contributed to the success of distinguished
+artists. His special retainers frequently took him to parts of the
+country where he was a stranger, and required him to make eloquent
+speeches in courts which his voice had never tested. It was his custom
+on reaching the town where he would have to plead on the following day,
+to visit the court over-night, and examine its arrangements, so that
+when the time for action arrived he might address the jury from the most
+favorable spot in the chamber. He was a theatrical speaker, and omitted
+no pains to secure theatrical effect. It was noticed that he never
+appeared within the bar until the <i>cause c&eacute;l&egrave;bre</i> had been called; and
+a buzz of excitement and anxious expectation testified the eagerness of
+the assembled crowd to <i>see</i>, as well as to hear, the celebrated
+advocate. Every article of his bar costume received his especial
+consideration; artifice could be discerned in the modulations of his
+voice, the expressions of his countenance, and the movements of his
+entire body; but the coldest observer did not detect the artifice until
+it had stirred his heart. Rumor unjustly asserted that he never uttered
+an impetuous peroration which he had not frequently rehearsed in private
+before a mirror. About the cut and curls of his wigs, their texture and
+color, he was very particular: and the hands which he extended in
+entreaty towards British juries were always cased in lemon-colored kid
+gloves.</p>
+
+<p>Erskine was not more noticeable for the foppishness of his dress than
+was Lord Kenyon for a sordid attire. Whilst he was a leading advocate
+within the bar, Lord Kenyon's ordinary costume would have disgraced a
+copying clerk; and during his later years, it was a question amongst
+barristers whether his breeches were made of velvet or leather. The wits
+maintained that when he kissed hands upon his elevation to the
+Attorney's place, he went to court in a second-hand suit purchased from
+Lord Stormont's <i>valet</i>. In the letter attributed to him by a clever
+writer in the 'Rolliad,' he is made to say&mdash;"My income has been cruelly
+estimated at seven, or, as some will have it, eight thousand pounds per
+annum. I shall save myself the mortification of denying that I am rich,
+and refer you to the constant habits and whole tenor of my life. The
+proof to my friends is easy. My tailor's bill for the last fifteen years
+is a record of the most indisputable authority. Malicious souls may
+direct you, perhaps, to Lord Stormont's <i>valet de chambre</i>, and can
+vouch the anecdote that on the day when I kissed hands for my
+appointment to the office of Attorney General, I appeared in a laced
+waistcoat that once belonged to his master. I bought the waistcoat, but
+despise the insinuation; nor is this the only instance in which I am
+obliged to diminish my wants and apportion them to my very limited
+means. Lady K&mdash;&mdash; will be my witness that until my last appointment I
+was an utter stranger to the luxury of a pocket-handkerchief." The
+pocket-handkerchief which then came into his possession was supposed to
+have been found in the pocket of the second-hand waistcoat; and Jekyll
+always maintained that, as it was not considered in the purchase, it
+remained the valet's property, and did not pass into the lawyer's
+rightful possession. This was the only handkerchief which Lord Kenyon is
+said to have ever possessed, and Lord Ellenborough alluded to it when,
+in a conversation that turned upon the economy which the income-tax
+would necessitate in all ranks of life, he observed&mdash;"Lord Kenyon, who
+is not very nice, intends to meet the crisis by laying down his
+handkerchief."</p>
+
+<p>Of his lordship's way of getting through seasons of catarrh without a
+handkerchief, there are several stories that would scarcely please the
+fastidious readers of this volume.</p>
+
+<p>Of his two wigs (one considerably less worn than the other), and of his
+two hats (the better of which would not have greatly disfigured an old
+clothesman, whilst the worse would have been of service to a
+professional scarecrow), Lord Kenyon took jealous care. The inferior wig
+was always worn with the better hat, and the more dilapidated hat with
+the superior wig; and it was noticed that when he appeared in court with
+the shabbier wig he never removed his <i>chapeau</i>; whereas, on the days
+when he sat in his more decent wig, he pushed his old cocked hat out of
+sight. In the privacy of his house and in his carriage, whenever he
+traveled beyond the limits of town, he used to lay aside wig and hat,
+and cover his head with an old red night-cap. Concerning his great-coat,
+the original blackness of which had been tempered by long usage into a
+fuscous green, capital tales were fabricated. The wits could not spare
+even his shoes. "Once," Dr. Didbin gravely narrated, "in the case of an
+action brought for the non-fulfillment of a contract on a large scale
+for shoes, the question mainly was, whether or not they were well and
+soundly made, and with the best materials. A number of witnesses were
+called, one of them, a first-rate character in the gentle craft, being
+closely questioned, returned contradictory answers, when the Chief
+Justice observed, pointing to his own shoes, which were regularly
+bestridden by the broad silver buckle of the day, 'Were the shoes
+anything like these?' 'No, my lord,' replied the evidence, 'they were a
+good deal better and more genteeler.'" Dr. Didbin is at needless pains
+to assure his readers that the shoemaker's answer was followed by
+uproarious laughter.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="PART_V" id="PART_V"></a>PART V.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'>MUSIC.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>THE PIANO IN CHAMBERS.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>In the Inns of Court, even more often than in the colleges of Oxford and
+Cambridge, musical instruments and performances are regarded by severe
+students with aversion and abhorrence. Mr. Babbage will live in peace
+and charity with the organ-grinders who are continually doing him an
+unfriendly turn before the industrious conveyancer on the first floor
+will pray for the welfare of 'that fellow upstairs' who daily practises
+the flute or cornopean from 11 <span class="smcap">A.M.</span> to 3 <span class="smcap">P.M.</span> The
+'Wandering Minstrels' and their achievements are often mentioned with
+respect in the western drawing-rooms of London; but if the gentlemen who
+form that distinguished <i>troupe</i> of amateur performers wish to sacrifice
+their present popularity and take a leading position amongst the social
+nuisances of the period, they should migrate from the district which
+delights to honor them to chambers in Old Square, Lincoln's Inn, and
+give morning concerts every day of term time.</p>
+
+<p>Working lawyers feel warmly on this subject, maintaining that no man
+should be permitted to be an <i>amateur</i>-barrister and an
+<i>amateur</i>-musician at the same time, and holding that law-students with
+a turn for wind-instruments should, like vermin, be hunted down and
+knocked on the head&mdash;without law. Strange stories might be told of the
+discords and violent deeds to which music has given rise in the four
+Inns. In the last century many a foolish fellow was 'put up' at ten
+paces, because he refused to lay down an ophicleide; even as late as
+George IV.'s time death has followed from an inordinate addiction to the
+violin; and it was but the other day that the introduction of a piano
+into a house in Carey Street led to the destruction of three close and
+warm friendships.</p>
+
+<p>So alive are lawyers to the frightful consequences of a wholesale
+exhibition of melodious irritants, that a natural love of order and
+desire for self-preservation has prompted them to raise numerous
+obstructions to the free development of musical science in their
+peculiar localities of town. In the Inns of Court and Chancery Lane
+professional etiquette forbids barristers and solicitors to play upon
+organs, harmoniums, pianos, violins, or other stringed instruments,
+drums, trumpets, cymbals, shawms, bassoons, triangles, castanets or any
+other bony devices for the production of noise, flageolets, hautboys, or
+any other sort of boys&mdash;between the hours of 9 <span class="smcap">A.M.</span> and 6
+<span class="smcap">P.M.</span> And this rule of etiquette is supported by various special
+conditions introduced into the leases by which the tenants hold much of
+the local house property. Under some landlords, a tenant forfeits his
+lease if he indulges in any pursuit that causes annoyance to his
+immediate neighbors; under others, every occupant of a set of chambers
+binds himself not to play any musical instrument therein, save between
+the hours of 9 <span class="smcap">A.M.</span> and 12 <span class="smcap">P.M.</span>; and in more than one
+clump of chambers, situated within a stone's throw from Chancery Lane,
+glee-singing is not permitted at any period of the four-and-twenty
+hours.</p>
+
+<p>That the pursuit of harmony is a dangerous pastime for young lawyers
+cannot be questioned, although a long list might be given of cases where
+musical barristers have gained the confidence of many clients, and
+eventually raised themselves to the bench. A piano is a treacherous
+companion for the student who can touch, it deftly&mdash;dangerous as an idle
+friend, whose wit is ever brilliant; fascinating as a beautiful woman,
+whose smile is always fresh; deceptive as the drug which seems to
+invigorate, whilst in reality it is stealing away the intellectual
+powers. Every persevering worker knows how large a portion of his hard
+work has been done 'against the grain,' and in spite of strong
+inclinations to indolence&mdash;in hours when pleasant voices could have
+seduced him from duty, and any plausible excuse for indulgence would
+have been promptly accepted. In the piano these pleasant voices are
+constantly present, and it can always show good reason&mdash;why reluctant
+industry should relax its exertions.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>THE BATTLE OF THE ORGANS.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>Sir Thomas More and Lord Bacon&mdash;the two most illustrious laymen who have
+held the Great Seal of England&mdash;were notable musicians; and many
+subsequent Keepers and Chancellors are scarcely less famous for love of
+harmonious sounds than for judicial efficiency. Lord Keeper Guildford
+was a musical amateur, and notwithstanding his low esteem of literature
+condescended to write about melody. Lord Jeffreys was a good
+after-dinner vocalist, and was esteemed a high authority on questions
+concerning instrumental performance. Lord Camden was an operatic
+composer; and Lord Thurlow studied thorough-bass, in order that he might
+direct the musical exercises of his children.</p>
+
+<p>In moments of depression More's favorite solace was the viol; and so
+greatly did he value musical accomplishments in women, that he not only
+instructed his first and girlish wife to play on various instruments,
+but even prevailed on the sour Mistress Alice Middleton "to take lessons
+on the lute, the cithara, the viol, the monochord, and the flute, which
+she daily practised to him." But More's love of music was expressed
+still more forcibly in the zeal with which he encouraged and took part
+in the choral services of Chelsea Church. Throughout his residence at
+Chelsea, Sir Thomas was a regular attendant at the church, and during
+his tenure of the seals he not only delighted to chant the appointed
+psalms, but used to don a white surplice, and take his place among the
+choristers. Having invited the Duke of Norfolk to dine with him, the
+Chancellor prepared himself for the enjoyment of that great peer's
+society by attending divine service, and he was still occupied with his
+religious exercises when his Grace of Norfolk entered the church, and to
+his inexpressible astonishment saw the keeper of the king's conscience
+in the flowing raiment of a chorister, and heard him give "Glory to God
+in the highest!" as though he were a hired singer. "God's body! God's
+body! My Lord Chancellor a parish clerk?&mdash;a parish clerk?" was the
+duke's testy expostulation with the Chancellor. Whereupon More, with
+gentle gravity, answered, "Nay; your grace may not think that the
+king&mdash;your master and mine&mdash;will with me, for serving his Master, be
+offended, and thereby account his office dishonored." Not only was it
+More's custom to sing in the church choir, but he used also to bear a
+cross in religious processions; and on being urged to mount horse when
+he followed the rood in Rogation week round the parish boundaries, he
+answered, "It beseemeth not the servant to follow his master prancing on
+a cock-horse, his master going on foot." Few incidents in Sir Thomas
+More's remarkable career point more forcibly to the vast difference
+between the social manners of the sixteenth century and those of the
+present day. If Lord Chelmsford were to recreate himself with leading
+the choristers in Margaret Street, and after service were seen walking
+homewards in an ecclesiastical dress, it is more than probable that
+public opinion would declare him a fit companion for the lunatics of
+whose interests he has been made the official guardian. Society felt
+some surprise as well as gratification when Sir Roundell Palmer recently
+published his 'Book of Praise;' but if the Attorney General, instead of
+printing his select hymns had seen fit to exemplify their beauties with
+his own voice from the stall of a church-singer, the piety of his
+conduct would have scarcely reconciled Lord Palmerston to its dangerous
+eccentricity.</p>
+
+<p>Amongst Elizabethan lawyers, Chief Justice Dyer was by no means singular
+for his love of music, though Whetstone's lines have given exceptional
+celebrity to his melodious proficiency:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+"For publique good, when care had cloid his minde,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The only joye, for to repose his sprights,</span><br />
+Was musique sweet, which showd him well inclind;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For he doth in musique much delight,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A conscience hath disposed to do most right:</span><br />
+The reason is, her sound within our eare,<br />
+A sympathie of heaven we thinke we heare."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Like James Dyer, Francis Bacon found music a pleasant and salutary
+pastime, when he was fatigued by the noisy contentions of legal practice
+or by strenuous application to philosophic pursuits. A perfect master of
+the science of melody, Lord Bacon explained its laws with a clearness
+which has satisfied competent judges that he was familiar with the
+practice as well as the theories of harmony; but few passages of his
+works display more agreeably his personal delight and satisfaction in
+musical exercise and investigation than that section of the 'Natural
+History,' wherein he says, "And besides I practice as I do advise; which
+is, after long inquiry of things immersed in matter, to interpose some
+subject which is immateriate or less materiate; such as this of sounds:
+to the end that the intellect may be rectified and become not partial."</p>
+
+<p>A theorist as well as performer, the Lord Keeper Guilford enunciated his
+views regarding the principles of melody in 'A Philosophical Essay of
+Musick, Directed to a Friend'&mdash;a treatise that was published without the
+author's name, by Martin, the printer to the Royal Society, in the year
+1677, at which time the future keeper was Chief Justice of the Common
+Pleas. The merits of the tract are not great; but it displays the
+subtlety and whimsical quaintness of the musical lawyer, who performed
+on several instruments, was very vain of a feeble voice, and used to
+attribute much of his professional success to the constant study of
+music that marked every period of his life. "I have heard him say,"
+Roger records, "that if he had not enabled himself by these studies, and
+particular his practice of music upon his bass or lyra viol (which he
+used to touch lute-fashion upon his knee), to divert himself alone, he
+had never been a lawyer. His mind was so airy and volatile he could not
+have kept his chamber if he must needs be there, staked down purely to
+the drudgery of the law, whether in study or practice; and yet upon
+such a leaden proposition, so painful to brisk spirits, all the success
+of the profession, regularly pursued, depends." His first acquaintance
+with melodious art was made at Cambridge, where in his undergraduate
+days he took lessons on the viol. At this same period he "had the
+opportunity of practice so much in his grandfather's and father's
+families, where the entertainment of music in full concert was solemn
+and frequent, that he outdid all his teachers, and became one of the
+neatest violinists of his time." Scarcely in consistence with this
+declaration of the Lord Keeper's proficiency on the violin is a later
+passage of the biography, where Roger says that his brother "attempted
+the violin, being ambitious of the prime part in concert, but soon found
+that he began such a difficult art too late." It is, however, certain
+that the eminent lawyer in the busiest passages of his laborious life
+found time for musical practice, and that besides his essay on music, he
+contributed to his favorite art several compositions which were
+performed in private concert-rooms.</p>
+
+<p>Sharing in the musical tastes of his family, Roger North, the
+biographer, was the <i>friend</i> who used to touch the harpsichord that
+stood at the door of the Lord Keeper's bedchamber; and when political
+changes had extinguished his hopes of preferment, he found consolation
+in music and literature. Retiring to his seat in Norfolk, Roger fitted
+up a concert-room with instruments that roused the astonishment of
+country squires, and an organ that was extolled by critical professors
+for the sweetness of its tones. In that seclusion, where he lived to
+extreme old age, the lettered lawyer composed the greater part of those
+writings which have rendered him familiar to the present generation. Of
+his 'Memoirs of Musick,' readers are not accustomed to speak so
+gratefully as of his biographies; but the curious sketch which Dr.
+Rimbault edited and for the first time published in 1846, is worthy of
+perusal, and will maintain a place on the shelves of literary collectors
+by the side of his brother's 'Essay.'</p>
+
+<p>In that treatise Roger alludes to a contest which in the reigns of
+Charles II. and James II. agitated the musicians of London, divided the
+Templars into two hostile parties, and for a considerable time gave rise
+to quarrels in every quarter of the town. All this disturbance resulted
+from "a competition for an organ in the Temple church, for which the two
+competitors, the best artists in Europe, Smith and Harris, were but just
+not ruined." The struggle thus mentioned in the 'Memoirs of Musick' is
+so comic an episode in the story of London life, and has been the
+occasion of so much error amongst writers, that it claims brief
+restatement in the present chapter.</p>
+
+<p>In February, 1682, the Benchers of the Temples, wishing to obtain for
+their church an organ of superlative excellence, invited Father Smith
+and Renatus Harris to compete for the honor of supplying the instrument.
+The masters of the benchers pledged themselves that "if each of these
+excellent artists would set up an organ in one of the halls belonging to
+either of the societies, they would have erected in their church that
+which, in the greatest number of excellencies, deserved the preference."
+For more than twenty years Father Smith had been the first organ-builder
+in England; and the admirable qualities of his instruments testify to
+his singular ability. A German artist (in his native country called
+Bernard Schmidt, but in London known as Father Smith), he had
+established himself in the English capital as early as the summer of
+1660; and gaining the cordial patronage of Charles II., he and his two
+grand-nephews soon became leaders of their craft. Father Smith built
+organs for Westminster Abbey, for the Church of St. Giles-in-the-Fields,
+for St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, for Durham Cathedral, and for
+other sacred buildings. In St. Paul's Cathedral he placed the organ
+which Wren disdainfully designated a "box of whistles;" and dying in
+1708, he left his son-in-law, Christopher Schreider, to complete the
+organ which still stands in the chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge.
+But notwithstanding his greatness, Father Smith had rivals; his first
+rival being Harris the Elder, who died in 1672, his second being Renatus
+Harris, or Harris the Younger. The elder Harris never caused Smith much
+discomfort; but his son, Renatus, was a very clever fellow, and a strong
+party of fashionable <i>connoisseurs</i> declared that he was greatly
+superior to the German. Such was the position of these two rivals when
+the benchers made their proposal, which was eagerly accepted by the
+artificers, each of whom saw in it an opportunity for covering his
+antagonist with humiliation.</p>
+
+<p>The men went to work: and within fourteen months their instruments were
+ready for competition. Smith finished work before Harris, and prevailed
+on the benchers to let him place his organ in the Temple church, well
+knowing that the powers of the instrument could be much more readily and
+effectively displayed in the church than in either of the dining-halls.
+The exact site where he fixed his organ is unknown, but the careful
+author of 'A Few Notes on the Temple Organ, 1859,' is of opinion that it
+was put up "on the screen between the round and oblong churches&mdash;the
+position occupied by the organ until the present organ-chamber was
+built, and the organ removed there during the progress of the complete
+restoration of the church in the year 1843." No sooner had Harris
+finished his organ, than, following Father Smith's example, he asked
+leave of the benchers to erect it within the church. Harris's petition
+to this effect bears date May 26, 1684; and soon afterwards the organ
+was "set up in the Church on the south side of the Communion Table."</p>
+
+<p>Both organs being thus stationed under the roof of the church, the
+committee of benchers appointed to decide on their relative merits
+declared themselves ready to listen. The trial began, but many
+months&mdash;ay, some years&mdash;elapsed ere it came to an end. On either side
+the credit of the manufacturer was sustained by execution of the highest
+order of art. Father Smith's organ was handled alternately by Purcell
+and Dr. Blow; and Draghi, the queen's organist, did his best to secure a
+verdict for Renatus Harris. Of course the employment of these eminent
+musicians greatly increased the number of persons who felt personal
+interest in the contest. Whilst the pupils and admirers of Purcell and
+Blow were loud in declaring that Smith's organ ought to win, Draghi's
+friends were equally sure that the organ touched by his expert fingers
+ought not to lose. Discussion soon became violent; and in every
+profession, clique, coterie of the town, supporters of Smith wrangled
+with supporters of Harris. Like the battle of the Gauges in our time,
+the battle of the Organs was the grand topic with every class of
+society, at Court and on 'Change, in coffee-houses and at ordinaries.
+Again and again the organs were tested in the hearing of dense and
+fashionable congregations; and as often the judicial committee was
+unable to come to a decision. The hesitation of the judges put oil upon
+the fire; for Smith's friends, indignant at the delay, asserted that
+certain members of the committee were bound to Harris by corrupt
+considerations&mdash;an accusation that was retorted by the other side with
+equal warmth and want of justice.</p>
+
+<p>After the squabble had been protracted through many months, Harris
+created a diversion by challenging Father Smith to make additional
+reed-stops within a given time. The challenge was accepted; and
+forthwith the Father went to work and made Vox Humana, Cremorne, Double
+Courtel, or Double Bassoon, and other stops. A day was appointed for the
+renewal of the contest; but party feeling ran so high, that during the
+night preceding the appointed day a party of hot-headed Harrissians
+broke into the Temple Church, and cut Smith's bellows&mdash;so that on the
+following morning his organ was of no more service than an old
+linen-press. A row ensued; and in the ardor of debate swords were drawn.</p>
+
+<p>In June, 1685, the benchers of the Middle Temple, made a written
+declaration in favor of Father Smith, and urged that his organ should be
+forthwith accepted. Strongly and rather discourteously worded, this
+declaration gave offence to the benchers of the Inner Temple, who
+regarded it as an attempt at dictation; and on June 22, 1685, they
+recommended the appointment of another committee with powers to decide
+the contest. Declining to adopt this suggestion, the Middle Temple
+benchers reiterated their high opinion of Smith's instrument. On this
+the Battle of the Organs became a squabble between the two Temples; and
+the outside public, laughing over the quarrel of the lawyers, expressed
+a hope that honest men would get their own since the rogues had fallen
+out.</p>
+
+<p>At length, when the organ-builders had well-nigh ruined each other, and
+the town had grown weary of the dispute, the Inner Temple yielded
+somewhere about the beginning of 1688&mdash;at an early date of which year
+Smith received a sum of money in part payment for his organ. On May 27th
+of the same year, Mr. Pigott was appointed organist. After its rejection
+by the Temple, Renatus Harris divided his organ into two, and having
+sent the one part to the cathedral of Christ's Church, Dublin, he set up
+the other part in the church of St. Andrew, Holborn. Three years after
+his disappointment, Renatus Harris was tried at the Old Bailey for a
+political offence, the nature of which may be seen from the following
+entry in Narcissus Luttrell's Diary:&mdash;"April, 1691. The Sessions have
+been at the Old Bailey, where these persons, Renatus Harris, John Watts,
+William Rutland, Henry Gandy, and Thomas Tysoe, were tried at the Old
+Bailey for setting up policies of insurance that Dublin would be in the
+hands of some other king than their present majesties by Christmas next:
+the jury found them guilty of a misdemeanor." For this offence Renatus
+Harris was fined &pound;200, and was required to give security for his good
+conduct until Christmas.</p>
+
+<p>An erroneous tradition assigns to Lord Jeffreys the honor of bringing
+the Battle of the Organs to a conclusion, and writers improving upon
+this tradition, have represented that Jeffreys acted as sole umpire
+between the contendants. In his 'History of Music,' Dr. Burney, to whom
+the prevalence of this false impression is mainly due, observes&mdash;"At
+length the decision was left to Lord Chief Justice Jeffries, afterwards
+King James the Second's pliant Chancellor, who was of that society (the
+Inner Temple), and he terminated the controversy in favor of Father
+Smith; so that Harris's organ was taken away without loss of reputation,
+having so long pleased and puzzled better judges than Jefferies."</p>
+
+<p>Careful inquirers have ascertained that Harris's organ did not go to
+Wolverhampton, but to Dublin and St. Andrew's Holborn, part of it being
+sent to the one, and part to the other place. It is certain that Jeffrys
+was not chosen to act as umpire in 1681, for the benchers did not make
+their original proposal to the rival builders until February, 1682; and
+years passed between that date and the termination of the squabble. When
+Burney wrote:&mdash;"At length the decision was left to Lord Chief Justice
+Jefferies, <i>afterwards King James II.'s pliant Chancellor</i>," the
+musician was unaware that the squabble was still at white heat whilst
+Jeffreys occupied the woolsack. On his return from the Western Campaign,
+Jeffreys received the seals in September, 1685, whereas the dispute
+about the organs did not terminate till the opening of 1688, or at
+earliest till the close of 1687. There is no authentic record in the
+archives of the Temples which supports, or in any way countenances, the
+story that Jeffreys made choice of Smith's instrument; but it is highly
+probable that the Lord Chancellor exerted his influence with the Inner
+Temple (of which society he was a member), and induced the benchers, for
+the sake of peace, to yield to the wishes of the Middle Temple. It is no
+less probable that his fine musical taste enabled him to see that the
+Middle Temple benchers were in the right, and gave especial weight to
+his words when he spoke against Harris's instrument.</p>
+
+<p>Though Jeffreys delighted in music, he does not seem to have held its
+professors in high esteem. In the time of Charles II. musical artists of
+the humbler grades liked to be styled 'musitioners;' and on a certain
+occasion, when he was sitting as Recorder for the City of London, George
+Jeffreys was greatly incensed by a witness who, in a pompous voice,
+called himself a musitioner. With a sneer the Recorder interposed&mdash;"A
+musitioner! I thought you were a fiddler!" "I am a musitioner," the
+violinist answered, stoutly. "Oh, indeed," croaked Jeffreys. "That is
+very important&mdash;highly important&mdash;extremely important! And pray, Mr.
+Witness, what is the difference between a musitioner and a fiddler?"
+With fortunate readiness the man answered, "As much, sir, as there is
+between a pair of bag-pipes and a Recorder."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>A THICKNESS IN THE THROAT.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>The date is September, 1805, and the room before us is a drawing-room in
+a pleasant house at Brighton. The hot sun is beating down on cliff and
+terrace, beach and pier, on the downs behind the town and the sparkling
+sea in front. The brightness of the blue sky is softened by white vapor
+that here and there resembles a vast curtain of filmy gauze, but nowhere
+has gathered into visible masses of hanging cloud. In the distance the
+sea is murmuring audibly, and through the screened windows, together
+with the drowsy hum of the languid waves, comes a light breeze that is
+invigorating, notwithstanding its sensible warmth.</p>
+
+<p>Besides ourselves there are but two people in the room: a gentlewoman
+who has said farewell to youth, but not to feminine grade and delicacy;
+and an old man, who is lying on a sofa near one of the open windows,
+whilst his daughter plays passages of Handel's music on the piano-forte.</p>
+
+<p>The old man wears the dress of an obsolete school of English gentlemen;
+a large brown wig with three rows of curls, the lowest row resting on
+the curve of his shoulders; a loose grey coat, notable for the size of
+its cuffs and the bigness of its heavy buttons; ruffles at his wrists,
+and frills of fine lace below his roomy cravat. These are the most
+conspicuous articles of his costume, but not the most striking points of
+his aspect. Over his huge, pallid, cadaverous, furrowed face there is an
+air singularly expressive of exhaustion and power, of debility and
+latent strength&mdash;an air that says to sensitive beholders, "This
+prostrate veteran was once a giant amongst giants; his fires are dying
+out; but the old magnificent courage and ability will never altogether
+leave him until the beatings of his heart shall have quite ceased: touch
+him with foolishness or disrespect, and his rage will be terrible."
+Standing here we can see his prodigious bushy eyebrows, that are as
+white as driven snow, and under them we can see the large black eyes,
+beneath the angry fierceness of which hundreds of proud British peers,
+assembled in their council-chamber, have trembled like so many whipped
+schoolboys. There is no lustre in them now, and their habitual
+expression is one of weariness and profound indifference to the world&mdash;a
+look that is deeply pathetic and depressing, until some transient cause
+of irritation or the words of a sprightly talker rouse him into
+animation. But the most noticeable quality of his face is its look of
+extreme age. Only yesterday a keen observer said of him, "Lord Thurlow
+is, I believe, only seventy-four; and from his appearance I should think
+him a hundred years old."</p>
+
+<p>So quiet is the reclining form, that the pianist thinks her father must
+be sleeping. Turning on the music-stool to get a view of his
+countenance, and to satisfy herself as to his state, she makes a false
+note, when, quick as the blunder, the brown wig turns upon the
+pillow&mdash;the furrowed face is presented to her observation, and an
+electric brightness fills the big black eyes, as the veteran, with deep
+rolling tones, reproves her carelessness:&mdash;"What are you doing?&mdash;what
+are you doing? I had almost forgotten the world. Play that piece again."</p>
+
+<p>Twelve months more&mdash;and the lady will be playing Handel's music on that
+same instrument; but the old man will not be a listener.</p>
+
+<p>From Brighton, in 1805, let readers transport themselves to Canterbury
+in 1776, and let them enter a barber's shop, hard by Canterbury
+Cathedral. It is a primitive shop, with the red and white pole over the
+door, and a modest display of wigs and puff-boxes in the window. A small
+shop, but, notwithstanding its smallness, the best shop of its kind in
+Canterbury; and its lean, stiff, exceedingly respectable master is a man
+of good repute in the cathedral town. His hands have, ere now, powdered
+the Archbishop's wig, and he is specially retained by the chief clergy
+of the city and neighborhood to keep their false hair in order, and trim
+the natural tresses of their children. Not only have the dignitaries of
+the cathedral taken the worthy barber under their special protection,
+but they have extended to his little boy Charles, a demure, prim lad,
+who is at this present time a pupil in the King's School, to which
+academy clerical interest gained him admission. The lad is in his
+fourteenth year; and Dr. Osmund Beauvoir, the master of the school,
+gives him so good a character for industry and dutiful demeanor, that
+some of the cathedral ecclesiastics have resolved to make the little
+fellow's fortune&mdash;by placing him in the office of a Chorister. There is
+a vacant place in the cathedral choir; and the boy who is lucky enough
+to receive the appointment will be provided for munificently. He will
+forthwith have a maintenance, and in course of time his salary will be
+&pound;70 per annum.</p>
+
+<p>During the last fortnight the barber has been in great and constant
+excitement&mdash;hoping that his little boy will obtain this valuable piece
+of preferment; persuading himself that the lad's thickness of voice,
+concerning which the choir-master speaks with aggravating persistence,
+is a matter of no real importance; fearing that the friends of another
+contemporary boy, who is said by the choir-master to have an exceedingly
+mellifluous voice, may defeat his paternal aspirations. The momentous
+question agitates many humble homes in Canterbury; and whilst Mr.
+Abbott, the barber, is encouraged to hope the best for his son, the
+relatives and supporters of the contemporary boy are urging him not to
+despair. Party spirit prevails on either side&mdash;Mr. Abbott's family
+associates maintaining that the contemporary boy's higher notes resemble
+those of a penny whistle; whilst the contemporary boy's father, with
+much satire and some justice, murmurs that "old Abbott, who is the
+gossip-monger of the parsons, wants to push his son into a place for
+which there is a better candidate."</p>
+
+<p>To-day is the eventful day when the election will be made. Even now,
+whilst Abbott, the barber, is trimming a wig at his shop window, and
+listening to the hopeful talk of an intimate neighbor, his son Charley
+is chanting the Old Hundredth before the whole chapter. When Charley has
+been put through his vocal paces, the contemporary boy is requested to
+sing. Whereupon that clear-throated competitor, sustained by justifiable
+self-confidence and a new-laid egg which he had sucked scarcely a minute
+before he made his bow to their reverences, sings out with such richness
+and compass that all the auditors recognize his great superiority.</p>
+
+<p>Ere ten more minutes have passed Charley Abbot knows that he has lost
+the election; and he hastens from the cathedral with quick steps.
+Running into the shop he gives his father a look that tells the whole
+story of&mdash;failure, and then the little fellow, unable to command his
+grief, sits down upon the floor and sobs convulsively.</p>
+
+<p>Failure is often the first step to eminence.</p>
+
+<p>Had the boy gained the chorister's place, he would have a cathedral
+servant all his days.</p>
+
+<p>Having failed to get it, he returned to the King's School, went a poor
+scholar to Oxford, and fought his way to honor. He became Chief Justice
+of the King's Bench, and a peer of the realm. Towards the close of his
+honorable career Lord Tenterden attended service in the Cathedral of
+Canterbury, accompanied by Mr. Justice Richardson. When the ceremonial
+was at an end the Chief Justice said to his friend&mdash;"Do you see that old
+man there amongst the choristers? In him, brother Richardson, behold the
+only being I ever envied: when at school in this town we were candidates
+together for a chorister's place; he obtained it; and if I had gained my
+wish he might have been accompanying you as Chief Justice, and pointing
+me out as his old school-fellow, the singing man."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="PART_VI" id="PART_VI"></a>PART VI.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'>AMATEUR THEATRICALS.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>ACTORS AT THE BAR.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>Some years since the late Sergeant Wilkins was haranguing a crowd of
+enlightened electors from the hustings of a provincial borough, when a
+stentorian voice exclaimed, "Go home, you rope-dancer!" Disdaining to
+notice the interruption, the orator continued his speech for fifty
+seconds, when the same voice again cried out, "Go home, you
+rope-dancer!" A roar of laughter followed the reiteration of the insult;
+and in less than two minutes thrice fifty unwashed blackguards were
+roaring with all the force of their lungs, "Ah-h-h&mdash;Go home, you
+rope-dancer!" Not slow to see the moaning of the words, the unabashed
+lawyer, who in his life had been a dramatic actor, replied with his
+accustomed readiness and effrontery. A young man unacquainted with mobs
+would have descanted indignantly and with many theatrical flourishes on
+the dignity and usefulness of the player's vocation; an ordinary
+demagogue would have frankly admitted the discourteous impeachment, and
+pleaded in mitigation that he had always acted in leading parts and for
+high salaries. Sergeant Wilkins took neither of those courses, for he
+knew his audience, and was aware that his connection with the stage was
+an affair about which he had better say as little as possible. Instead
+of appealing to their generosity, or boasting of his histrionic
+eminence, he threw himself broadly on their sense of humor. Drawing
+himself up to his full height, the big, burly man advanced to the marge
+of the platform, and extending his right hand with an air of authority,
+requested silence by the movement of his arm. The sign was instantly
+obeyed; for having enjoyed their laugh, the multitude wished for the
+rope-dancer's explanation. As soon as the silence was complete, he drew
+back two paces, put himself in an oratorical <i>pose</i>, as though he were
+about to speak, and then, disappointing the expectations of the
+assembly, deliberately raised forwards and upwards the skirts of his
+frock-coat. Having thus arranged his drapery he performed a slow
+gyration&mdash;presenting his huge round shoulders and unwieldy legs to the
+populace. When his back was turned to the crowd, he stooped and made a
+low obeisance to his vacant chair, thereby giving the effect of
+caricature to the outlines of his most protuberant and least honorable
+part. This pantomime lasted scarcely a minute; and before the spectators
+could collect themselves to resent so extraordinary an affront, the
+sergeant once again faced them, and in a clear, rich, jovial tone
+exclaimed, "<i>He</i> called me a rope-dancer!&mdash;after what you have seen, do
+you believe him?"</p>
+
+<p>With the exception of the man who started the cry, every person in the
+dense multitude was convulsed with laughter; and till the end of the
+election no turbulent rascal ventured to repeat the allusion to the
+sergeant's former occupation. At a moment of embarrassment, Mr.
+Disraeli, in the course of one of his youthful candidatures, created a
+diversion in his favor by telling a knot of unruly politicians that he
+<i>stood on his head</i>. With less wit, and much less decency, but with
+equal good fortune, Sergeant Wilkins took up his position on a baser
+part of his frame.</p>
+
+<p>The electors who respected Mr. Wilkins because he was a successful
+barrister, whilst they reproached him with having been a stage-player,
+were unaware how close an alliance exists between the art of the actor
+and the art of the advocate. To lawyers of every grade and speciality
+the histrionic faculty is a useful power; but to the advocate who wishes
+to sway the minds of jurors it is a necessary endowment. Comprising
+several distinct abilities, it not only enables the orator to rouse the
+passions and to play on the prejudices of his hearers, but it preserves
+him from the errors of judgment, tone, emphasis&mdash;in short, from manifold
+blunders of indiscretion and tact by which verdicts are lost quite as
+often as through defect of evidence and merit. Like the dramatic
+performer, the court-speaker, especially at the common law bar, has to
+assume various parts. Not only should he know the facts of his brief,
+but he should thoroughly identify himself with the client for whom his
+eloquence is displayed. On the theatrical stage mimetic business is cut
+up into specialities, men in most cases filling the parts of men, whilst
+actresses fill the parts of women; the young representing the
+characteristics of youth, whilst actors with special endowments simulate
+the qualities of old age; some confining themselves to light and trivial
+characters, whilst others are never required to strut before the scenes
+with hurried paces, or to speak in phrases that lack dignity and fine
+sentiment. But the popular advocate must in turn fill every <i>r&ocirc;le</i>. If
+childish simplicity be his client's leading characteristic, his
+intonations will express pliancy and foolish confidence; or if it is
+desirable that the jury should appreciate his client's honesty of
+purpose, he speaks with a voice of blunt, bluff, manly frankness.
+Whatever quality the advocate may wish to represent as the client's
+distinctive characteristic, it must be suggested to the jury by mimetic
+artifice of the finest sort. Speaking of a famous counsel, an
+enthusiastic juryman once said to this writer&mdash;"In my time I have heard
+Sir Alexander in pretty nearly every part: I've heard him as an old man
+and a young woman; I have heard him when he has been a ship run down at
+sea, and when he has been an oil-factory in a state of conflagration;
+once, when I was foreman of a jury, I saw him poison his intimate
+friend, and another time he did the part of a pious bank director in a
+fashion that would have skinned the eyelids of Exeter Hall: he ain't bad
+as a desolate widow with nine children, of which the eldest is under
+eight years of age; but if ever I have to listen to him again, I should
+like to see him as a young lady of good connexions who has been seduced
+by an officer of the Guards." In the days of his forensic triumphs Henry
+Brougham was remarkable for the mimetic power which enabled him to
+describe friend or foe by a few subtle turns of the voice. At a later
+period, long after he had left the bar, in compliance with a request
+that he would return thanks for the bridesmaids at a wedding breakfast,
+he observed, that "doubtless he had been selected for the task in
+consideration of his youth, beauty, and innocence." The laughter that
+followed this sally was of the sort which in poetic phraseology is
+called inextinguishable; and one of the wedding guests who heard the
+joke and the laughter, assures this writer that the storm of mirthful
+applause was chiefly due to the delicacy and sweetness of the
+intonations by which the speaker's facile voice, with its old and once
+familiar art, made the audience realize the charms of youth, beauty and
+innocence&mdash;charms which, so far as the lawyer's wrinkled visage was
+concerned, were conspicuous by their absence.</p>
+
+<p>Eminent advocates have almost invariably possessed qualities that would
+have made them successful mimics on the stage. For his mastery of
+oratorical artifices Alexander Wedderburn was greatly indebted to
+Sheridan, the lecturer on elocution, and to Macklin, the actor, from
+both of whom he took lessons; and when he had dismissed his teachers and
+become a leader of the English bar he adhered to their rules, and daily
+practised before a looking-glass the facial tricks by which Macklin
+taught him to simulate surprise or anger, indignation or triumph.
+Erskine was a perfect master of dramatic effect, and much of his
+richly-deserved success was due to the theatrical artifices with which
+he played upon the passions of juries. At the conclusion of a long
+oration he was accustomed to feign utter physical prostration, so that
+the twelve gentlemen in the box, in their sympathy for his sufferings
+and their admiration for his devotion to the interests of his client,
+might be impelled by generous emotion to return a favorable verdict.
+Thus when he defended Hardy, hoarseness and fatigue so overpowered him
+towards the close of his speech, that during the last ten minutes he
+could not speak above a whisper, and in order that his whispers might be
+audible to the jury, the exhausted advocate advanced two steps nearer to
+their box, and then extended his pale face to their eager eyes. The
+effect of the artifice on the excited jury is said to have been great
+and enduring, although they were speedily enlightened as to the real
+nature of his apparent distress. No sooner had the advocate received the
+first plaudits of his theatre on the determination of his harangue, than
+the multitude outside the court, taking up the acclamations which were
+heard within the building, expressed their feelings with such deafening
+clamor, and with so many signs of riotous intention, that Erskine was
+entreated to leave the court and soothe the passions of the mob with a
+few words of exhortation. In compliance with this suggestion he left the
+court, and forthwith addressed the dense out-door assembly in clear,
+ringing tones that were audible in Ludgate Hill, at one end of the Old
+Bailey, and to the billowy sea of human heads that surged round St.
+Sepulchre's Church at the other extremity of the dismal thoroughfare.</p>
+
+<p>At the subsequent trial of John Horne Tooke, Sir John Scott, unwilling
+that Erskine should enjoy a monopoly of theatrical artifice, endeavored
+to create a diversion in favor of the government by a display of those
+lachrymose powers, which Byron ridiculed in the following century. "I
+can endure anything but an attack on my good name," exclaimed the
+Attorney General, in reply to a criticism directed against his mode of
+conducting the prosecution; "my good name is the little patrimony I have
+to leave to my children, and, with God's help, gentlemen of the jury, I
+will leave it to them unimpaired." As he uttered these words tears
+suffused the eyes which, at a later period of the lawyer's career, used
+to moisten the woolsack in the House of Lords&mdash;</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+"Because the Catholics would not rise,<br />
+In spite of his prayers and his prophecies."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>For a moment Horne Tooke, who persisted in regarding all the
+circumstances of his perilous position as farcical, smiled at the
+lawyer's outburst in silent amusement; but as soon as he saw a
+sympathetic brightness in the eyes of one of the jury, the dexterous
+demagogue with characteristic humor and effrontery accused Sir John
+Mitford, the Solicitor General, of needless sympathy with the
+sentimental disturbance of his colleague. "Do you know what Sir John
+Mitford is crying about?" the prisoner inquired of the jury. "He is
+thinking of the destitute condition of Sir John Scott's children, and
+the <i>little patrimony</i> they are likely to divide among them." The jury
+and all present were not more tickled by the satire upon the Attorney
+General than by the indignant surprise which enlivened the face of Sir
+John Mitford, who was not at all prone to tears, and had certainly
+manifested no pity for John Scott's forlorn condition.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>"THE PLAY'S THE THING."</small></p>
+
+
+<p>Following the example set by the nobility in their castles and civic
+palaces, the Inns of Court set apart certain days of the year for
+feasting and revelry, and amongst the diversions with which the lawyers
+recreated themselves at these periods of rejoicing, the rude
+Pre-Shakespearian dramas took a prominent place. So far back as
+<span class="smcap">A.D.</span> 1431, the Masters of the Lincoln's Inn Bench restricted
+the number of annual revels to four&mdash;"one at the feast of All-Hallown,
+another at the feast of St. Erkenwald; the third at the feast of the
+Purification of our Lady; and the 4th at Midsummer." The ceremonials of
+these holidays were various; but the brief and sometimes unintelligible
+notices of the chroniclers give us sufficiently vivid and minute
+pictures of the boisterous jollity that marked the proceedings. Miracle
+plays and moralities, dancing and music, fantastic processions and mad
+pranks, spurred on the hours that were not devoted to heavy meals and
+deep potations. In the merriments of the different Inns there was a
+pleasant diversity&mdash;with regard to the duration and details of the
+entertainments: and occasionally the members of the four societies acted
+with so little concert that their festivals, falling at exactly the same
+time, were productive of rivalry and disappointments. Dugdale thinks
+that the Christmas revels were not regularly kept in Lincoln's Inn
+during the reign of Henry VIII.; and draws attention to an order made by
+the benchers of that house on 27 Nov., 22 H. VIII., the record of which
+runs thus:&mdash;"It is agreed that <span class="smcap">if</span> the two Temples do kepe
+Chrystemas, then the Chrystemas to be kept here; and to know this, the
+Steward of the House ys commanded to get knowledge, and to advertise my
+masters by the next day at night."</p>
+
+<p>But notwithstanding changes and novelties, the main features of a revel
+in an Inn of Court were always much the same. Some member of the society
+conspicuous for rank or wit of style, or for a combination of these
+qualities, was elected King of the Revel, and until the close of the
+long frolic he was despot and sole master of the position&mdash;so long as he
+did not disregard a few not vexatious conditions by which, the benchers
+limited his authority. He surrounded himself with a mock court, exacted
+homage from barristers and students, made proclamations to his loyal
+children, sat on a throne at daily banquets, and never appeared in
+public without a body-guard, and a numerous company of musicians, to
+protect his person and delight his ear.</p>
+
+<p>The wit and accomplishments of the younger lawyers were signally
+displayed in the dramatic interludes that usually enlivened these
+somewhat heavy and sluggish jollifications. Not only did they write the
+pieces, and put them before the audience with cunning devices for the
+production of scenic effect, but they were their own actors. It was not
+long before their 'moralities' were seasoned with political sentiments
+and allusions to public affairs. For instance, when Wolsey was in the
+fulness of his power, Sergeant Roo ventured to satirize the Cardinal in
+a masque with which Gray's Inn entertained Henry VIII. and his
+courtiers. Hall records that, "This plaie was so set furth with riche
+and costlie apparel; with strange diuises of maskes and morrishes, that
+it was highly praised of all menne saving the Cardinall, whiche imagined
+that the plaie had been deuised of him, and in greate furie sent for the
+said Maister Roo, and toke from hym his coife, and sent him to the
+Flete, and after he sent for the yoong gentlemen that plaied in the
+plaie, and them highly rebuked and threatened, and sent one of them,
+called Thomas Moyle, of Kent, to the Flete; but by means of friendes
+Master Roo and he wer deliuered at last." The author stoutly denied that
+he intended to satirize the Cardinal; and the chronicler, believing the
+sergeant's assertions, observes, "This plaie sore displeased the
+Cardinal, and yet it was never meant to him." That the presentation of
+plays was a usual feature of the festivals at Gray's Inn may be inferred
+from the passage where Dugdale, in his notes on that society, says;&mdash;"In
+4 Edw. VI. (17 Nov.), it was also ordered that henceforth there should
+be no comedies called <i>Interludes</i> in this House out of Term time, but
+when the feast of the Nativity of our Lord is solemnly observed. And
+that when there shall be any such comedies, then all the society at that
+time in commons to bear the charge of the apparel."</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding her anxiety for the maintenance of good discipline in
+the Inns of Court, Queen Elizabeth encouraged the Societies to celebrate
+their feasts with costliness and liberal hospitality, and her taste for
+dramatic entertainments increased the splendor and frequency of
+theatrical diversions amongst the lawyers. Christopher Hatton's name is
+connected with the history of the English drama, by the acts which he
+contributed to 'The Tragedie of Tancred and Gismunda, compiled by the
+gentlemen of the Inner Temple, and by them presented before her
+majestie;' and he was one of the chief actors in that ponderous and
+extravagant mummery with which the Inner Temple kept Christmas in the
+fourth year of Elizabeth's reign.</p>
+
+<p>The circumstances of that festival merit special notice.</p>
+
+<p>In the third year of Elizabeth's reign the Middle Temple and the Inner
+Temple were at fierce war, the former society having laid claim to
+Lyon's Inn, which had been long regarded as a dependency of the Inner
+Temple. The two Chief Justices, Sir Robert Catlyn and Sir James Dyer,
+were known to think well of the claimant's title, and the masters of the
+Inner Temple bench anticipated an adverse decision, when Lord Robert
+Dudley (afterwards Earl of Leicester) came to their relief with an order
+from Queen Elizabeth enjoining the Middle Templars no longer to vex
+their neighbors in the matter. Submission being the only course open to
+them, the lawyers of the Middle Temple desisted from their claim; and
+the Masters of the Inner Temple Bench expressed their great gratitude to
+Lord Robert Dudley, "by ordering and enacting that no person or persons
+of their society that then were, or thereafter should be, should be
+retained of councell against him the said Lord Robert, or his heirs; and
+that the arms of the said Lord Robert should be set up and placed in
+some convenient place in their Hall as a continual monument of his
+lordship's favor unto them."</p>
+
+<p>Further honors were paid to this nobleman at the ensuing Christmas, when
+the Inner Temple held a revel of unusual magnificence and made Lord
+Robert the ruler of the riot. Whilst the holidays lasted the young
+lord's title and style were "Pallaphilos, prince of Sophie High
+Constable Marshal of the Knights Templars, and Patron of the Honorable
+Order of Pegasus." And he kept a stately court, having for his chief
+officers&mdash;Mr. Onslow (Lord Chancellor), Anthony Stapleton (Lord
+Treasurer), Robert Kelway (Lord Privy Seal), John Fuller (Chief Justice
+of the King's Bench), William Pole (Chief Justice of the Common Pleas),
+Roger Manwood (Chief Baron of the Exchequer), Mr. Bashe (Steward of the
+Household), Mr. Copley (Marshal of the Household), Mr. Paten (Chief
+Butler), Christopher Hatton (Master of the Game), Messieurs Blaston,
+Yorke, Penston, Jervise (Masters of the Revels), Mr. Parker (Lieutenant
+of the Tower), Mr. Kendall (Carver), Mr. Martyn (Ranger of the Forests),
+and Mr. Stradling (Sewer). Besides these eighteen Placemen, Pallaphilos
+had many other mock officers, whose names are not recorded, and he was
+attended by a body-guard of fourscore members of the Inn.</p>
+
+<p>From the pages of Gerard Leigh and Dugdale, the reader can obtain a
+sufficiently minute account of the pompous ceremonials and heavy
+buffooneries of the season. He may learn some of the special services
+and contributions which Prince Pallaphilos required of his chief
+courtiers, and take note how Mr. Paten, as Chief Butler, had to provide
+seven dozen silver and gilt spoons, twelve dozen silver and gilt
+salt-cellars, twenty silver and gilt candlesticks, twenty fine large
+table-cloths of damask and diaper, twenty dozen white napkins, three
+dozen fair large towels, twenty dozen white cups and green pots, to say
+nothing of carving-knives, carving table, tureens, bread, beer, ale, and
+wine. The reader also may learn from those chroniclers how the company
+were placed according to degrees at different tables; how the banquets
+were served to the sound of drums and fifes; how the boar's head was
+brought in upon a silver dish; how the gentlemen in gowns, the
+trumpeters, and other musicians followed the boar's head in stately
+procession; and how, by a rule somewhat at variance with modern notions
+concerning old English hospitality, strangers of worth were expected to
+pay in cash for their entertainment, eightpence per head being the
+charge for dinner on the day of Christmas Eve, and twelve-pence being
+demanded from each stranger for his dinner on the following day.</p>
+
+<p>Ladies were not excluded from all the festivities; though it may be
+presumed they did not share in all the riotous meals of the period. It
+is certain that they were invited, together with the young law-students
+from the Inns of Chancery, to see a play and a masque acted in the hall;
+that seats were provided for their special accommodation in the hall
+whilst the sports were going forward; and that at the close of the
+dramatic performances the gallant dames and pretty girls were
+entertained by Pallaphilos in the library with a suitable banquet;
+whilst the mock Lord Chancellor, Mr. Onslow, presided at a feast in the
+hall, which with all possible speed had been converted from theatrical
+to more appropriate uses.</p>
+
+<p>But though the fun was rare and the array was splendid to idle folk of
+the sixteenth century, modern taste would deem such gaiety rude and
+wearisome, would call the ladies' banquet a disorderly scramble, and
+think the whole frolic scarce fit for schoolboys. And in many respects
+those revels of olden time were indecorous, noisy, comfortless affairs.
+There must have been a sad want of room and fresh air in the Inner
+Temple dining-hall, when all the members of the inn, the selected
+students from the subordinate Inns of Chancery, and half a hundred
+ladies (to say nothing of Mr. Gerard Leigh and illustrious strangers),
+had crowded into the space set apart for the audience. At the dinners
+what wrangling and tumult must have arisen through squabbles for place,
+and the thousand mishaps that always attend an endeavor to entertain
+five hundred gentlemen at a dinner, in a room barely capacious enough
+for the proper accommodation of a hundred and fifty persons. Unless this
+writer greatly errs, spoons and knives were in great request, and table
+linen was by no means 'fair and spotless' towards the close of the rout.</p>
+
+<p>Superb, on that holyday, was the aspect of Prince Pallaphilos. Wearing a
+complete suit of elaborately wrought and richly gilt armor, he bore
+above his helmet a cloud of curiously dyed feathers, and held a gilt
+pole-axe in his hand. By his side walked the Lieutenant of the Tower
+(Mr. Parker), clad in white armor, and like Pallaphilos furnished with
+feathers and a pole-axe.</p>
+
+<p>On entering the hall the prince and his Lieutenant of the Tower were
+preceded by sixteen trumpeters (at full blare), four drummers (at full
+drum), and a company of fifers (at full whistle), and followed by four
+men in white armor, bearing halberds in their hands. Thrice did this
+procession march round the fire that blazed in the centre of the hall;
+and when in the course of these three circuits the four halberdiers and
+the musicians had trodden upon everybody's toes (their own included),
+and when moreover they had blown themselves out of time and breath,
+silence was proclaimed; and Prince Pallaphilos, having laid aside his
+pole-axe and his naked sword and a few other trifles, took his seat at
+the urgent entreaty of the mock Lord Chancellor.</p>
+
+<p>But Kit Hatton's appearance and part in the proceedings were even more
+outrageously ridiculous. The future Lord Chancellor of England was then
+a very elegant and witty young fellow, proud of his quick humor and
+handsome face, but far prouder of his exquisitely proportioned legs. No
+sooner had Prince Pallaphilos taken his seat, at the Lord Chancellor's
+suggestion, than Kit Hatton (as master of the game) entered the hall,
+dressed in a complete suit of green velvet, and holding a green bow in
+his left hand. His quiver was supplied with green arrows, and round his
+neck was slung a hunting-horn. By Kit's side, arrayed in exactly the
+same style, walked the Ranger of the Forests (Mr. Martyn); and having
+forced their way into the crowded chamber, the two young men blew three
+blasts of venery upon their horns, and then paced three times round the
+fire. After thus parading the hall they paused before the Lord
+Chancellor, to whom the Master of Game made three curtsies, and then on
+his knees proclaimed the desire of his heart to serve the mighty Prince
+Pallaphilos.</p>
+
+<p>Having risen from his kneeling posture Kit Hatton blew his horn, and at
+the signal his huntsman entered the room, bringing with him a fox, a
+cat, and ten couples of hounds. Forthwith the fox was released from the
+pole to which it was bound; and when the luckless creature had crept
+into a corner under one of the tables, the ten couples of hounds were
+sent in pursuit. It is a fact that English gentlemen in the sixteenth
+century thus amused themselves with a fox-hunt in a densely crowded
+dining-room. Over tables and under tables, up the hall and down the
+hall, those score hounds went at full cry after a miserable fox, which
+they eventually ran into and killed in the cinder-pit, or as Dugdale
+expresses it, "beneath the fire." That work achieved, the cat was turned
+off, and the hounds sent after her, with much blowing of horns, much
+cracking of whips, and deafening cries of excitement from the gownsmen,
+who tumbled over one another in their eagerness to be in at the death.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>THE RIVER AND THE STRAND BY TORCHLIGHT.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>Scarcely less out of place in the dining-hall than Kit Hatton's hounds,
+was the mule fairly mounted on which the Prince Pallaphilos made his
+appearance at the High Table after supper, when he notified to his
+subjects in what manner they were to disport themselves till bedtime.
+Thus also when the Prince of Purpoole kept his court at Gray's Inn,
+<span class="smcap">A.D.</span> 1594, the prince's champion rode into the dining-hall upon
+the back of a fiery charger which, like the rider, was clothed in a
+panoply of steel.</p>
+
+<p>In costliness and riotous excess the Prince of Purpoole's revel at
+Gray's Inn was not inferior to any similar festivity in the time of
+Elizabeth. On the 20th of December, St. Thomas's Eve, the Prince (one
+Master Henry Holmes, a Norfolk gentleman) took up his quarters in the
+Great Hall of the Inn, and by the 3rd day of January the grandeur and
+comicality of his proceedings had created so much talk throughout the
+town that the Lord Treasurer Burghley, the Earls of Cumberland, Essex,
+Shrewsbury and Westmoreland, the Lords Buckhurst, Windsor, Sheffield,
+Compton, and a magnificent array of knights and ladies visited Gray's
+Inn Hall on that day and saw the masque which the revellers put upon the
+stage. After the masque there was a banquet, which was followed by a
+ball. On the following day the prince, attended by eighty gentlemen of
+Gray's Inn and the Temple (each of the eighty wearing a plume on his
+head), dined in state with the Lord Mayor and aldermen of the city, at
+Crosby Place. The frolic continued for many days more; the royal
+Purpoole on one occasion visiting Blackwall with a splendid retinue, on
+another (Twelfth Night) receiving a gallant assembly of lords, ladies,
+and Knights, at his court in Gray's Inn, and on a third (Shrovetide)
+visiting the queen herself at Greenwich, when Her Majesty warmly
+applauded the masque set before her by the actors who were members of
+the Prince's court. So delighted was Elizabeth with the entertainment,
+that she graciously allowed the masquers to kiss her right hand, and
+loudly extolled Gray's Inn "as an house she was much indebted to, for it
+did always study for some sports to present unto her;" whilst to the
+mock Prince she showed her favor, by placing in his hand the jewel (set
+with seventeen diamonds and fourteen rubies) which he had won by valor
+and skill in the tournament which formed part of the Shrovetide sports.</p>
+
+<p>Numerous entries in the records of the inns testify to the importance
+assigned by the olden lawyers to their periodic feasts; and though in
+the fluctuations of public opinion with regard to the effects of
+dramatic amusements, certain benchers, or even all the benchers of a
+particular inn, may be found at times discountenancing the custom of
+presenting masques, the revels were usually diversified and heightened
+by stage plays. Not only were interludes given at the high and grand
+holidays styled <i>Solemn Revels</i>, but also at the minor festivities
+termed Post Revels they were usually had recourse to for amusement.
+"Besides those <i>solemn revels</i>, or measures aforesaid," says Dugdale,
+concerning the old usages of the 'Middle Temple,' "they had wont to be
+entertained with Post Revels performed by the better sort of the young
+gentlemen of the society, with galliards, corrantoes, and other dances,
+or else with stage-plays; the first of these feasts being at the
+beginning, and the other at the latter end of Christmas. But of late
+years these Post Revels have been disused, both here and in the other
+Inns of Court."</p>
+
+<p>Besides producing and acting some of our best Pro-Shakespearian dramas,
+the Elizabethan lawyers put upon the stage at least one of William
+Shakespeare's plays. From the diary of a barrister (supposed to be John
+Manningham, of the Middle Temple), it is learnt that the Middle
+Templar's acted Shakespeare's 'Twelfth Night' at the Readers' feast on
+Candlemas Day, 1601-2.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p>
+
+<p>In the following reign, the masques of the lawyers in no degree fell off
+with regard to splendor. Seldom had the Thames presented a more
+picturesque and exhilarating spectacle than it did on the evening of
+February 20, 1612, when the gentlemen masquers of Gray's Inn and the
+Temple, entered the king's royal barge at Winchester House, at seven
+o'clock, and made the voyage to Whitehall, attended by hundreds of
+barges and boats, each vessel being so brilliantly illuminated that the
+lights reflected upon the ripples of the river, seemed to be countless.
+As though the hum and huzzas of the vast multitude on the water were
+insufficient to announce the approach of the dazzling pageant, guns
+marked the progress of the revellers, and as they drew near the palace,
+all the attendant bands of musicians played the same stirring tune with
+uniform time. It is on record that the king received the amateur actors
+with an excess of condescension, and was delighted with the masque which
+Master Beaumont of the Inner Temple, and his friend, Master Fletcher,
+had written and dedicated "to the worthy Sir Francis Bacon, his
+Majesty's Solicitor-General, and the grave and learned bench of the
+anciently-called houses of Grayes Inn and the Inner Temple, and the
+Inner Temple and Grayes Inn." The cost of this entertainment was
+defrayed by the members of the two inns&mdash;each reader paying &pound;4, each
+ancient, &pound;2 10<i>s.</i>; each barrister, &pound;2, and each student, 20<i>s.</i></p>
+
+<p>The Inner Temple and Gray's Inn having thus testified their loyalty and
+dramatic taste, in the following year on Shrove-Monday night (Feb. 15,
+1613), Lincoln's Inn and the Middle Temple, with no less splendor and
+<i>&eacute;clat</i>, enacted at Whitehall a masque written by George Chapman. For
+this entertainment, Inigo Jones designed and perfected the theatrical
+decorations in a style worthy of an exhibition that formed part of the
+gaieties with which the marriage of the Palsgrave with the Princess
+Elizabeth was celebrated. And though the masquers went to Whitehall by
+land, their progress was not less pompous than the procession which had
+passed up the Thames in the February of the preceding year. Having
+mustered in Chancery Lane, at the official residence of the Master of
+the Rolls, the actors and their friends delighted the town with a
+gallant spectacle. Mounted on richly-caparisoned and mettlesome horses,
+they rode from Fleet Street up the Strand, and by Charing Cross to
+Whitehall, through a tempest of enthusiasm. Every house was illuminated,
+every window was crowded with faces, on every roof men stood in rows,
+from every balcony bright eyes looked down upon the gay scene, and from
+basement to garret, from kennel to roof-top throughout the long way,
+deafening cheers testified, whilst they increased the delight of the
+multitude. Such a pageant would, even in these sober days, rouse London
+from her cold propriety. Having thrown aside his academic robe, each
+masquer had donned a fantastic dress of silver cloth embroidered with
+gold lace, gold plate, and ostrich plumes. He wore across his breast a
+gold baldrick, round his neck a ruff of white feathers brightened with
+pearls and silver lace, and on his head a coronal of snowy plumes.
+Before each mounted masquer rode a torch-bearer, whose right hand waved
+a scourge of flame, instead of a leathern thong. In a gorgeous chariot,
+preceded by a long train of heralds, were exhibited the Dramatis
+Person&aelig;&mdash;Honor, Plutus, Eunomia, Phemeis, Capriccio&mdash;arrayed in their
+appointed costumes; and it was rumored that the golden canopy of their
+coach had been bought for an enormous sum. Two other triumphal cars
+conveyed the twelve chief musicians of the kingdom, and these masters of
+melody were guarded by torch-bearers, marching two deep before and
+behind, and on either side of the glittering carriages. Preceding the
+musicians, rode a troop of ludicrous objects, who roused the derision of
+the mob, and made fat burghers laugh till tears ran down their cheeks.
+They were the mock masque, each resembling an ape, each wearing a
+fantastic dress that heightened the hideous absurdity of his monkey's
+visage, each riding upon an ass, or small pony, and each of them
+throwing shells upon the crowd by way of a largess. In the front of the
+mock masque, forming the vanguard of the entire spectacle, rode fifty
+gentlemen of the Inns of Court, reining high-bred horses, and followed
+by their running footmen, whose liveries added to the gorgeous
+magnificence of the display.</p>
+
+<p>Besides the expenses which fell upon individuals taking part in the
+play, or procession, this entertainment cost the two inns &pound;1086 8<i>s.</i>
+11<i>d.</i> About the same time Gray's Inn, at the instigation of Attorney
+General Sir Francis Bacon, performed 'The Masque of Flowers' before the
+lords and ladies of the court, in the Banqueting-house, Whitehall; and
+six years later Thomas Middleton's Inner Temple Masque, or Masque of
+Heroes' was presented before a goodly company of grand ladies by the
+Inner Templars.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> The propensity of lawyers for the stage, lingered amongst
+barristers on Circuit, to a comparatively recent date. 'Old stagers' of
+the Home and Western Circuits, can recall how the juniors of their
+briefless and bagless days used to entertain the natives of Guildford
+and Exeter with Shakspearian performances. The Northern Circuit also was
+at one time famous for the histrionic ability of its bar, but toward the
+close of the last century, the dramatic recreations of its junior
+members were discountenanced by the Grand Court.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>ANTI-PRYNNE.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>Of all the masques mentioned in the records of the Inns of Court, the
+most magnificent and costly was the famous Anti-Prynne demonstration, by
+which the lawyers endeavored to show their contemptuous disapproval of a
+work that inveighed against the licentiousness of the stage, and
+preferred a charge of wanton levity against those who encouraged
+theatrical performances.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst the 'Histriomastix' rendered the author ridiculous to mere men of
+pleasure, it roused fierce animosities by the truth and fearless
+completeness of its assertions; but to no order of society was the
+famous attack on the stage more offensive than to the lawyers; and of
+lawyers the members of Lincoln's Inn were the most vehement in their
+displeasure. The actors writhed under the attack; the lawyers were
+literally furious with rage&mdash;for whilst rating them soundly for their
+love of theatrical amusements, Prynne almost contrived to make it seem
+that his views were acceptable to the wisest and most reverend members
+of the legal profession. Himself a barrister of Lincoln's Inn, he with
+equal craft and audacity complimented the benchers of that society on
+the firmness with which they had forbidden professional actors to take
+part in the periodic revels of the inn, and on their inclination to
+govern the society in accordance with Puritanical principles. Addressing
+his "Much Honored Friends, the Right Worshipful Masters of the Bench of
+the Honorable Flourishing Law Society of Lincoln's Inne," the
+utter-barrister said: "For whereas other Innes of Court (I know not by
+what evil custom, and worse example) admit of common actors and
+interludes upon their two grand festivalls, to recreate themselves
+withall, notwithstanding the statutes of our Kingdome (of which
+lawyers, of all others, should be most observant), have branded all
+professed stage-players for infamous rogues, and stage-playes for
+unlawful pastimes, especially on Lord's-dayes and other solemn
+holidayes, on which these grand dayes ever fall; yet such hath been your
+pious tender care, not only of this societie's honor, but also of the
+young students' good (for the advancing of whose piety and studies you
+have of late erected a magnificent chapel, and since that a library),
+that as you have prohibited by late publicke orders, all disorderly
+Bacchanalian Grand-Christmasses (more fit for pagans than Christians;
+for the deboisest roarers than grave civill students, who should be
+patternes of sobriety unto others), together with all publicke dice-play
+in the Hall (a most pernicious, infamous game; condemned in all ages,
+all places, not onely by councels, fathers, divines, civilians,
+canonists, politicians, and other Christian writers; by divers Pagan
+authors of all sorts, and by Mahomet himselfe; but likewise by sundry
+heathen, yea, Christian Magistrates' edicts)."</p>
+
+<p>Concerning the London theatres he observes that the "two old play
+houses" (<i>i.e.</i>, the Fortune and the Red Bull), the "new theatre"
+(<i>i.e.</i>, Whitefriars play-house), and two other established theatres,
+being found inadequate to the wants of the play-going public, a sixth
+theatre had recently been opened. "The multitude of our London
+play-haunters being so augmented now, that all the ancient Divvel's
+Chappels (for so the fathers style all play-houses) being five in
+number, are not sufficient to containe their troops, whence we see a
+sixth now added to them, whereas even in vitious Nero his raigne there
+were but three standing theatres in Pagan Rome (though far more splendid
+than Christian London), and those three too many." Having thus
+enumerated some of the saddest features of his age, the author of the
+'Player's Scourge' again commends the piety and decorum of the
+Lincoln's Inn Benchers, saying, "So likewise in imitation of the ancient
+Laced&aelig;monians and Massilienses, or rather of primitive zealous
+Christians, you have always from my first admission into your society,
+and long before, excluded all common players with their ungodly
+interludes, from all your solemn festivals."</p>
+
+<p>If the benchers of one Inn winced under Prynne's 'expressions of
+approval,' the students of all the Inns of Court were even more
+displeased with the author who, in a dedicatory letter "to the right
+Christian, Generous Young Gentlemen-Students of the four Innes of Court,
+and especially those of Lincolne's Inne," urged them to "at last
+falsifie that ignominious censure which some English writers in their
+printed works have passed upon Innes of Court Students, of whom they
+record:&mdash;That Innes of Court men were undone but for players, that they
+are their chiefest guests and imployment, and the sole business that
+makes them afternoon's men; that is one of the first things they learne
+as soon as they are admitted, to see stage-playes, and take smoke at a
+play-house, which they commonly make their studie; where they quickly
+learne to follow all fashions, to drinke all healths, to wear favours
+and good cloathes, to consort with ruffianly companions, to swear the
+biggest oaths, to quarrel easily, fight desperately, quarrel
+inordinately, to spend their patrimony ere it fall, to use gracefully
+some gestures of apish compliment, to talk irreligiously, to dally with
+a mistresse, and hunt after harlots, to prove altogether lawless in
+steed of lawyers, and to forget that little learning, grace, and vertue
+which they had before; so much that they grow at last past hopes of ever
+doing good, either to the church, their country, their owne or others'
+souls."</p>
+
+<p>The storm of indignation which followed the appearance of the
+'Histriomastix' was directed by the members of the Four Inns, who felt
+themselves bound by honor no less than by interest, to disavow all
+connexion with, or leaning towards, the unpopular author.</p>
+
+<p>On the suggestion of Lincoln's Inn, the four societies combined their
+forces, and at a cost of more than twenty thousand pounds, in addition
+to sums spent by individuals, entertained the Court with that splendid
+masque which Whitelock has described in his 'Memoirs' with elaborate
+prolixity. The piece entitled 'The Triumph of Peace,' was written by
+Shirley, and it was produced with a pomp and lavish expenditure that
+were without precedent. The organization and guidance of the undertaking
+were entrusted to a committee of eight barristers, two from each inn;
+and this select body comprised men who were alike remarkable for
+talents, accomplishments, and ambition, and some of whom were destined
+to play strangely diverse parts in the drama of their epoch. It
+comprised Edward Hyde, then in his twenty-sixth year; young Bulstrode
+Whitelock, who had not yet astonished the more decorous magnates of his
+country by wearing a falling-band at the Oxford Quarter Sessions; Edward
+Herbert, the most unfortunate of Cavalier lawyers; John Selden, already
+a middle-aged man; John Finch, born in the same year as Selden, and
+already far advanced in his eager course to a not honorable notoriety.
+Attorney General Noy was also of the party, but his disastrous career
+was already near its close.</p>
+
+<p>The committee of management had their quarters at Ely House, Holborn;
+and from that historic palace the masquers started for Whitehall on the
+eve of Candlemas Day, 1633-4. It was a superb procession. First marched
+twenty tall footmen, blazing in liveries of scarlet cloth trimmed with
+lace, each of them holding a baton in his right hand, and in his left a
+flaring torch that covered his face with light, and made the steel and
+silver of his sword-scabbard shine brilliantly. A company of the
+marshal's men marched next with firm and even steps, clearing the way
+for their master. A burst of deafening applause came from the multitude
+as the marshal rode through the gateway of Ely House, and caracoled over
+the Holborn way on the finest charger that the king's stables could
+furnish. A perfect horseman and the handsomest man then in town, Mr.
+Darrel of Lincoln's Inn, had been elected to the office of marshal in
+deference to his wealth, his noble aspect, his fine nature, and his
+perfect mastery of all manly sports. On either side of Mr. Darrel's
+horse marched a lacquey bearing a flambeau, and the marshal's page was
+in attendance with his master's cloak. An interval of some twenty paces,
+and then came the marshal's body-guard, composed of one hundred mounted
+gentlemen of the Inns of Court&mdash;twenty-five from each house; showing in
+their faces the signs of gentle birth and honorable nurture; and with
+strong hands reining mettlesome chargers that had been furnished for
+their use by the greatest nobles of the land. This flood of flashing
+chivalry was succeeded by an anti-masque of beggars and cripples,
+mounted on the lamest and most unsightly of rat-tailed srews and
+spavined ponies, and wearing dresses that threw derision on legal
+vestments and decorations. Another anti-masque satirized the wild
+projects of crazy speculators and inventors; and as it moved along the
+spectators laughed aloud at the "fish-call, or looking-glass for fishes
+in the sea, very useful for fishermen to call all kinds of fish to their
+nets;" the newly-invented wind-mate for raising a breeze over becalmed
+seas, the "movable hydraulic" which should give sleep to patients
+suffering under fever.</p>
+
+<p>Chariots and horsemen, torch-bearers and lacqueys, followed in order.
+"Then came the first chariot of the grand masquers, which was not so
+large as those that went before, but most curiously framed, carved, and
+painted with exquisite art, and purposely for this service and occasion.
+The form of it was after that of the Roman triumphant chariots. The
+seats in it were made of oval form in the back end of the chariot, so
+that there was no precedence in them, and the faces of all that sat in
+it might be seen together. The colors of the first chariot were silver
+and crimson, given by the lot to Gray's Inn: the chariot was drawn with
+four horses all abreast, and they were covered to their heels all over
+with cloth of tissue, of the colors of crimson and silver, huge plumes
+of white and red feathers on their heads; the coachman's cap and
+feather, his long coat, and his very whip and cushion of the same stuff
+and color. In this chariot sat the four grand masquers of Gray's Inn,
+their habits, doublets, trunk-hose, and caps of most rich cloth of
+tissue, and wrought as thick with silver spangles as they could be
+placed; large white stockings up to their trunk-hose, and rich sprigs in
+their cap, themselves proper and beautiful young gentlemen. On each side
+of the chariot were four footmen in liveries of the color of the
+chariot, carrying huge flamboys in their hands, which, with the torches,
+gave such a lustre to the paintings, spangles, and habits that hardly
+anything could be invented to appear more glorious."</p>
+
+<p>Six musicians followed the state-chariot of Gray's Inn, playing as they
+went; and then came the triumphal cars of the Middle Templars, the Inner
+Templars, and the Lincoln's Inn men&mdash;each car being drawn by four horses
+and attended by torch-bearers, flambeau-bearers, and musicians. In shape
+these four cars were alike, but they differed in the color of their
+fittings. Whilst Gray's Inn used scarlet and silver, the Middle
+Templars chose blue and silver decorations, and each of the other two
+houses adopted a distinctive color for the housings of their horses and
+the liveries of their servants. It is noteworthy that the inns (equal as
+to considerations of dignity) took their places in the pageant by lot;
+and that the four grand masquers of each inn were seated in their
+chariot on seats so constructed that none of the four took precedence of
+the others. The inns, in days when questions of precedence received much
+attention, were very particular in asserting their equality, whenever
+two or more of them acted in co-operation. To mark this equality, the
+masque written by Beaumont and Fletcher in 1612 was described "The
+Masque of the Inner Temple and Grayes Inn; Grayes Inn and the Inner
+Temple:" and the dedication of the piece to Francis Bacon, reversing
+this transposition, mentions "the allied houses of Grayes Inn and the
+Inner Temple, and the Inner Temple and Grayes Inn," these changes being
+made to point the equal rank of the two fraternities.</p>
+
+<p>Through the illuminated streets this pageant marched to the sound of
+trumpets and drums, cymbals and fifes, amidst the deafening acclamations
+of the delighted town; and when the lawyers reached Whitehall, the king
+and queen were so delighted with the spectacle, that the procession was
+ordered to make the circuit of the tilt-yard for the gratification of
+their Majesties, who would fain see the sight once again from the
+windows of their palace. Is there need to speak of the manner in which
+the masque was acted, of the music and dances, of the properties and
+scenes, of the stately banquet after the play and the grand ball which
+began at a still later hour, of the king's urbanity and the graciousness
+of Henrietta, who "did the honor to some of the masquers to dance with
+them herself, and to judge them as good dancers as she ever saw!"</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding a few untoward broils and accidents, the entertainment
+passed off so satisfactorily that 'The Triumph of Peace' was acted for a
+second time in the presence of the king and queen, in the Merchant
+Taylors' Hall. Other diversions of the same kind followed with scarcely
+less <i>&eacute;clat</i>. At Whitehall the king himself and some of the choicest
+nobles of the land turned actors, and performed a grand masque, on which
+occasion the Templars were present as spectators in seats of honor.</p>
+
+<p>During the Shrovetide rejoicings of 1635, Henrietta even condescended to
+witness the performance of Davenant's 'Triumphs of the Prince d'Amour,'
+in the hall of the Middle Temple. Laying aside the garb of royalty, she
+went to the Temple, attended by a party of lords and ladies, and fine
+gentlemen who, like herself, assumed for the evening dresses suitable to
+persons of private station. The Marquis of Hamilton, the Countess of
+Denbigh, the Countess of Holland, and Lady Elizabeth Fielding were her
+companions; whilst the official attendants on her person were the Earl
+of Holland, Lord Goring, Mr. Percy, and Mr. Jermyn. Led to her place by
+"Mrs. Basse, the law-woman," Henrietta took a seat upon a scaffold fixed
+along the northern side of the hall, and amidst a crush of benchers'
+wives and daughters saw the play and heartily enjoyed it.</p>
+
+<p>Says Whitelock, at the conclusion of his account of the grand masque
+given by the four inns, "Thus these dreams past, and these pomps
+vanished." Scarcely had the frolic terminated when death laid a chill
+hand on the time-serving Noy, who in the consequences of his dishonest
+counsels left a cruel legacy to the master and the country whom he alike
+betrayed. A few more years&mdash;and John Finch, having lost the Great Seal,
+was an exile in a foreign land, destined to die in penury, without
+again setting foot on his native soil. The graceful Herbert, whose
+smooth cheek had flushed with joy at Henrietta's musical courtesies,
+became for a brief day the mock Lord Keeper of Charles II.'s mock court
+at Paris, and then, dishonored and disowned by his capricious master, he
+languished in poverty and disease, until he found an obscure grave in
+the French capital. More fortunate than his early rival, Edward Hyde
+outlived Charles Stuart's days of adverse fortune, and rose to a
+grievous greatness; but like that early rival, he, too, died in exile in
+France. Perhaps of all the managers of the grand masque the scholarly
+pedant, John Selden, had the greatest share of earthly satisfaction. Not
+the least fortunate of the party was the historian of "the pomp and
+glory, if not the vanity of the show," who having survived the
+Commonwealth and witnessed the Restoration, was permitted to retain his
+paternal estate, and in his last days could tell his numerous
+descendants how his old chum, Edward Hyde, had risen, fallen,
+and&mdash;passed to another world.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>AN EMPTY GRATE.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>With the revival of gaiety which attended and followed the Restoration,
+revels and masques came once more into vogue at the Inns of Court,
+where, throughout the Commonwealth, plays had been prohibited, and
+festivals had been either abolished or deprived of their ancient
+hilarity. The caterers of amusement for the new king were not slow to
+suggest that he should honor the lawyers with a visit; and in accordance
+with their counsel, His Majesty took water on August 15, 1661, and went
+in the royal barge from Whitehall to the Temple to dine at the Reader's
+feast.</p>
+
+<p>Heneage Finch had been chosen Autumn Reader of that inn, and in
+accordance with ancient usage he demonstrated his ability to instruct
+young gentlemen in the principles of English law, by giving a series of
+costly banquets. From the days of the Tudors to the rise of Oliver
+Cromwell, the Reader's feasts had been amongst the most sumptuous and
+ostentatious entertainments of the town&mdash;the Sergeant's feasts scarcely
+surpassing them in splendor, the inaugural dinners of lord mayors often
+lagging behind them in expense. But Heneage Finch's lavish hospitality
+outstripped the doings of all previous Readers. His revel was protracted
+throughout six days, and on each of these days he received at his table
+the representative members of some high social order or learned body.
+Beginning with a dinner to the nobility and Privy Councillors, he
+finished with a banquet to the king; and on the intervening days he
+entertained the civic authorities, the College of Physicians, the civil
+lawyers, and the dignitaries of the Church.</p>
+
+<p>The king's visit was attended with imposing ceremony, and wanted no
+circumstance that could have rendered the occasion more honorable to the
+host or to the society of which he was a member. All the highest
+officers of the court accompanied the monarch, and when he stepped from
+his barge at the Temple Stairs, he spoke with jovial urbanity to his
+entertainer and the Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, who received
+him with tokens of loyal deference and attachment. "On each side," says
+Dugdale, "as His Majesty passed, stood the Reader's servants in scarlet
+cloaks and white tabba doublets; there being a way made through the wall
+into the Temple Gardens; and above them on each side the benchers,
+barristers, and other gentlemen of the society, all in their gowns and
+formalities, the loud music playing from the time of his landing till he
+entered the hall; where he was received with xx violins, which continued
+as long as his majesty stayed." Fifty chosen gentlemen of the inn,
+wearing their academic gowns, placed dinner on the table, and waited on
+the feasters&mdash;no other servants being permitted to enter the hall during
+the progress of the banquet. On the dais at the top of the hall, under a
+canopy of state, the king and his brother James sat apart from men of
+lower degree, whilst the nobles of Whitehall occupied one long table,
+under the presidency of the Lord Chancellor, and the chief personages of
+the inn dined at a corresponding long table, having the reader for their
+chairman.</p>
+
+<p>In the following January, Charles II. and the Duke of York honored
+Lincoln's Inn with a visit, whilst the mock Prince de la Grange held his
+court within the walls of that society. Nine years later&mdash;in the
+February of 1671&mdash;King Charles and his brother James again visited
+Lincoln's Inn, on which occasion they were entertained by Sir Francis
+Goodericke, Knt., the reader of the inn, who seems almost to have gone
+beyond Heneage Finch in sumptuous profusion of hospitality. Of this
+royal visit a particular account is to be seen in the Admittance Book of
+the Honorable Society, from which it appears that the royal brothers
+were attended by the Dukes of Monmouth and Richmond; the Earls of
+Manchester, Bath, and Anglesea; Viscount Halifax, the Bishop of Ely,
+Lord Newport, Lord Henry Howard, and "divers others of great qualitie."</p>
+
+<p>The entertainment in most respects was a repetition of Sir Heneage
+Finch's feast&mdash;the king, the Duke of York, and Prince Rupert dining on
+the dais at the top of the hall, whilst the persons of inferior though
+high quality were regaled at two long tables, set down the hall; and
+the gentlemen of the inn condescending to act as menial servants. The
+reader himself, dropping on his knee when he performed the servile
+office, proffered the towel with which the king prepared himself for the
+repast; and barristers of ancient lineage and professional eminence
+contended for the honor of serving His Majesty with surloin and
+cheesecake upon the knee, and hastened with the alacrity of well-trained
+lacqueys to do the bidding of "the lords att their table." Having eaten
+and drunk to his lively satisfaction, Charles called for the Admittance
+Book of the Inn, and placed his name on the roll of members, thereby
+conferring on the society an honor for which no previous king of England
+had furnished a precedent. Following their chief's example, the Duke of
+York and Prince Rupert and other nobles forthwith joined the fraternity
+of lawyers; and hastily donning students' gowns, they mingled with the
+troop of gowned servitors, and humbly waited on their liege lord.</p>
+
+<p>In like manner, twenty-one years since (July 29, 1845) when Queen
+Victoria and her lamented consort visited Lincoln's Inn, on the opening
+of the new hall, they condescended to enter their names in the Admission
+Book of the Inn, thereby making themselves students of the society. Her
+Majesty has not been called to the bar; but Prince Albert in due course
+became a barrister and bencher. Repeating the action of Charles II.'s
+courtiers, the great Duke of Wellington and the bevy of great nobles
+present at the celebration became fellow-students with the queen; and on
+leaving the table the prince walked down the hall, wearing a student's
+stuff gown (by no means the most picturesque of academic robes), over
+his field-marshal's uniform. Her Majesty forbore to disarrange her
+toilet&mdash;which consisted of a blue bonnet with blue feathers, a dress of
+Limerick lace, and a scarlet shawl, with a deep gold edging&mdash;by putting
+her arms through the sleeveless arm-holes of a bombazine frock.</p>
+
+<p>Grateful to the lawyers for the cordiality with which they welcomed him
+to the country, William III. accepted an invitation to the Middle
+Temple, and was entertained by that society with a banquet and a masque,
+of which notice has been taken in another chapter of this work; and in
+1697-8 Peter the Great was a guest at the Christmas revels of the
+Templars. On that occasion the Czar enjoyed a favorable opportunity for
+gratifying his love of strong drink, and for witnessing the ease with
+which our ancestors drank wine by the magnum and punch by the gallon,
+when they were bent on enjoyment.</p>
+
+<p>In the greater refinement and increasing delicacy of the eighteenth
+century, the Inns of Court revels, which had for so many generations
+been conspicuous amongst the gaieties of the town, became less and less
+magnificent; and they altogether died out under the second of those
+Georges who are thought by some persons to have corrupted public morals
+and lowered the tastes of society. In 1733-4, when Lord Chancellor
+Talbot's elevation to the woolsack was celebrated by a revel in the
+Inner Temple Hall, the dulness and disorder of the celebration convinced
+the lawyers that they had not acted wisely in attempting to revive
+usages that had fallen into desuetude because they were inconvenient to
+new arrangements or repugnant to modern taste. No attempt was made to
+prolong the festivity over a succession of days. It was a revel of one
+day; and no one wished to add another to the period of riot. At two
+o'clock on Feb. 2, 1733-4, the new Chancellor, the master of the revels,
+the benchers of the inns, and the guests (who were for the most part
+lawyers), sat down to dinner in the hall. The barristers and students
+had their ordinary fare, with the addition of a flask of claret to each
+mess; but a superior repast was served at the High Table where fourteen
+students (of whom the Chancellor's eldest son was one), served as
+waiters. Whilst the banquet was in progress, musicians stationed in the
+gallery at the upper end of the hall filled the room with deafening
+noise, and ladies looked down upon the feasters from a large gallery
+which had been fitted up for their reception over the screen. After
+dinner, as soon as the hall could be cleared of dishes and decanters,
+the company were entertained with 'Love for Love,' and 'The Devil to
+Pay,' performed by professional actors who "all came from the Haymarket
+in chairs, ready dressed, and (as it was said), refused any gratuity for
+their trouble, looking upon the honor of distinguishing themselves on
+this occasion as sufficient." The players having withdrawn, the judges,
+sergeants, benchers, and other dignitaries, danced 'round about the coal
+fire;' that is to say, they danced round about a stove in which there
+was not a single spark of fire. The congregation of many hundreds of
+persons, in a hall which had not comfortable room for half the number,
+rendered the air so oppressively hot that the master of the revels
+wisely resolved to lead his troop of revellers round an empty grate. The
+chronicler of this ridiculous mummery observes: "And all the time of the
+dance the ancient song, accompanied by music, was sung by one Toby
+Aston, dressed in a bar-gown, whose father had formerly been Master of
+the Plea Office in the King's Bench. When this was over, the ladies came
+down from the gallery, went into the parliament chamber, and stayed
+about a quarter of an hour, while the hall was being put in order. They
+then went into the hall and danced a few minuets. Country dances began
+at ten, and at twelve a Very fine cold collation was provided for the
+whole company, from which they returned to dancing, which they
+continued as long as they pleased, and the whole day's entertainment was
+generally thought to be very genteelly and liberally conducted. The
+Prince of Wales honored the performance with his company part of the
+time; he came into the music <i>incog.</i> about the middle of the play, and
+went away as soon as the farce of 'walking round the coal fire' was
+over."</p>
+
+<p>With this notable dance of lawyers round an empty grate, the old revels
+disappeared. In their Grand Days, equivalent to the gaudy days, or feast
+days, or audit days of the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, the Inns of
+Court still retain the last vestiges of their ancient jollifications,
+but the uproarious riot of the obsolete festivities is but faintly
+echoed by the songs and laughter of the junior barristers and students
+who in these degenerate times gladden their hearts and loosen their
+tongues with an extra glass of wine after grand dinners, and then hasten
+back to chambers for tobacco and tea.</p>
+
+<p>On the discontinuance of the revels the Inns of Court lost their chief
+attractions for the courtly pleasure-seekers of the town, and many a day
+passed before another royal visit was paid to any one of the societies.
+In 1734 George III.'s father stood amongst the musicians in the Inner
+Temple Hall; and after the lapse of one century and eleven years the
+present queen accepted the hospitality of Lincoln's Inn. No record
+exists of a royal visit made to an Inn of Court between those events.
+Only the other day, however, the Prince of Wales went eastwards and
+partook of a banquet in the hall of Middle Temple, of which society he
+is a barrister and a bencher.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="PART_VII" id="PART_VII"></a>PART VII.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'>LEGAL EDUCATION.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>INNS OF COURT AND INNS OF CHANCERY.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>Schools for the study of the Common Law, existed within the bounds of
+the city of London, at the commencement of the thirteenth century. No
+sooner had a permanent home been assigned to the Court of Common Pleas,
+than legal practitioners fixed themselves in the neighborhood of
+Westminster, or within the walls of London. A legal society speedily
+grew up in the city; and some of the older and more learned professors
+of the Common Law, devoting a portion of their time and energies to the
+labors of instruction, opened academies for the reception of students.
+Dugdale notices a tradition that in ancient times a law-school, called
+Johnson's Inn, stood in Dowgate, that another existed in Pewter Lane,
+and that Paternoster Row contained a third; and it is generally thought
+that these three inns were amongst the academies which sprung up as soon
+as the Common Pleas obtained a permanent abode.</p>
+
+<p>The schools thus established in the opening years of the thirteenth
+century, were not allowed to flourish for any great length of time; for
+in the nineteenth year of his reign, Henry III. suppressed them by a
+mandate addressed to the mayor and sheriffs of the city. But though this
+king broke up the schools, the scholars persevered in their study; and
+if the king's mandate aimed at a complete discontinuance of legal
+instruction, his policy was signally defeated.</p>
+
+<p>Successive writers have credited Edward III.'s reign with the
+establishment of Inns of Court; and it has been erroneously inferred
+that the study of the Common Law not only languished, but was altogether
+extinct during the period of nearly one hundred years that intervened
+between Henry III.'s dissolution of the city schools and Edward III.'s
+accession. Abundant evidence, however, exists that this was not the
+case. Edward I., in the twentieth year of his reign, ordered his judges
+of the Common Pleas to "provide and ordain, from every county, certain
+attorneys and lawyers" (in the original "atturnatus et <i>apprenticiis</i>")
+"of the best and most apt for their learning and skill, who might do
+service to his court and people; and those so chosen, and no other
+should follow his court, and transact affairs therein; the words of
+which order make it clear that the country contained a considerable body
+of persons who devoted themselves to the study and practice of the law."
+So also in the Year-book, 1 Ed. III., the words, "et puis une apprentise
+demand," show that lawyers holding legal degrees existed in the very
+first year of Edward III.'s reign; a fact which justifies the inference
+that in the previous reign England contained Common Law schools capable
+of granting the legal degree of apprentice. Again Dugdale remarks, "In
+20 Ed. III., in a <i>quod ei deforciat</i> to an exception taken, it was
+answered by Sir Richard de Willoughby (then a learned justice of the
+<i>Common Pleas</i>) and William Skipwith, (afterwards also one of the
+justices of that court), that the same was no exception amongst the
+<i>Apprentices in Hostells or Inns</i>." Whence it is manifest that Inns of
+Court were institutions in full vigor at the time when they have been
+sometimes represented as originally established.</p>
+
+<p>But after their expulsion from the city, there is reason to think that
+the common lawyers made no attempt to reside in colleges within its
+boundaries. They preferred to establish themselves on spots where they
+could enjoy pure air and rural quietude, could surround themselves with
+trees and lawns, or refresh their eyes with the sight of the silver
+Thames. In the earliest part of the fourteenth century, they took
+possession of a great palace that stood on the western outskirt of the
+town, and looked westwards upon green fields, whilst its eastern wall
+abutted on New Street&mdash;a thoroughfare that was subsequently called
+Chancellor's Lane, and has for many years been known as Chancery Lane.
+This palace had been the residence of Henry Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, who
+conferred upon the building the name which it still bears. The earl died
+in 1310, some seventeen years before Edward III.'s accession; and
+Thynne, the antiquary, was of opinion that no considerable period
+intervened between Henry Lacy's death and the entry of the lawyers. In
+the same century, the lawyers took possession of the Temple. The exact
+date of their entry is unknown; but Chaucer's verse enables the student
+to fix, with sufficient preciseness, the period when the more noble
+apprentices of the law first occupied the Temple as tenants of the
+Knight's Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, who obtained a grant of
+the place from Edward III.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> The absence of fuller particulars
+concerning the early history of the legal Templars, is ordinarily and
+with good reason attributed to Wat Tyler's rebels, who destroyed the
+records of the fraternity by fire. From roof to basement, beginning with
+the tiles, and working downwards, the mob destroyed the principal houses
+of the college; and when they had burnt all the archives on which they
+could lay hands, they went off and expended their remaining fury on
+other buildings, of which the Knights of St. John were proprietors.</p>
+
+<p>The same men who saw the lawyers take possession of the Temple on the
+northern banks of the Thames, and of the Earl of Lincoln's palace in New
+Street, saw them also make a third grand settlement. The manor of
+Portepoole, or Purpoole, became the property of the Grays of Wilton, in
+the twenty-second year of Edward I.; and on its green fields, lying
+north of Holborn, a society of lawyers established a college which still
+retains the name of the ancient proprietors of the soil. Concerning the
+exact date of its institution, the uncertainty is even greater than
+that which obscures the foundation of the Temple and Lincoln's Inn; but
+antiquaries have agreed to assign the creation of Gray's Inn, as an
+hospicium for the entertainment of lawyers, to the time of Edward III.</p>
+
+<p>The date at which the Temple lawyers split up into two separate
+societies, is also unknown; but assigning the division to some period
+posterior to Wat Tyler's insurrection, Dugdale says, "But,
+notwithstanding, this spoil by the rebels, those students so increased
+here, that at length they divided themselves into two bodies; the one
+commonly known by the Society of the Inner Temple, and the other of the
+Middle Temple, holding this mansion as tenants." But as both societies
+had a common origin in the migration of lawyers from Thavies Inn,
+Holborn, in the time of Edward III., it is usual to speak of the two
+Temples as instituted in that reign, and to regard all four Inns of
+Court as the work of the fourteenth century.</p>
+
+<p>The Inns of Chancery for many generations maintained towards the Inns of
+Court a position similar to that which Eton School maintains towards
+King's at Cambridge, or that which Winchester School holds to New
+College at Oxford. They were seminaries in which lads underwent
+preparation for the superior discipline and greater freedom of the four
+colleges. Each Inn of Court had its own Inns of Chancery, yearly
+receiving from them the pupils who had qualified themselves for
+promotion to the status of Inns-of-Court men. In course of time,
+students after receiving the preliminary education in an Inn of Chancery
+were permitted to enter an Inn of Court on which their Inn of Chancery
+was not dependent; but at every Inn of Court higher admission fees were
+charged to students coming from Inns of Chancery over which it had no
+control, than to students who came from its own primary schools. If the
+reader bears in mind the difference in respect to age, learning, and
+privileges between our modern public schoolboys and university
+undergraduates, he will realize with sufficient nearness to truth the
+differences which existed between the Inns of Chancery students and the
+Inns of Court students in the fifteenth century; and in the students,
+utter-barristers, and benchers of the Inns of Court at the same period
+he may see three distinct orders of academic persons closely resembling
+the undergraduates, bachelors of arts, and masters of arts in our
+universities.</p>
+
+<p>In the 'De Laudibus Legum Angli&aelig;,'<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> written in the latter part of the
+fifteenth century, Sir John Fortescue says&mdash;"But to the intent, most
+excellent Prince, yee may conceive a forme and an image of this study,
+as I am able, I wil describe it unto you. For there be in it ten lesser
+houses or innes, and sometimes moe, which are called Innes of the
+Chauncerye. And to every one of them belongeth an hundred students at
+least, and to some of them a much greater number, though they be not
+ever all together in the same."</p>
+
+<p>In Charles II.'s time there were eight Inns of Chancery; and of them
+three were subsidiary to the Inner Temple&mdash;viz., Clifford's Inn,
+Clement's Inn, and Lyon's Inn. Clifford's Inn (originally the town
+residence of the Barons Clifford) was first inhabited by law-students in
+the eighteenth year of Edward III. Clement's Inn (taking its name from
+the adjacent St. Clement's Well) was certainly inhabited by law-students
+as early as the nineteenth year of Edward IV. Lyon's Inn was an Inn of
+Chancery in the time of Henry V.</p>
+
+<p>One alone (New Inn) was attached to the Middle Temple. In the previous
+century, the Middle Temple had possessed another Inn of Chancery called
+Strand Inn; but in the third year of Edward VI. this nursery was pulled
+down by the Duke of Somerset, who required the ground on which it stood
+for the site of Somerset House.</p>
+
+<p>Lincoln's Inn had for dependent schools Furnival's Inn and Thavies
+Inn&mdash;the latter of which hostels was inhabited by law-students in Edward
+III.'s time. Of Furnival's Inn (originally Lord Furnival's town mansion,
+and converted into a law-school in Edward VI.'s reign) Dugdale says:
+"After which time the Principall and Fellows of this Inne have paid to
+the society of Lincoln's Inne the rent of iii<sup>l</sup> vi<sup>s</sup> iii<sup>d</sup> as an yearly
+rent for the same, as may appear by the accompts of that house; and by
+speciall order there made, have had these following priviledges: first
+(viz. 10 Eliz.), that the utter-barristers of Furnivall's Inne, of a
+yeares continuance, and so certified and allowed by the Benchers of
+Lincoln's Inne, shall pay no more than four marks apiece for their
+admittance into that society. Next (viz. in Eliz.) that every fellow of
+this inne, who hath been allowed an utter-barrister here, and that hath
+mooted here two vacations at the Utter Bar, shall pay no more for their
+admission into the Society of Lincoln's Inne, than xiii<sup>s</sup> iiii<sup>d</sup>, though
+all utter-barristers of any other Inne of Chancery (excepting Thavyes
+Inne) should pay xx<sup>s</sup>, and that every inner-barrister of this house, who
+hath mooted here one vacation at the Inner Bar, should pay for his
+admission into this House but xx<sup>s</sup>, those of other houses (excepting
+Thavyes Inne) paying xxvi<sup>s</sup> viii<sup>d</sup>."</p>
+
+<p>The subordinate seminaries of Gray's Inn, in Dugdale's time, were Staple
+Inn and Barnard's Inn. Originally the Exchange of the London woolen
+merchants, Staple Inn was a law-school as early as Henry V.'s time. It
+is probable that Bernard's Inn became an academy for law-students in
+the reign of Henry VI.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Chaucer mentions the Temple thus:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;"><br />
+"A manciple there was of the Temple,<br />
+Of which all catours might take ensemple<br />
+For to be wise in buying of vitaile;<br />
+For whether he pay'd or took by taile,<br />
+Algate he wayted so in his ashate,<br />
+That he was aye before in good estate.<br />
+Now is not that of God a full faire grace,<br />
+That such a leude man's wit shall pace<br />
+The wisdome of an heape of learned men?<br />
+Of masters had he more than thrice ten,<br />
+That were of law expert and curious,<br />
+Of which there was a dozen in that house,<br />
+Worthy to been stewards of rent and land<br />
+Of any lord that is in England;<br />
+To maken him live by his proper good<br />
+In honour debtless, but if he were wood;<br />
+Or live as scarcely as him list desire,<br />
+And able to helpen all a shire,<br />
+In any case that might have fallen or hap,<br />
+And yet the manciple set all her capp."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> The 'De Laudibus' was written in Latin; but for the
+convenience of readers not familiar with that classic tongue, the
+quotations from the treatise are given from Robert Mulcaster's English
+version.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>LAWYERS AND GENTLEMEN.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>Thus planted in the fourteenth century beyond the confines of the city,
+and within easy access of Westminster Hall, the Inns of Court and
+Chancery formed an university, which soon became almost as powerful and
+famous as either Oxford or Cambridge. For generations they were spoken
+of collectively as the law-university, and though they were voluntary
+societies&mdash;in their nature akin to the club-houses of modern
+London&mdash;they adopted common rules of discipline, and an uniform system
+of instruction. Students flocked to them in abundance; and whereas the
+students of Oxford and Cambridge were drawn from the plebeian ranks of
+society, the scholars of the law-university were almost invariably the
+sons of wealthy men and had usually sprung from gentle families. To be a
+law-student was to be a stripling of quality. The law university enjoyed
+the same patrician <i>prestige</i> and <i>&eacute;clat</i> that now belong to the more
+aristocratic houses of the old universities.</p>
+
+<p>Noblemen sent their sons to it in order that they might acquire the
+style and learning and accomplishments of polite society. A proportion
+of the students were encouraged to devote themselves to the study of the
+law and to attend sedulously the sittings of Judges in Westminster Hall;
+but the majority of well-descended boys who inhabited the Inns of
+Chancery were heirs to good estates, and were trained to become their
+wealth rather than to increase it&mdash;to perfect themselves in graceful
+arts, rather than to qualify themselves to hold briefs. The same was the
+case in the Inns of Court, which were so designated&mdash;not because they
+prepared young men to rise in courts of law, but because they taught
+them to shine in the palaces of kings. It is a mistake to suppose that
+the Inns of Court contain at the present time a larger proportion of
+idle members, who have no intention to practise at the bar, than they
+contained under the Plantagenets and Tudors. On the contrary, in the
+fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the number of Templars who merely
+played at being lawyers, or were lawyers only in name, was actually as
+well as relatively greater than the merely <i>nominal</i> lawyers of the
+Temple at the present time. For several generations, and for two
+centuries after Sir John Fortescue wrote the 'De Laudibus,' the
+Inns-of-Court man was more busied in learning to sing than in learning
+to argue a law cause, more desirous to fence with a sword than to fence
+with logic.</p>
+
+<p>"Notwithstanding," runs Mulcaster's translation of the 'De
+Laudibus,'<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> "the same lawes are taught and learned, in a certaine
+place of publique or common studie, more convenient and apt for
+attayninge to the knowledge of them, than any other university. For
+theyr place of studie is situate nigh to the Kinges Courts, where the
+same lawes are pleaded and argued, and judgements by the same given by
+judges, men of gravitie, auncient in yeares, perfit and graduate in the
+same lawes. Wherefore, euerie day in court, the students in those lawes
+resorte by great numbers into those courts wherein the same lawes are
+read and taught, as it were in common schooles. This place of studie is
+far betweene the place of the said courts and the cittie of London,
+which of all thinges necessarie is the plentifullest of all cities and
+townes of the realme. So that the said place of studie is not situate
+within the cittie, where the confluence of people might disturb the
+quietnes of the studentes, but somewhat severall in the suburbes of the
+same cittie, and nigher to the saide courts, that the studentes may
+dayelye at their pleasure have accesse and recourse thither without
+weariness."</p>
+
+<p>Setting forth the condition and pursuits of law-students in his day, Sir
+John Fortesque continues; "For in these greater inns, there can no
+student bee mayntayned for lesse expenses by the yeare than twentye
+markes. And if hee have a servaunt to wait uppon him, as most of them
+have, then so much the greater will his charges bee. Nowe, by reason of
+this charge, the children onely of noblemenne doo studye the lawes in
+those innes. For the poore and common sorte of the people are not able
+to bear so great charges for the exhibytion of theyr chyldren. And
+Marchaunt menne can seldome finde in theyr heartes to hynder theyr
+merchaundise with so greate yearly expenses. And it thus falleth out
+that there is scant anye man founde within the realme skilfull and
+cunning in the lawes, except he be a gentleman borne, and come of noble
+stocke. Wherefore they more than any other kinde of men have a speciall
+regarde to their nobility, and to the preservation of their honor and
+fame. And to speake upryghtlye, there is in these greater innes, yea,
+and in the lesser too, beside the studie of the lawes, as it were an
+university or schoole of all commendable qualities requisite for noble
+men. There they learn to sing, and to exercise themselves in all kinde
+of harmonye. There also they practice daunsing, and other noblemen's
+pastimes, as they use to do, which are brought up in the king's house.
+On the working dayes, the most of them apply themselves to the studye of
+the lawe, and on the holye dayes to the studye of holye Scripture;<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a>
+and out of the tyme of divine service, to the reading of Chronicles. For
+there indeede are vertues studied, and vices exiled. So that, for the
+endowment of vertue, and abandoning of vice, Knights and Barrons, with
+other states and noblemen of the realme, place their children in those
+innes, though they desire not to have them learned in the lawes, nor to
+lieue by the practice thereof, but onely uppon their father's allowance.
+Scant at anye tyme is there heard among them any sedition, chyding, or
+grudging, and yet the offenders are punished with none other payne, but
+onely to bee amooved from the compayne of their fellowshippe. Which
+punishment they doo more feare than other criminall offendours doo feare
+imprisonment and yrons: For hee that is once expelled from anye of those
+fellowshippes is never received to bee a felowe in any of the other
+fellowshippes. And so by this means there is continuall peace; and their
+demeanor is lyke the behaviour of such as are coupled together in
+perfect amytie."</p>
+
+<p>Any person familiar with the Inns of Court at the present time will see
+how closely the law-colleges of Victoria's London resemble in many
+important particulars the law-colleges of Fortescue's period. After the
+fashion of four centuries since young men are still induced to enter
+them for the sake of honorable companionship, good society, and social
+prestige, rather than for the sake of legal education. After the remarks
+already made with regard to musical lawyers in a previous section of
+this work, it is needless to say that Inns of Court men are not
+remarkable for their application to vocal harmony; but the younger
+members are still remarkable for the zeal with which they endeavor to
+master the accomplishments which distinguish men of fashion and tone. If
+the nominal (sometimes they are called 'ornamental') barristers of the
+fifteenth century liked to read the Holy Scriptures, the young lawyers
+of the nineteenth century are no less disposed to read their Bibles
+critically, and argue as to the merits of Bishop Colenso and his
+opponents. Moreover, the discipline described by Fortescue is still
+found sufficient to maintain order in the inns.</p>
+
+<p>Writing more than a century after Fortescue, Sir John Ferne, in his
+'Blazon of Gentrie, the Glory of Generosity, and the Lacy's Nobility,'
+observes: "Nobleness of blood, joyned with virtue, compteth the person
+as most meet to the enterprize of any public service; and for that cause
+it was not for nought that our antient governors in this land, did with
+a special foresight and wisdom provide, that none should be admitted
+into the Houses of Court, being seminaries sending forth men apt to the
+government of justice, except he were a gentleman of blood. And that
+this may seem a truth, I myself have seen a kalendar of all those which
+were together in the society of one of the same houses, about the last
+year of King Henry the Fifth, with the armes of their House and family
+marshalled by their names; and I assure you, the self same monument doth
+both approve them all to be gentlemen of perfect descents and also the
+number of them much less than now it is, being at that time in one house
+scarcely three score."<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></p>
+
+<p>This passage from an author who delighted to magnify the advantages of
+generous descent, has contributed to the very general and erroneous
+impression that until comparatively recent times the members of the
+English bar were necessarily drawn from the highest ranks of society;
+and several excellent writers on the antiquities of the law have laid
+aside their customary caution and strengthened Ferne's words with
+inaccurate comment.</p>
+
+<p>Thus Pearce says of the author of the 'Glory of Generositie'&mdash;"He was
+one of the advocates for excluding from the Inns of Court all who were
+not 'a gentleman by blood,' according to the ancient rule mentioned by
+Fortescue, which seems to have been disregarded in Elizabeth's time."
+Fortescue nowhere mentions any such rule, but attributes the
+aristocratic character of the law-colleges to the high cost of
+membership. Far from implying that men of mean extraction were excluded
+by an express prohibition, his words justify the inference that no such
+rule existed in his time.</p>
+
+<p>Though Inns-of-Court men were for many generations gentlemen by birth
+almost without a single exception, it yet remains to be proved that
+plebeian birth at any period disqualified persons for admission to the
+law-colleges. If such a restriction ever existed it had disappeared
+before the close of the fifteenth century&mdash;a period not favorable to the
+views of those who were most anxious to remove the barriers placed by
+feudal society between the gentle and the vulgar. Sir John More (the
+father of the famous Sir Thomas) was a Judge in the King's Bench,
+although his parentage was obscure; and it is worthy of notice that he
+was a successful lawyer of Fortescue's period. Lord Chancellor Audley
+was not entitled to bear arms by birth, but was merely the son of a
+prosperous yeoman. The lowliness of his extraction cannot have been any
+serious impediment to him, for before the end of his thirty-sixth year
+he was a sergeant. In the following century the inns received a steadily
+increasing number of students, who either lacked generous lineage or
+were the offspring of shameful love. For instance, Chief Justice Wray's
+birth was scandalous; and if Lord Ellesmere in his youth reflected with
+pride on the dignity of his father, Sir Richard Egerton, he had reason
+to blush for his mother. Ferne's lament over the loss of heraldric
+virtue and splendor, which the inns had sustained in his time, testifies
+to the presence of a considerable plebeian element amongst the members
+of the law-university. But that which was marked in the sixteenth was
+far more apparent in the seventeenth century. Scroggs's enemies were
+wrong in stigmatizing him as a butcher's son, for the odious chief
+justice was born and bred a gentleman, and Jeffreys could boast a decent
+extraction; but there is abundance of evidence that throughout the
+reigns of the Stuarts the inns swarmed with low-born adventurers. The
+career of Chief Justice Saunders, who, beginning as a "poor beggar boy,"
+of unknown parentage, raised himself to the Chiefship of the King's
+Bench, shows how low an origin a judge might have in the seventeenth
+century. To mention the names of such men as Parker, King, Yorke, Ryder,
+and the Scotts, without placing beside them the names of such men as
+Henley, Harcourt, Bathurst, Talbot, Murray, and Erskine, would tend to
+create an erroneous impression that in the eighteenth century the bar
+ceased to comprise amongst its industrious members a large aristocratic
+element.</p>
+
+<p>The number of barristers, however, who in that period brought themselves
+by talent and honorable perseverance into the foremost rank of the legal
+profession in spite of humble birth, unquestionably shows that ambitious
+men from the obscure middle classes were more frequently than in any
+previous century found pushing their fortunes in Westminster Hall. Lord
+Macclesfield was the son of an attorney whose parents were of lowly
+origin, and whose worldly means were even lower than their ancestral
+condition. Lord Chancellor King's father was a grocer and salter who
+carried on a retail business at Exeter; and in his youth the Chancellor
+himself had acted as his father's apprentice&mdash;standing behind the
+counter and wearing the apron and sleeves of a grocer's servitor. Philip
+Yorke was the son of a country attorney who could boast neither wealth
+nor gentle descent. Chief Justice Ryder was the son of a mercer whose
+shop stood in West Smithfield, and grandson of a dissenting minister,
+who, though he bore the name, is not known to have inherited the blood
+of the Yorkshire Ryders. Sir William Blackstone was the fourth son of a
+silkman and citizen of London. Lords Stowell and Eldon were the children
+of a provincial tradesman. The learned and good Sir Samuel Romilly's
+father was Peter Romilly, jeweller, of Frith Street, Soho. Such were the
+origins of some of the men who won the prizes of the law in
+comparatively recent times. The present century has produced an even
+greater number of barristers who have achieved eminence, and are able to
+say with honest pride that they are the <i>first</i> gentlemen mentioned in
+their pedigrees; and so thoroughly has the bar become an open
+profession, accessible to all persons<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> who have the means of
+gentlemen, that no barrister at the present time would have the bad
+taste or foolish hardihood to express openly his regret that the members
+of a liberal profession should no longer pay a hurtful attention to
+illiberal distinctions.</p>
+
+<p>According to Fortescue, the law-students belonging at the same time to
+the Inns of Court and Chancery numbered <i>at least</i> one thousand eight
+hundred in the fifteenth century; and it may be fairly inferred from his
+words that their number considerably exceeded two thousand. To each of
+the ten Inns of Chancery the author of the 'De Laudibus' assigns "an
+hundred students at the least, and to some of them a much greater
+number;" and he says that the least populous of the four Inns of Court
+contained "two hundred students or thereabouts." At the present time the
+number of barristers&mdash;together with Fellows of the College of Advocates,
+and certificated special pleaders and conveyancers not at the bar&mdash;is
+shown by the Law List for 1866 to be somewhat more than 4800.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> Even
+when it is borne in mind how much the legal business of the whole nation
+has necessarily increased with the growth of our commercial
+prosperity&mdash;it being at the same time remembered, upon the other hand,
+how many times the population of the country has doubled itself since
+the wars of the Roses&mdash;few persons will be of opinion that the legal
+profession, either by the number of its practitioners or its command of
+employment, is a more conspicuous and prosperous power at the present
+time than it was in the fifteenth century.</p>
+
+<p>Ferne was by no means the only gentleman of Elizabethan London to
+deplore the rapid increase in the number of lawyers, and to regret the
+growing liberality which encouraged&mdash;or rather the national prosperity
+which enabled&mdash;men of inferior parentage to adopt the law as a
+profession. In his address on Mr. Clerke's elevation to the dignity of a
+sergeant, Lord Chancellor Hatton, echoing the common complaint
+concerning the degradation of the law through the swarms of plebeian
+students and practitioners, observed&mdash;"Let not the dignitie of the lawe
+be geven to men unmeete. And I do exhorte you all that are heare present
+not to call men to the barre or the benches that are so unmeete. I finde
+that there are now more at the barre in one house than there was in all
+the Innes of Court when I was a younge man." Notwithstanding the
+Chancellor's earnest statement of his personal recollection of the state
+of things when he was a young man, there is reason to think that he was
+quite in error in thinking that lawyers had increased so greatly in
+number. From a MS. in Lord Burleigh's collection, it appears that in
+1586 the number of law-students, resident during term, was only 1703&mdash;a
+smaller number than that which Fortescue computed the entire population
+of the London law-students, at a time when civil war had cruelly
+diminished the number of men likely to join an aristocratic university.
+Sir Edward Coke estimated the roll of Elizabethan law-students at one
+thousand, half their number in Fortescue's time. Coke, however, confined
+his attention in this matter to the Students of Inns of Court, and paid
+no attention to Inns of Chancery. Either Hatton greatly exaggerated the
+increase of the legal working profession; or in previous times the
+proportion of law-students who never became barristers greatly exceeded
+those who were ultimately called to the bar.</p>
+
+<p>Something more than a hundred years later, the old cry against the
+low-born adventurers, who, to the injury of the public and the
+degradation of the law, were said to overwhelm counsellors and
+solicitors of superior tone and pedigree, was still frequently heard in
+the coteries of disappointed candidates for employment in Westminster
+Hall, and on the lips of men whose hopes of achieving social distinction
+were likely to be frustrated so long as plebeian learning and energy
+were permitted to have free action. In his 'History of Hertfordshire'
+(published in 1700), Sir Henry Chauncey, Sergeant-at-Law, exclaims: "But
+now these mechanicks, ambitious of rule and government, often educate
+their sons in these seminaries of law, whereby they overstock the
+profession, and so make it contemptible; whilst the gentry, not sensible
+of the mischief they draw upon themselves, but also upon the nation,
+prefer them in their business before their own children, whom they
+bereave of their employment, formerly designed for their support;
+qualifying their servants, by the profit of this profession, to purchase
+their estates, and by this means make them their lords and masters,
+whilst they lessen the trade of the kingdom, and cause a scarcity of
+husbandmen, workmen, artificers, and servants in the nation."</p>
+
+<p>That the Inns of Court became less and less aristocratic throughout the
+seventeenth and eighteenth centuries there is no reason to doubt; but it
+may be questioned whether it was so overstocked with competent working
+members, as poor Sir Henry Chauncey imagined it. Describing the state of
+the inns some two generations later, Blackstone computed the number of
+law-students at about a thousand, perhaps slightly more; and he observes
+that in his time the merely <i>nominal</i> law-students were comparatively
+few. "Wherefore," he says, "few gentlemen now resort to the Inns of
+Court, but such for whom the knowledge of practice is absolutely
+necessary; such, I mean, as are intended for the profession; the rest of
+our gentry, (not to say our nobility also) having usually retired to
+their estates, or visited foreign kingdoms, or entered upon public life,
+without any instruction in the laws of the land, and indeed with hardly
+any opportunity of gaining instruction, unless it can be afforded to
+them in the universities."</p>
+
+<p>The folly of those who lamented that men of plebeian rank were allowed
+to adopt the legal profession as a means of livelihood, was however
+exceeded by the folly of men of another sort, who endeavored to hide the
+humble extractions of eminent lawyers, under the ingenious falsehoods of
+fictitious pedigrees. In the last century, no sooner had a lawyer of
+humble birth risen to distinction, than he was pestered by fabricators
+of false genealogies, who implored him to accept their silly romances
+about his ancestry. In most cases, these ridiculous applicants hoped to
+receive money for their dishonest representations; but not seldom it
+happened that they were actuated by a sincere desire to protect the
+heraldic honor of the law from the aspersions of those who maintained
+that a man might fight his way to the woolsack, although his father had
+been a tender of swine. Sometimes these imaginative chroniclers, not
+content with fabricating a genealogical chart for a <i>parvenu</i> Lord
+Chancellor, insisted that he should permit them to write their lives in
+such a fashion, that their earlier experiences should seem to be in
+harmony with their later fortunes. Lord Macclesfield (the son of a poor
+and ill-descended country attorney), was traced by officious adulators
+to Reginald Le Parker, who accompanied Edward I., while Prince of Wales,
+to the Holy Land. In like manner a manufacturer of genealogies traced
+Lord Eldon to Sir Michael Scott of Balwearie. When one of this servile
+school of worshippers approached Lord Thurlow with an assurance that he
+was of kin with Cromwell's secretary Thurloe, the Chancellor, with bluff
+honesty, responded, "Sir, as Mr. Secretary Thurloe was, like myself, a
+Suffolk man, you have an excuse for your mistake. In the seventeenth
+century two Thurlows, who were in no way related to each other,
+flourished in Suffolk. One was Cromwell's secretary Thurloe, the other
+was Thurlow, the Suffolk carrier. I am descended from the carrier."
+Notwithstanding Lord Thurlow's frequent and consistent disavowals of
+pretension to any heraldic pedigree, his collateral descendants are
+credited in the 'Peerages' with a descent from an ancient family.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> This charming book was written during the author's exile,
+which began in 1463.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> This passage is one of several passages in Pre-reformation
+English literature which certify that the Bible was much more widely and
+carefully read by lettered and studious layman, in times prior to the
+rupture between England and Rome, than many persons are aware, and some
+violent writers like to acknowledge.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Pathetically deploring the change wrought by time, Ferne
+also observes of the Inns of Court,&mdash;"Pity to see the same places,
+through the malignity of the times, and the negligence of those which
+should have had care to the same, been altered quite from their first
+institution."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> It is not unusual now-a-days to see on the screened list
+of students about to be called to the bar the names of gentlemen who
+have caused themselves to be described in the quasi-public lists as the
+sons of tradesmen. Some few years since a gentleman who has already made
+his name known amongst juniors, was thus 'screened'in the four halls as
+the son of a petty tradesman in an obscure quarter of London; and
+assuming that his conduct was due to self-respect and affectionate
+regard for his parent, it seemed to most observers that the young
+lawyer, in thus frankly stating his lowly origin, acted with spirit and
+dignity. It may be that years hence this highly-accomplished gentleman
+will, like Lord Tenterden and Lord St. Leonards (both of whom were the
+sons of honest but humble tradesmen), see his name placed upon the roll
+of England's hereditary noblesse.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> Of this number about 2500 reside in or near London and
+maintain some apparent connexion with the Inns of Court. Of the
+remainder, some reside in Scotland, some in Ireland, some in the English
+provinces, some in the colonies; whilst some of them, although their
+names are still on the Law List, have ceased to regard themselves as
+members of the legal profession.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXV" id="CHAPTER_XXXV"></a>CHAPTER XXXV.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>LAW-FRENCH AND LAW-LATIN.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>No circumstances of the Norman Conquest more forcibly illustrate the
+humiliation of the conquered people, than the measures by which the
+invaders imposed their language on the public courts of the country, and
+endeavored to make it permanently usurp the place of the mother-tongue
+of the despised multitude; and no fact more signally displays our
+conservative temper than the general reluctance of English society to
+relinquish the use of the French words and phrases which still tincture
+the language of parliament, and the procedures of Westminster Hall,
+recalling to our minds the insolent domination of a few powerful
+families who occupied our country by force, and ruled our forefathers
+with vigorous injustice.</p>
+
+<p>Frenchmen by birth, education, sympathy, William's barons did their
+utmost to make England a new France: and for several generations the
+descendants of the successful invaders were no less eager to abolish
+every usage which could remind the vanquished race of their lost
+supremacy. French became the language of parliament and the
+council-chamber. It was spoken by the judges who dispensed justice in
+the name of a French king, and by the lawyers who followed the royal
+court in the train of the French-speaking judges. In the hunting-field
+and the lists no gentleman entitled to bear coat-armour deigned to utter
+a word of English: it was the same in Fives' Court and at the
+gambling-table. Schoolmasters were ordered to teach their pupils to
+construe from Latin into French, instead of into English; and young men
+of Anglo-Saxon extraction, bent on rising in the world by native talent
+and Norman patronage, labored to acquire the language of the ruling
+class and forget the accents of their ancestors. The language and usages
+of modern England abound with traces of the French of this period. To
+every act that obtained the royal assent during last session of
+parliament, the queen said "La reyne le veult." Every bill which is sent
+up from the Commons to the Lords, an officer of the lower house endorses
+with "Soit bail&eacute; aux Seigneurs;" and no bill is ever sent down from the
+Lords to the Commons until a corresponding officer of the upper house
+has written on its back, "Soit bail&eacute; aux Communes."</p>
+
+<p>In like manner our parochial usages, local sports, and domestic games
+continually remind us of the obstinate tenacity with which the
+Anglo-Saxon race has preserved, and still preserves, the vestiges of its
+ancient subjection to a foreign yoke. The crier of a country town, in
+any of England's fertile provinces, never proclaims the loss of a
+yeoman's sporting-dog, the auction of a bankrupt dealer's
+stock-in-trade, or the impounding of a strayed cow, until he has
+commanded, in Norman-French, the attention of the sleepy rustics. The
+language of the stable and the kennel is rich in traces of Norman
+influence; and in backgammon, as played by orthodox players, we have a
+suggestive memorial of those Norman nobles, of whom Fortescue, in the
+'De Laudibus' observes: "Neither had they delyght to hunt, and to
+exercise other sportes and pastimes, as dyce-play and the hand-ball, but
+in their own proper tongue."</p>
+
+<p>In behalf of the Norman <i>noblesse</i> it should be borne in mind that their
+policy in this matter was less intentionally vexatious and insolent than
+it has appeared to superficial observers. In the great majority of
+causes the suitors were Frenchmen; and it was just as reasonable that
+they should like to understand the arguments of their counsel and
+judges, as it is reasonable for suitors in the present day to require
+the proceedings in Westminster Hall to be clothed in the language most
+familiar to the majority of persons seeking justice in its courts. If
+the use of French pleadings was hard on the one Anglo-Saxon suitor who
+demanded justice in Henry I.'s time, the use of English pleadings would
+have been equally annoying to the nine French gentlemen who appeared for
+the same purpose in the king's court. It was greatly to be desired that
+the two races should have one common language; and common sense ordained
+that the tongue of the one or the other race should be adopted as the
+national language. Which side therefore was to be at the pains to learn
+a new tongue? Should the conquerors labor to acquire Anglo-Saxon? or
+should the conquered be required to learn French? In these days the
+cultivated Englishmen who hold India by military force, even as the
+Norman invaders held England, by the right of might, settle a similar
+question by taking upon themselves the trouble of learning as much of
+the Asiatic dialects as is necessary for purposes of business. But the
+Norman barons were not cultivated; and for many generations ignorance
+was with them an affair of pride no less than of constitutional
+inclination.</p>
+
+<p>Soon ambitious Englishmen acquired the new language, in order to use it
+as an instrument for personal advancement. The Saxon stripling who could
+keep accounts in Norman fashion, and speak French as fluently as his
+mother tongue, might hope to sell his knowledge in a good market. As the
+steward of a Norman baron he might negotiate between my lord and my
+lord's tenants, letting my lord know as much of his tenant's wishes, and
+revealing to the tenants as much of their lord's intentions as suited
+his purpose. Uniting in his own person the powers of interpreter,
+arbitrator, and steward, he possessed enviable opportunities and
+facilities for acquiring wealth. Not seldom, when he had grown rich, or
+whilst his fortunes were in the ascendant, he assumed a French name as
+well as a French accent; and having persuaded himself and his younger
+neighbors that he was a Frenchman, he in some cases bequeathed to his
+children an ample estate and a Norman pedigree. In certain causes in the
+law courts the agent (by whatever title known) who was a perfect master
+of the three languages (French, Latin, and English) had greatly the
+advantage over an opposing agent who could speak only French and Latin.</p>
+
+<p>From the Conquest till the latter half of the fourteenth century the
+pleadings in courts of justice were in Norman-French; but in the 36 Ed.
+III., it was ordained by the king "that all plees, which be to be pleded
+in any of his courts, before any of his justices; or in his other
+places; or before any of his other ministers; or in the courts and
+places of any other lords within the realm, shall be pleded, shewed, and
+defended, answered, debated, and judged in the English tongue, and that
+they be entred and enrolled in Latine. And that the laws and customs of
+the same realm, termes, and processes, be holden and kept as they be,
+and have been before this time; and that by the antient termes and forms
+of the declarations no man be prejudiced; so that the matter of the
+action be fully shewed in the demonstration and in the writ." Long
+before this wise measure of reform was obtained by the urgent wishes of
+the nation, the French of the law courts had become so corrupt and
+unlike the language of the invaders, that it was scarcely more
+intelligible to educated natives of France than to most Englishmen of
+the highest rank. A jargon compounded of French and Latin, none save
+professional lawyers could translate it with readiness or accuracy; and
+whilst it unquestionably kept suitors in ignorance of their own affairs,
+there is reason to believe that it often perplexed the most skilful of
+those official interpreters who were never weary of extolling his
+lucidity and precision.</p>
+
+<p>But though English lawyers were thus expressly forbidden in 1362 to
+plead in Law-French, they persisted in using the hybrid jargon for
+reports and treatises so late as George II.'s reign; and for an equal
+length of time they seized every occasion to introduce scraps of
+Law-French into their speeches at the bars of the different courts. It
+should be observed that these antiquarian advocates were enabled thus to
+display their useless erudition by the provisions of King Edward's act,
+which, while it forbade French <i>pleadings</i>, specially ordained the
+retention of French terms.</p>
+
+<p>Roger North's essay 'On the study of the Laws' contains amusing
+testimony to the affection with which the lawyers of his day regarded
+their Law-French, and also shows how largely it was used till the close
+of the seventeenth century by the orators of Westminster Hall. "Here I
+must stay to observe," says the author, enthusiastically, "the
+necessity of a student's early application to learn the old Law-French,
+for these books, and most others of considerable authority, are
+delivered in it. Some may think that because the Law-French is no better
+than the old Norman corrupted, and now a deformed hotch-potch of the
+English and Latin mixed together, it is not fit for a polite spark to
+foul himself with; but this nicety is so desperate a mistake, that
+lawyer and Law-French are coincident; one will not stand without the
+other." So enamored was he of the grace and excellence of law-reporters'
+French, that he regarded it as a delightful study for a man of fashion,
+and maintained that no barrister would do justice to the law and the
+interests of his clients who did not season his sentences with Norman
+verbiage. "The law," he held, "is scarcely expressible properly in
+English, and when it is done, it must be <i>Fran&ccedil;oise</i>, or very uncouth."</p>
+
+<p>Edward III.'s measure prohibitory of French pleadings had therefore
+comparatively little influence on the educational course of
+law-students. The published reports of trials, known by the name of
+Year-Books, were composed in French, until the series terminated in the
+time of Henry VIII.; and so late as George II.'s reign, Chief Baron
+Comyn preferred such words as 'chemin,' 'dismes,' and 'baron and feme,'
+to such words as 'highway,' 'tithes,' 'husband and wife.' More liberal
+than the majority of his legal brethren, even as his enlightenment with
+regard to public affairs exceeded that of ordinary politicians of his
+time, Sir Edward Coke wrote his commentaries in English, but when he
+published them, he felt it right to soothe the alarm of lawyers by
+assuring them that his departure from ancient usage could have no
+disastrous consequences. "I cannot conjecture," he apologetically
+observes in his preface, "that the general communicating these laws in
+the English tongue can work any inconvenience."</p>
+
+<p>Some of the primary text-books of legal lore had been rendered into
+English, and some most valuable treatises had been written and published
+in the mother tongue of the country; but in the seventeenth century no
+Inns-of-Court man could acquire an adequate acquaintance with the usages
+and rules of our courts and the decisions of past judges, until he was
+able to study the Year-Books and read Littleton in the original. To
+acquire this singular language&mdash;a <i>dead</i> tongue that cannot be said to
+have ever lived&mdash;was the first object of the law-student. He worked at
+it in his chamber, and with faltering and uncertain accents essayed to
+speak it at the periodic mootings in which he was required to take part
+before he could be called to the bar, and also after he had become an
+utter-barrister. In his 'Autobiography,' Sir Simonds D'Ewes makes
+mention in several places of his Law-French exercises (<i>temp.</i> James
+I.), and in one place of his personal story he observes, "I had twice
+mooted in Law-French before I was called to the bar, and several times
+after I was made an utter-barrister, in our open hall. Thrice also
+before I was of the bar, I argued the reader's cases at the Inns of
+Chancery publicly, and six times afterwards. And then also, being an
+utter-barrister, I had twice argued our Middle-Temple reader's case at
+the cupboard, and sat nine times in our hall at the bench, and argued
+such cases in English as had before been argued by young gentlemen or
+utter-barristers in Law-French bareheaded."</p>
+
+<p>Amongst the excellent changes by which the more enlightened of the
+Commonwealth lawyers sought to lessen the public clamor of law-reform
+was the resolution that all legal records should be kept, and all writs
+composed, in the language of the country. Hitherto the law records had
+been kept in a Latin that was quite as barbarous as the French used by
+the reporters; and the determination to abolish a custom which served
+only to obscure the operations of justice and to confound the illiterate
+was hailed by the more intelligent purchasers of law as a notable step
+in the right direction. But the reform was by no means acceptable to the
+majority of the bar, who did not hesitate to stigmatize the measure as a
+dangerous innovation&mdash;which would prove injurious to learned lawyers and
+peace-loving citizens, although it might possibly serve the purposes of
+ignorant counsel and litigious 'lay gents.'<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a>The legal literature of
+three generations following Charles I.'s execution abounds with
+contemptuous allusions to the 'English times' of Cromwell; the
+old-fashioned reporters, hugging their Norman-French and looking with
+suspicion on popular intelligence, were vehement in expressing their
+contempt for the prevalent misuse of the mother tongue. "I have,"
+observes Styles, in the preface to his reports, "made these reports
+speak English; not that I believe that they will be thereby more
+generally useful, for I have always been and yet am of opinion, that
+that part of the Common Law which is in the English hath only occasioned
+the making of unquiet spirits contentiously knowing, and more apt to
+offend others than to defend themselves; but I have done it in obedience
+to authority, and to stop the mouths of such of this English age, who,
+though they be confessedly different in their minds and judgments, as
+the builders of Babel were in their language, yet do think it vain, if
+not impious, to speak or understand more than their own mother tongue."
+In like manner, Whitelock's uncle Bulstrode, the celebrated reporter,
+says of the second part of his reports, "that he had manny years since
+perfected the words in French, in which language he had desired it
+might have seen the light, being most proper for it, and most convenient
+for the professors of the law."</p>
+
+<p>The restorers who raised Charles II. to his father's throne, lost no
+time in recalling Latin to the records and writs; and so gladly did the
+reporters and the practising counsel avail themselves of the reaction in
+favor of discarded usages, that more Law-French was written and talked
+in Westminster Hall during the time of the restored king, than had been
+penned and spoken throughout the first fifty years of the seventeenth
+century.</p>
+
+<p>The vexatious and indescribably absurd use of Law-Latin in records,
+writs, and written pleadings, was finally put an end to by statute 4
+George II. c. 26; but this bill, which discarded for legal processes a
+cumbrous and harsh language, that was alike unmusical and inexact, and
+would have been utterly unintelligible to a Roman gentleman of the
+Augustan period, did not become law without much opposition from some of
+the authorities of Westminster Hall. Lord Raymond, Chief Justice of the
+King's Bench, spoke in accordance with opinions that had many supporters
+on the bench and at the bar, when he expressed his warm disapprobation
+of the proposed measure, and sarcastically observed "that if the bill
+paused, the law might likewise be translated into Welsh, since many in
+Wales understood not English." In the same spirit Sir Willian Blackstone
+and more recent authorities have lamented the loss of Law-Latin. Lord
+Campbell, in the 'Chancellors,' records that he "heard the late Lord
+Ellenborough from the bench regret the change, on the ground that it had
+had the tendency to make attorneys illiterate."</p>
+
+<p>The sneer by which Lord Raymond endeavored to cast discredit on the
+proposal to abolish Law-Latin, was recalled after the lapse of many
+years by Sergeant Heywood, who forthwith acted upon it as though it
+originated in serious thought. Whilst acting as Chief Justice of the
+Carmarthen Circuit, the sergeant was presiding over a trial of murder,
+when it was discovered that neither the prisoner, nor any member of the
+jury, could understand a word of English; under these circumstances it
+was suggested that the evidence and the charge should be explained
+<i>verbatim</i>, to the prisoner and his twelve triers by an interpreter. To
+this reasonable petition that the testimony should be presented in a
+Welsh dress, the judge replied that, "to accede to the request would be
+to repeal the act of parliament, which required that all proceedings in
+courts of justice should be in the English tongue, and that the case of
+a trial in Wales, in which the prisoner and jury should not understand
+English, was a case not provided for, although the attention of the
+legislature had been called to it by that great judge Lord Raymond." The
+judge having thus decided, the inquiry proceeded&mdash;without the help of an
+interpreter&mdash;the counsel for the prosecution favoring the jury with an
+eloquent harangue, no single sentence of which was intelligible to them;
+a series of witnesses proving to English auditors, beyond reach of
+doubt, that the prisoner had deliberately murdered his wife; and finally
+the judge instructing the jury, in language which was as insignificant
+to their minds as the same quantity of obsolete Law-French would have
+been, that it was their duty to return a verdict of 'Guilty.' Throwing
+themselves into the humor of the business, the Welsh jurymen, although
+they were quite familiar with the facts of the case, acquitted the
+murderer, much to the encouragement of many wretched Welsh husbands
+anxious for a termination of their matrimonial sufferings.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> In the seventeenth century, lawyers usually called their
+clients and the non-legal public 'Lay Gents.'</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>STUDENT LIFE IN OLD TIME.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>From statements made in previous chapters, it may be seen that in
+ancient times the Law University was a far more conspicuous feature of
+the metropolis than it has been in more modern generations. In the
+fifteenth century the law students of the town numbered about two
+thousand; in Elizabethan London their number fluctuated between one
+thousand and two thousand; towards the close of Charles II.'s reign they
+were probably much less than fifteen hundred; in the middle of the
+eighteenth century they do not seem to have much exceeded one thousand.
+Thus at a time when the entire population of the capital was
+considerably less than the population of a third-rate provincial town of
+modern England, the Inns of Court and Chancery contained more
+undergraduates than would be found on the books of the Oxford Colleges
+at the present time.</p>
+
+<p>Henry VIII.'s London looked to the University for mirth, news, trade.
+During vacations there was but little stir in the taverns and shops of
+Fleet Street; haberdashers and vintners sate idle; musicians starved;
+and the streets of the capital were comparatively empty when the
+students had withdrawn to spend their holidays in the country. As soon
+as the gentlemen of the robe returned to town all was brisk and merry
+again. As the town grew in extent and population, the social influence
+of the university gradually decreased; but in Elizabethan London the
+<i>&eacute;clat</i> of the inns was at its brightest, and during the reigns of
+Elizabeth's two nearest successors London submitted to the Inns-of-Court
+men as arbiters of all matters pertaining to taste&mdash;copying their dress,
+slang, amusements, and vices. The same may be said, with less emphasis,
+of Charles II.'s London. Under the 'Merry Monarch' theatrical managers
+were especially anxious to please the inns, for they knew that no play
+would succeed which the lawyers had resolved to damn&mdash;that no actor
+could achieve popularity if the gallants of the Temple combined to laugh
+him down&mdash;that no company of performers could retain public favor when
+they had lost the countenance of law-colleges. Something of this power
+the young lawyers retained beyond the middle of the last century.
+Fielding and Addison caught with nervous eagerness the critical gossip
+of the Temple and Chancery Lane, just as Congreve and Wycherly, Dryden
+and Cowley had caught it in previous generations. Fashionable tradesmen
+and caterers for the amusement of the public made their engagements and
+speculations with reference to the opening of term. New plays, new
+books, new toys were never offered for the first time to London
+purchasers when the lawyers were away. All that the 'season' is to
+modern London, the 'term' was to old London, from the accession of Henry
+VIII. to the death of George II., and many of the existing commercial
+and fashionable arrangements of a London 'season' maybe traced to the
+old-world 'term.'</p>
+
+<p>In olden time the influence of the law-colleges was as great upon
+politics as upon fashion. Sheltering members of every powerful family in
+the country they were centres of political agitation, and places for the
+secret discussion of public affairs. Whatever plot was in course of
+incubation, the inns invariably harbored persons who were cognisant of
+the conspiracy. When faction decided on open rebellion or hidden
+treason, the agents of the malcontent leaders gathered together in the
+inns, where, so long as they did not rouse the suspicions of the
+authorities and maintained the bearing of studious men, they could hire
+assassins, plan risings, hold interviews with fellow-conspirators, and
+nurse their nefarious projects into achievement. At periods of danger
+therefore spies were set to watch the gates of the hostels, and mark who
+entered them. Governments took great pains to ascertain the secret life
+of the collegians. A succession of royal directions for the discipline
+of the inns under the Tudors and Stuarts points to the jealousy and
+constant apprehensions with which the sovereigns of England long
+regarded those convenient lurking-places for restless spirits and
+dangerous adversaries. Just as the Student-quarter of Paris is still
+watched by a vigilant police, so the Inns of Court were closely watched
+by the agents of Wolsey and Thomas Cromwell, of Burleigh and Buckingham.
+During the troubles and contentions of Elizabeth's reign Lord Burleigh
+was regularly informed concerning the life of the inns, the number of
+students in and out of town, the parentage and demeanor of new members,
+the gossip of the halls, and the rumors of the cloisters. In proportion
+as the political temper and action of the lawyers were deemed matters of
+high importance, their political indiscretions and misdemeanors were
+promptly and sometimes ferociously punished. An idle joke over a pot of
+wine sometimes cost a witty barrister his social rank and his ears. To
+promote a wholesome fear of authority in the colleges, government every
+now and then flogged a student at the cart's tail in Holborn, or
+pilloried a sad apprentice of the law in Chancery Lane, or hung an
+ancient on a gibbet at the entrance of his inn.</p>
+
+<p>The anecdote-books abound with good stories that illustrate the
+political excitability of the inns in past times, and the energy with
+which ministers were wont to repress the first manifestations of
+insubordination. Rushworth records the adventure of four young men of
+Lincoln's Inn who throw aside prudence and sobriety in a tavern hard by
+their inn, and drank to "the confusion of the Archbishop of Canterbury."
+The next day, full of penitence and head-ache, the offenders were
+brought before the council, and called to account for their scandalous
+conduct; when they would have fared ill had not the Earl of Dorset done
+them good service, and privately instructed them to say in their
+defence, that they had not drunk confusion to the archbishop but to the
+archbishop's <i>foes</i>. On this ingenious representation, the council
+supposed that the drawer&mdash;on whose information the proceedings were
+taken&mdash;had failed to catch the last word of the toast; and consequently
+the young gentlemen were dismissed with a 'light admonition,' much to
+their own surprise and the informer's chagrin.</p>
+
+<p>Of the political explosiveness of the inns in Charles II.'s time
+Narcissus Luttrell gives the following illustration in his diary, under
+date June 15 and 16, 1681:&mdash;"The 15th was a project sett on foot in
+Grayes Inn for the carrying on an addresse for thankes to his majestie
+for his late declaration; and was moved that day in the hall by some at
+dinner, and being (as is usual) sent to the barre messe to be by them
+recommended to the bench, but was rejected both by bench and barr; but
+the other side seeing they could doe no good this way, they gott about
+forty together and went to the tavern, and there subscribed the said
+addresse in the name of the truelye loyall gentlemen of Grayes Inn. The
+chief sticklers for the said addition were Sir William Seroggs, Jun.,
+Robert Fairebeard, Capt. Stowe, Capt. Radcliffe, one Yalden, with
+others, to the number of 40 or thereabouts; many of them sharpers about
+town, with clerks not out of their time, and young men newly come from
+the university. And some of them went the 17th to Windsor, and presented
+the said addresse to his majesty: who was pleasd to give them his
+thanks and confer (it is said) knighthood on the said Mr. Fairebeard;
+this proves a mistake since. The 16th was much such another addresse
+carried on in the Middle Temple, where several Templars, meeting about
+one or two that afternoon in the hall for that purpose, they began to
+debate it, but they were opposed till the hall began to fill; and then
+the addressers called for Mr. Montague to take the chaire; on which a
+poll was demanded, but the addressers refused it, and carried Mr.
+Montague and sett him in the chaire, and the other part pulled him out,
+on which high words grew, and some blows were given; but the addressers
+seeing they could doe no good with it in the hall, adjourned to the
+Divill Tavern, and there signed the addresse; the other party kept in
+the hall, and fell to protesting against such illegall and arbitrary
+proceedings, subscribing their names to a greater number than the
+addressers were, and presented the same to the bench as a grievance."</p>
+
+<p>Like the King's Head Tavern, which stood in Chancery Lane, the Devil
+Tavern, in Fleet Street, was a favorite house with the Caroline Lawyers.
+Its proximity to the Temple secured the special patronage of the
+templars, whereas the King's Head was more frequented by Lincoln's-Inn
+men; and in the tavern-haunting days of the seventeenth century those
+two places of entertainment saw many a wild and dissolute scene. Unlike
+Chattelin, who endeavored to satisfy his guests with delicate repasts
+and light wines, the hosts of the Devil and the King's Head provided the
+more substantial fare of old England, and laid themselves out to please
+roysterers who liked pots of ale in the morning, and were wont to drink
+brandy by the pint as the clocks struck midnight. Nando's, the house
+where Thurlow in his student-period used to hold nightly disputations
+with all comers of suitable social rank, was an orderly place in
+comparison with these more venerable hostelries; and though the Mitre,
+Cock, and Rainbow have witnessed a good deal of deep drinking, it may be
+questioned if they, or any other ancient taverns of the legal quarter,
+encouraged a more boisterous and reckless revelry than that which
+constituted the ordinary course of business at the King's Head and the
+Devil.</p>
+
+<p>In his notes for Jan. 1681-2, Mr. Narcissus Luttrell observes&mdash;"The
+13th, at night, some young gentlemen of the Temple went to the King's
+Head Tavern, Chancery Lane, committing strange outrages there, breaking
+windowes, &amp;c., which the watch hearing of came to disperse them; but
+they sending for severall of the watermen with halberts that attend
+their comptroller of the revells, were engaged in a desperate riott, in
+which one of the watchmen was run into the body and lies very ill; but
+the watchmen secured one or two of the watermen." Eleven years later the
+diarist records: "Jan. 5. One Batsill, a young gentleman of the Temple,
+was committed to Newgate for wounding a captain at the Devil Tavern in
+Fleet Street on Saturday last." Such ebullitions of manly
+spirit&mdash;ebullitions pleasant enough to the humorist, but occasionally
+productive of very disagreeable and embarrassing consequences&mdash;were not
+uncommon in the neighborhood of the Inns of Court whilst the Christmas
+revels were in progress.</p>
+
+<p>A tempestuous, hot-blooded, irascible set were these gentlemen of the
+law-colleges, more zealous for their own honor than careful for the
+feelings of their neighbors. Alternately warring with sharp tongues,
+sharp pens, and sharp swords they went on losing their tempers, friends,
+and lives in the most gallant and picturesque manner imaginable. Here is
+a nice little row which occurred in the Middle Temple Hall during the
+days of good Queen Bess! "The records of the society," says Mr. Foss,
+"preserve an account of the expulsion of a member, which is rendered
+peculiarly interesting in consequence of the eminence to which the
+delinquent afterwards attained as a statesman, a poet, and a lawyer.
+Whilst the masters of the bench and other members of the society were
+sitting quietly at dinner on February 9, 1597-8, John Davis came into
+the hall with his hat on his head, and attended by two persons armed
+with swords, and going up to the barrister's table, where Richard Martin
+was sitting, he pulled out from under his gown a cudgel 'quem vulgariter
+vocant a bastinado,' and struck him over the head repeatedly, and with
+so much violence that the bastinado was shivered into many pieces. Then
+retiring to the bottom of the hall, he drew one of his attendants'
+swords and flourished it over his head, turning his face towards Martin,
+and then turning away down the water steps of the Temple, threw himself
+into a boat. For this outrageous act he was immediately disbarred and
+expelled the house, and deprived for ever of all authority to speak or
+consult in law. After nearly four years' retirement he petitioned the
+benchers for his restoration, which they accorded on October 30, 1601,
+upon his making a public submission in the hall, and asking pardon of
+Mr. Martin, who at once generously forgave him." Both the principals in
+this scandalous outbreak and subsequent reconciliation became honorably
+known in their profession&mdash;Martin rising to be a Recorder of London and
+a member of parliament; and Davies acting as Attorney General of Ireland
+and Speaker of the Irish parliament, and achieving such a status in
+politics and law that he was appointed to the Chief Justiceship of
+England, an office, however, which sudden death prevented him from
+filling.</p>
+
+<p>Nor must it be imagined that gay manners and lax morals were less
+general amongst the veterans than amongst the youngsters of the bar.
+Judges and sergeants were quite as prone to levity and godless riot as
+students about to be called; and such was the freedom permitted by
+professional decorum that leading advocates habitually met their clients
+in taverns, and having talked themselves dry at the bars of Westminster
+Hall, drank themselves speechless at the bars of Strand taverns&mdash;ere
+they reeled again into their chambers. The same habits of uproarious
+self-indulgence were in vogue with the benchers of the inns, and the
+Doctors of Doctors' Commons. Hale's austerity was the exceptional
+demeanor of a pious man protesting against the wickedness of an impious
+age. Had it not been for the shortness of time that had elapsed since
+Algernon Sidney's trial and sentence, John Evelyn would have seen no
+reason for censuring the loud hilarity and drunkenness of Jeffreys and
+Withings at Mrs. Castle's wedding.</p>
+
+<p>In some respects, however, the social atmosphere of the inns was far
+more wholesome in the days of Elizabeth, and for the hundred years
+following her reign, than it is at present. Sprung in most cases from
+legal families, the students who were educated to be working members of
+the bar lived much more under the observation of their older relations,
+and in closer intercourse with their mothers and sisters than they do at
+present. Now-a-days young Templars, fresh from the universities, would
+be uneasy and irritable under strict domestic control; and as men with
+beards and five-and-twenty years' knowledge of the world, they would
+resent any attempt to draw them within the lines of domestic control.
+But in Elizabethan and also in Stuart London, law-students were
+considerably younger than they are under Victoria.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, the usage of the period trained young men to submit with
+cheerfulness to a parental discipline that would be deemed intolerable
+by our own youngsters. During the first terms of their eight, seven, or
+at least six years of pupilage, until they could secure quarters within
+college walls, students frequently lodged in the houses or chambers of
+near relations who were established in the immediate vicinity of the
+inns. A judge with a house in Fleet Street, an eminent counsel with a
+family mansion in Holborn, or an office-holder with commodious chambers
+in Chancery Lane, usually numbered amongst the members of his family a
+son, or nephew, or cousin who was keeping terms for the bar. Thus placed
+under the immediate superintendence of an elder whom he regarded with
+affection and pride, and surrounded by the wholesome interests of a
+refined domestic circle, the raw student was preserved from much folly
+and ill-doing into which he would have fallen had he been thrown
+entirely on his own resources for amusement.</p>
+
+<p>The pecuniary means of Inns-of-Court students have not varied much
+throughout the last twelve generations. In days when money was scarce
+and very precious they of course lived on a smaller number of coins than
+they require in these days when gold and silver are comparatively
+abundant and cheap; but it is reasonable to suppose that in every period
+the allowances, on which the less affluent of them subsisted, represent
+the amounts on which young men of their respective times were just able
+to maintain the figure and style of independent gentlemen. The costly
+pageants and feasts of the inns in old days must not be taken as
+indicative of the pecuniary resources of the common run of students; for
+the splendor of those entertainments was mainly due to the munificence
+of those more wealthy members who by a liberal and even profuse
+expenditure purchased a right to control the diversions of the colleges.
+Fortescue, speaking of his own time, says: "There can no student bee
+mayntayned for lesse expenses by the yeare than twentye markes. And if
+hee haue a seruant to waite uppon him, as most of them haue, then so
+much the greater will his charges bee." Hence it appears that during the
+most patrician period of the law university, when wealthy persons were
+accustomed to maintain ostentatious retinues of servants, a law-student
+often had no private personal attendant. An ordinance shows that in
+Elizabethan London the Inns-of-Court men were waited upon by laundresses
+or bedmakers who served and took wages from several masters at the same
+time. It would be interesting to ascertain the exact time when the
+"laundress" was first introduced into the Temple. She certainly
+flourished in the days of Queen Bess; and Roger North's piquant
+description of his brother's laundress is applicable to many of her
+successors who are looking after their perquisites at the present date.
+"The housekeeper," says Roger, "had been formerly his lordship's
+laundress at the Temple, and knew well her master's brother so early as
+when he was at the writing-school. She <i>was a phthisical old woman, and
+could scarce crawl upstairs once a day</i>." This general employment of
+servants who were common to several masters would alone prove that the
+Inns-of-Court men in the seventeenth century felt it convenient to
+husband their resources, and exercise economy. Throughout that century
+sixty pounds was deemed a sufficient income for a Temple student; and
+though it was a scant allowance, some young fellows managed to push on
+with a still more modest revenue. Simonds D'Ewes had &pound;60 per annum
+during his student course, and &pound;100 a year on becoming an
+utter-barrister. "It pleased God also in mercy," he writes, "after this
+to ease me of that continual want or short stipend I had for about five
+years last past groaned under; for my father, immediately on my call to
+the bar, enlarged my former allowance with forty pounds more annually;
+so as, after this plentiful annuity of one hundred pounds was duly and
+quarterly paid me by him, I found myself easyd of so many cares and
+discontents as I may well account that the 27th day of June foregoing
+the first day of my outward happiness since the decease of my dearest
+mother." All things considered, a bachelor in James I.'s London with a
+clear income of &pound;100 per annum was on the whole as well off for his time
+as a young barrister of the present day would be with an annual
+allowance of &pound;250 or &pound;300. Francis North, when a student, was allowed
+only &pound;60 per annum; and as soon as he was called and began to earn a
+little money, his parsimonious father reduced the stipend by &pound;10; but,
+adds Roger North, "to do right to his good father, he paid him that
+fifty pounds a year as long as he lived, saying he would not discourage
+industry by rewarding it, when successful, with less." George Jeffreys,
+in his student-days, smarted under a still more galling penury, for he
+was allowed only &pound;50 a year, &pound;10 being for his clothes, and &pound;40 for the
+rest of his expenditure. In the following century the nominal incomes of
+law-students rose in proportion as the wealth of the country increased
+and the currency fell in value. In George II.'s time a young Templar
+expected his father to allow him &pound;150 a year, and on encouragement would
+spend twice that amount in the same time. Henry Fielding's allowance
+from General Fielding was &pound;200 per annum; but as he said, with a laugh,
+he had too feeling and dutiful a nature to press an affectionate father
+for money which he was totally unable to pay. At the present time &pound;150
+per annum is about the smallest sum on which a law-student can live with
+outward decency; and &pound;250 per annum the lowest amount on which a chamber
+barrister can live with suitable dignity and comfort. If he has to
+maintain the expenses of a distant circuit Mr. Briefless requires from
+&pound;100 to &pound;200 more. Alas! how many of Mr. Briefless's meritorious and
+most ornamental kind are compelled to shift on far less ample means!
+How many of them periodically repeat the jest of poor A&mdash;&mdash;, who made
+this brief and suggestive official return to the Income Tax
+Commissioners&mdash;"I am totally dependent on my father, who allows
+me&mdash;nothing!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVII.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>READERS AND MOOTMEN.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>Romantic eulogists of the Inns of Court maintain that, as an instrument
+of education, the law-university was nearly perfect for many generations
+after its consolidation. That in modern time abuses have impaired its
+faculties and diminished its usefulness they admit. Some of them are
+candid enough to allow that, as a school for the systematic study of
+law, it is under existing circumstances a deplorably deficient machine;
+but they unite in declaring that there <i>was</i> a time when the system of
+the combined Colleges was complete and thoroughly efficacious. The more
+cautious of these eulogists decline to state the exact limits of the
+period when the actual condition of the university merited their cordial
+approval, but they concur in pointing to the years between the accession
+of Henry VII. and the death of James I., as comprising the brightest
+days of its academical vigor and renown.</p>
+
+<p>It is however worthy of observation that throughout the times when the
+legal learning and discipline of the colleges are described to have been
+admirable, the system and the students by no means won the approbation
+of those critical authorities who were best able to see their failings
+and merits. Wolsey was so strongly impressed by the faulty education of
+the barristers who practised before him, and more especially by their
+total ignorance of the principles of jurisprudence, that he prepared a
+plan for a new university which should be established in London, and
+should impart a liberal and exact knowledge of law. Had he lived to
+carry out his scheme it is most probable that the Inns of Court and
+Chancery would have become subsidiary and subordinate establishments to
+the new foundation. In this matter, sympathizing with the more
+enlightened minds of his age, Sir Nicholas Bacon was no less desirous
+than the great cardinal that a new law university should be planted in
+town, and he urged on Henry VIII. the propriety of devoting a certain
+portion of the confiscated church property to the foundation and
+endowment of such an institution.</p>
+
+<p>On paper the scheme of the old exercises and degrees looks very
+imposing, and those who delight in painting fancy pictures may infer
+from them that the scholastic order of the colleges was perfect. Before
+a young man could be called to the bar, he had under ordinary
+circumstances to spend seven or eight years in arguing cases at the Inns
+of Chancery, in proving his knowledge of law and Law-French at moots, in
+sharpening his wits at case-putting, in patient study of the Year-Books,
+and in watching the trials of Westminster Hall. After his call he was
+required to spend another period in study and academic exercise before
+he presumed to raise his voice at the bar; and in his progress to the
+highest rank of his profession he was expected to labor in educating the
+students of his house as assistant-reader, single-reader, double-reader.
+The gravest lawyers of every inn were bound to aid in the task of
+teaching the mysteries of the law to the rising generation.</p>
+
+<p>The old ordinances assumed that the law-student was thirsting for a
+knowledge of law, and that the veterans were no less eager to impart
+it. During term law was talked in hall at dinner and supper, and after
+these meals the collegians argued points. "The cases were put" after the
+earlier repast, and twice or thrice a week moots were "brought in" after
+the later meal. The students were also encouraged to assemble towards
+the close of each day and practise 'case-putting' in their gardens and
+in the cloisters of the Temple or Lincoln's Inn. The 'great fire' of
+1678-9 having destroyed the Temple Cloisters, some of the benchers
+proposed to erect chambers on the ground, to and fro upon which
+law-students had for generations walked whilst they wrangled aloud; but
+the Earl of Nottingham, recalling the days when young Heneage Finch used
+to put cases with his contemporary students, strangled the proposal at
+its birth, and Sir Christopher Wren subsequently built the Cloisters
+which may be seen at the present day.</p>
+
+<p>But there is reason to fear that at a very early period in their history
+the Inns of Court began to pay more attention to certain outward forms
+of instruction than to instruction itself. The unbiassed inquirer is
+driven to suspect that 'case-putting' soon became an idle ceremony, and
+'mooting' a mere pastime. Gentlemen ate heartily in the sixteenth and
+seventeenth centuries; and it is not easy to believe that immediately
+after a twelve o'clock dinner benchers were in the best possible mood to
+teach, or students in the fittest condition for learning. It is credible
+that these post-prandial exercitations were often enlivened by sparkling
+quips and droll occurrences; but it is less easy to believe that they
+were characterised by severe thought and logical exactness. So also with
+the after-supper exercises. The six o'clock suppers of the lawyers were
+no light repasts, but hearty meals of meat and bread, washed down by
+'<i>green pots</i>' of ale and wine. When 'the horn' sounded for supper, the
+student was in most cases better able to see the truth of knotty points
+than when in compliance with etiquette he bowed to the benchers, and
+asked if it was their pleasure to hear a moot. It seems probable that
+long before 'case-puttings' and 'mootings' were altogether disused, the
+old benchers were wont to wink mischievously at each other when they
+prepared to teach the boys, and that sometimes they would turn away from
+the proceedings of a moot with an air of disdain or indifference. The
+inquirer is not induced to rate more highly the intellectual effort of
+such exercises because the teachers refreshed their exhausted powers
+with bread and beer as soon as the arguments were closed.</p>
+
+<p>When such men as Coke and Francis Bacon were the readers, the students
+were entertained with lectures of surpassing excellence; but it was
+seldom that such readers could be found. It seems also that at an early
+period men became readers, not because they had any especial aptitude
+for offices of instruction, or because they had some especial fund of
+information&mdash;but simply because it was their turn to read. Routine
+placed them in the pulpit for a certain number of weeks; and when they
+had done all that routine required of them, and had thereby qualified
+themselves for promotion to the rank of sergeant, they took their seats
+amongst the benchers and ancients with the resolution not to trouble
+themselves again about the intellectual progress of the boys.</p>
+
+<p>Soon also the chief teacher of an Inn of Court became its chief feaster
+and principal entertainer; and in like manner his subordinates in
+office, such as assistant readers and readers elect, were required to
+put their hands into their pockets, and feed their pupils with venison
+and wine as well as with law and equity. It is amusing to observe how
+little Dugdale has to say about the professional duties of readers&mdash;and
+how much about their hospitable functions and responsibilities. Philip
+and Mary ordered that no reader of the Middle Temple should give away
+more than fifteen bucks during his readings; but so greatly did the cost
+of readers' entertainments increase in the following century, that
+Dugdale observes&mdash;"But the times are altered; there being few summer
+readers who, in half the time that heretofore a reading was wont to
+continue, spent so little as threescore bucks, besides red deer; some
+have spent fourscore, some an hundred."</p>
+
+<p>Just as readers were required to spend more in hospitality, they were
+required to display less learning. Sound lawyers avoided election to the
+readers' chairs, leaving them to be filled by rich men who could afford
+to feast the nobility and gentry, or at least by men who were willing to
+purchase social <i>&eacute;clat</i> with a lavish outlay of money. Under Charles II.
+the 'readings' were too often nothing better than scandalous exhibitions
+of mental incapacity: and having sunk into disrepute, they died out
+before the accession of James II.</p>
+
+<p>The scandalous and beastly disorder of the Grand Day Feasts at the
+Middle Temple, during Francis North's tenure of the reader's office, was
+one of the causes that led to the discontinuance of Reader's Banquets at
+that house; and the other inns gladly followed the example of the Middle
+Temple in putting an end to a custom which had ceased to promote the
+dignity of the law. Of this feast, and his brother's part in it, Roger
+North says: "He (<i>i.e.</i> Francis North) sent out the officers with white
+staves (for so the way was) and a long list to invite; but he went
+himself to wait upon the Archbishop of Canterbury, Sheldon; for so also
+the ceremony required. The archbishop received him very honorably and
+would not part with him at the stairshead, as usually had been done;
+but, telling him he was no ordinary reader, went down, and did not part
+till he saw him past at his outward gate I cannot much commend the
+extravagance of the feasting used at these readings; and that of his
+lordship's was so terrible an example, that I think none hath ventured
+since to read publicly; but the exercise is turned into a revenue, and a
+composition is paid into the treasury of the society. Therefore one may
+say, as was said of Cleomenes, that, in this respect, his lordship was
+<i>ultimus herorum</i>, the last of the heroes. And the profusion of the best
+provisions, and wine, was to the worst of purposes&mdash;debauchery,
+disorder, tumult, and waste. I will give but one instance; upon the
+grand day, as it was called, a banquet was provided to be set upon the
+table, composed of pyramids, and smaller services in form. The first
+pyramid was at least four feet high, with stages one above another. The
+conveying this up to the table, through a crowd, that were in full
+purpose to overturn it, was no small work: but, with the friendly
+assistance of the gentlemen, it was set whole upon the table. But, after
+it was looked upon a little, all went, hand over hand, among the rout in
+the hall, and for the most part was trod under foot. The entertainment
+the nobility had out of this was, after they had tossed away the dishes,
+a view of the crowd in confusion, wallowing one over another, and
+contending for a dirty share of it."</p>
+
+<p>It would, however, be unfair to the ancient exercises of 'case-putting'
+and 'mooting' not to bear in mind that by habituating successful
+barristers to take personal interest in the professional capabilities of
+students, they helped to maintain a salutary intercourse betwixt the
+younger and older members of the profession. So long as 'moots' lasted,
+it was the fashion with eminent counsel to accost students in
+Westminster Hall, and gossip with them about legal matters. In Charles
+II.'s time, such eminent barristers as Sir Geoffrey Palmer daily gave
+practical hints and valuable suggestions to students who courted their
+favor; find accurate legal scholars, such as old 'Index Waller,' would,
+under judicious treatment, exhibit their learning to boys ambitious of
+following in their steps. Chief Justice Saunders, during the days of his
+pre-eminence at the bar, never walked through Westminster Hall without a
+train of lads at his heels. "I have seen him," says Roger North, "for
+hours and half-hours together, before the court sat, stand at the bar,
+with an audience of students over against him, putting of cases, and
+debating so as suited their capacities, and encouraged their industry.
+And so in the Temple, he seldom moved without a parcel of youths hanging
+about him, and he merry and jesting with them."</p>
+
+<p>Long after 'moots' had fallen into disuse, their influence in this
+respect was visible in the readiness of wigged veterans to extend a
+kindly and useful patronage to students. Even so late as the close of
+the last century, great black-letter lawyers used to accost students in
+Westminster Hall, and give them fair words, in a manner that would be
+misunderstood in the present day. Sergeant Hill&mdash;whose reputation for
+recondite legal erudition, resembled that of '<i>Index</i> Waller,' or
+Maynard, in the seventeenth century&mdash;once accosted John Scott, as the
+latter, in his student days, was crossing Westminster Hall. "Pray, young
+gentleman," said the black-letter lawyer, "do you think herbage and
+pannage rateable to the poor's rate?" "Sir," answered the future Lord
+Eldon, with a courteous bow to the lawyer, whom he knew only by sight,
+"I cannot presume to give any opinion, inexperienced and unlearned as I
+am, to a person of your great knowledge, and high character in the
+profession." "Upon my word," replied the sergeant, eyeing the young man
+with unaffected delight, "you are a pretty sensible young gentleman; I
+don't often meet with such. If I had asked Mr. Burgess, a young man upon
+our circuit, the question, he would have told me that I was an old
+fool. You are an extraordinary sensible young gentleman."</p>
+
+<p>The period when 'readings,' 'mooting,' and 'case-putting' fell into
+disuse or contempt, is known with sufficient accuracy. Having noticed
+the decay of readings, Sir John Bramston writes, in Charles II.'s reign,
+"At this tyme readings are totally in all the Inns of Court layd aside;
+and to speak truth, with great reason, for it was a step at once to the
+dignity of a sergeant, but not soe now." Marking the time when moots
+became farcical forms, Roger North having stated that his brother
+Francis, when a student, was "an attendant (as well as exerciser) at the
+ordinary moots in the Middle Temple and at New Inn," goes on to say, "In
+those days, the moots were carefully performed, and it is hard to give a
+good reason (bad ones are prompt enough) why they are not so now." But
+it should be observed, that though for all practical purposes 'moots'
+and 'case-puttings' ceased in Charles II.'s time, they were not formally
+abolished. Indeed, they lingered on throughout the eighteenth century,
+and to the present time&mdash;when vestiges of them may still be observed in
+the usages and discipline of the Inns. Before the writer of this page
+was called to the bar by the Masters of the Society of Lincoln's Inn,
+he, like all other students of his time, had to go through the form of
+putting a case on certain days in the hall after dinner. The ceremony
+appeared to him alike ludicrous and interesting. To put his case, he was
+conducted by the steward of the inn to the top of the senior bar table,
+when the steward placed an open MS. book before him, and said, "Read
+that, sir;" whereupon this deponent read aloud something about "a femme
+sole," or some such thing, and was still reading the rest of the MS.,
+kindly opened under his nose by the steward, when that worthy officer
+checked him suddenly, saying, "That will do, sir; you have <i>put</i> your
+case&mdash;and can sign the book." The book duly signed, this deponent bowed
+to the assembled barristers, and walked out of the hall, smiling as he
+thought how, by an ingenious fiction, he was credited with having put an
+elaborate case to a college of profound jurists, with having argued it
+before an attentive audience, and with having borne away the laurels of
+triumph. Recently this pleasant mockery of case-putting has been swept
+away.</p>
+
+<p>In Roger North's 'Discourse on the Study of the Laws,' and 'Life of the
+Lord Keeper Guildford,' the reader may see with clearness the course of
+an industrious law-student during the latter half of the seventeenth
+century, and it differs less from the ordinary career of an industrious
+Temple-student in our time, than many recent writers on the subject
+think.</p>
+
+<p>Under Charles II., James II., and William III. the law-student was
+compelled to muster the barbarous Law-French; but the books which he was
+required to read were few in comparison with those of a modern
+Inns-of-Court man. Roger North mentions between twenty and thirty
+authors, which the student should read in addition to Year-Books and
+more recent reports; and it is clear that the man who knew with any
+degree of familiarity such a body of legal literature was a very erudite
+lawyer two hundred years since. But the student was advised to read this
+small library again and again, "common-placing" the contents of its
+volumes, and also "common-placing" all new legal facts. The utility and
+convenience of common-place books were more apparent two centuries
+since, than in our time, when books of reference are always published
+with good tables of contents and alphabetical indexes. Roger North held
+that no man could become a good lawyer who did not keep a common-place
+book. He instructs the student to buy for a common-place register "a
+good large paper book, as big as a church bible;" he instructs him how
+to classify the facts which should be entered in the work; and for a
+model of a lucid and thoroughly lawyer-like common-place book he refers
+"to Lincoln's Inn library, where the Lord Hale's common-place book is
+conserved, and that may be a pattern, <i>instar omnium</i>."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVIII.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>PUPILS IN CHAMBERS.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>But the most important part of an industrious law-student's labors in
+olden time, was the work of watching the practice of Westminster Hall.
+In the seventeenth century, the constant succession of political trials
+made the King's Bench Court especially attractive to students who were
+more eager for gossip than advancement of learning; but it was always
+held that the student, who was desirous to learn the law rather than to
+catch exciting news or hear exciting speeches, ought to frequent the
+Common Pleas, in which court the common law was said to be at home. At
+the Common Pleas, a student might find a seat vacant in the students'
+benches so late as ten o'clock; but it was not unusual for every place
+devoted to the accommodation of students in the Court of King's Bench,
+to be occupied by six o'clock, <span class="smcap">A.M.</span> By dawn, and even before
+the sun had begun to break, students bent on getting good seats at the
+hearing of an important cause would assemble, and patiently wait in
+court till the judges made their appearance.</p>
+
+<p>One prominent feature in the advocate's education must always be
+elocutionary practice. "Talk; if you can, to the point, but anyhow
+talk," has been the motto of Advocacy from time immemorial. Heneage
+Finch, who, like every member of his silver-tongued family, was an
+authority on matters pertaining to eloquence, is said to have advised a
+young student "to study all the morning and talk all the afternoon."
+Sergeant Maynard used to express his opinion of the importance of
+eloquence to a lawyer by calling law the "ars bablativa." Roger North
+observes&mdash;"He whose trade is speaking must not, whatever comes out, fail
+to speak, for that is a fault in the main much worse than impertinence."
+And at a recent address to the students of the London University, Lord
+Brougham urged those of his auditors, who intended to adopt the
+profession of the bar, to habituate themselves to talk about everything.</p>
+
+<p>In past times law-students were proverbial for their talkativeness; and
+though the present writer has never seen any records of a Carolinian
+law-debating society, it is matter of certainty that in the seventeenth
+century the young students and barristers formed themselves into
+coteries, or clubs, for the practice of elocution and for legal
+discussions. The continual debates on 'mootable days,' and the incessant
+wranglings of the Temple cloisters, encouraged them to pay especial
+attention to such exercises. In Charles II.'s reign Pool's company, was
+a coterie of students and young barristers, who used to meet
+periodically for congenial conversation and debate. "There is seldom a
+time," says Roger North, speaking of this coterie, "but in every Inn of
+Court there is a studious, sober company that are select to each other,
+and keep company at meals and refreshments. Such a company did Mr. Pool
+find out, whereof Sergeant Wild was one, and every one of them proved
+eminent, and most of them are now preferred in the law; and Mr. Pool, at
+the latter end of his life, took such a pride in his company that he
+affected to furnish his chambers with their pictures." Amongst the
+benefits to be derived from such a club as that of which Mr. Pool was
+president, Roger North mentions "Aptness to speak;" adding: "for a man
+may be possessed of a book-case, and think he has it <i>ad unguem</i>
+throughout, and when he offers at it shall find himself at a loss, and
+his words will not be right and proper, or perhaps too many, and his
+expressions confused: <i>when he has once talked his case over, and, his
+company have tossed it a little to and fro, then he shall utter it more
+readily, with fewer words and much more force</i>."</p>
+
+<p>These words make it clear that Mr. Pool's 'company' was a select
+'law-debating society.' Far smaller as to number of members, something
+more festive in its arrangements, but not less bent on furthering the
+professional progress of its members, it was, some two hundred years
+since, all that the 'Hardwicke' and other similar associations are at
+the present.<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a></p>
+
+<p>To such fraternities&mdash;of which the Inns of Court had several in the last
+century&mdash;Murray and Thurlow, Law and Erskine had recourse: and besides
+attending strictly professional clubs, it was usual for the students, of
+their respective times, to practise elocution at the coffee-houses and
+public spouting-rooms of the town. Murray used to argue as well as
+'drink champagne' with the wits; Thurlow was the irrepressible talker of
+Nando's; Erskine used to carry his scarlet uniform from Lincoln's Inn
+Hall, to the smoke-laden atmosphere of Coachmakers' Hall, at which
+memorable 'discussion forum' Edward Law is known to have spoken in the
+presence of a closely packed assembly of politicians, idlers upon town,
+shop-men, and drunkards. Thither also Horne Tooke and Dunning used to
+adjourn after dining with Taffy Kenyon at the Chancery Lane
+eating-house, where the three friends were wont to stay their hunger for
+sevenpence halfpenny each. "Dunning and myself," Horne Tooke said
+boastfully, when he recalled these economical repasts, "were generous,
+for we gave the girl who waited on us a penny apiece; but Kenyon, who
+always knew the value of money, rewarded her with a halfpenny, and
+sometimes with a <i>promise</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding the recent revival of lectures and the institution of
+examinations, the actual course of the law-student has changed little
+since the author of the 'Pleader's Guide,' in 1706, described the career
+of John Surrebutter, Esq., Special Pleader and Barrister-at-Law. The
+labors of 'pupils in chambers, are thus noticed by Mr. Surrebutter:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+"And, better to improve your taste,<br />
+Are by your parents' fondness plac'd<br />
+Amongst the blest, the chosen few<br />
+(Blest, if their happiness they knew),<br />
+Who for three hundred guineas paid<br />
+To some great master of the trade,<br />
+Have at his rooms by <i>special</i> favor<br />
+His leave to use their best endeavor,<br />
+By drawing pleas from nine till four,<br />
+To earn him twice three hundred more;<br />
+And after dinner may repair<br />
+To 'foresaid rooms, and then and there<br />
+Have 'foresaid leave from five till ten,<br />
+To draw th' aforesaid pleas again."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Continuing to describe his professional career, Mr. Surrebutter mentions
+certain facts which show that so late as the close of last century
+professional etiquette did not forbid special pleaders and barristers to
+curry favor with solicitors and solicitors' clerks by attentions which
+would now-a-days be deemed reprehensible. He says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+"Whoe'er has drawn a special plea<br />
+Has heard of old Tom Tewkesbury,<br />
+Deaf as a post, and thick as mustard,<br />
+He aim'd at wit, and bawl'd and bluster'd<br />
+And died a Nisi Prius leader&mdash;<br />
+That genius was my special pleader&mdash;<br />
+That great man's office I attended,<br />
+By Hawk and Buzzard recommended<br />
+Attorneys both of wondrous skill,<br />
+To pluck the goose and drive the quill.<br />
+Three years I sat his smoky room in,<br />
+Pens, paper, ink, and pounce consuming;<br />
+The fourth, when Epsom Day begun,<br />
+Joyful I hailed th' auspicious sun,<br />
+Bade Tewkesbury and Clerk adieu;<br />
+(Purification, eighty-two)<br />
+Of both I wash'd my hands; and though<br />
+With nothing for my cash to show,<br />
+But precedents so scrawl'd and blurr'd,<br />
+I scarce could read a single word,<br />
+Nor in my books of common-place<br />
+One feature, of the law could trace,<br />
+Save Buzzard's nose and visage thin,<br />
+And Hawk's deficiency of chin,<br />
+Which I while lolling at my ease<br />
+Was wont to draw instead of pleas.<br />
+My chambers I equipt complete,<br />
+Made friends, hired books, and gave to eat;<br />
+If haply to regale my friends on,<br />
+My mother sent a haunch of ven'son,<br />
+I most respectfully entreated<br />
+The choicest company to eat it;<br />
+<i>To wit</i>, old Buzzard, Hawk, and Crow;<br />
+<i>Item</i>, Tom Thornback, Shark, and Co.<br />
+Attorneys all as keen and staunch<br />
+As e'er devoured a client's haunch.<br />
+And did I not their clerks invite<br />
+To taste said ven'son hash'd at night?<br />
+For well I knew that hopeful fry<br />
+My rising merit would descry,<br />
+The same litigious course pursue,<br />
+And when to fish of prey they grew,<br />
+By love of food and contest led,<br />
+Would haunt the spot where once they fed.<br />
+Thus having with due circumspection<br />
+Formed my professional connexion,<br />
+My desks with precedents I strew'd,<br />
+Turned critic, danc'd, or penn'd an ode,<br />
+Suited the <i>ton</i>, became a free<br />
+And easy man of gallantry;<br />
+But if while capering at my glass,<br />
+Or toying with a favorite lass,<br />
+I heard the aforesaid Hawk a-coming,<br />
+Or Buzzard on the staircase humming,<br />
+At once the fair angelic maid<br />
+Into my coal-hole I convey'd;<br />
+At once with serious look profound,<br />
+Mine eyes commencing with the ground,<br />
+I seem'd like one estranged to sleep,<br />
+'And fixed in cogitation deep,'<br />
+Sat motionless, and in my hand I<br />
+Held my 'Doctrina Placitandi,'<br />
+And though I never read a page in't,<br />
+Thanks to that shrewd, well-judging agent,<br />
+My sister's husband, Mr. Shark,<br />
+Soon got six pupils and a clerk.<br />
+Five pupils were my stint, the other<br />
+I took to compliment his mother."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Having fleeced pupils, and worked as a special pleader for a time, Mr.
+Surrebutter is called to the bar; after which ceremony his action
+towards 'the inferior branch' of the profession is not more dignified
+than it was whilst he practised as a Special Pleader.</p>
+
+<p>It appears that in Mr. Surrebutter's time (<i>circa</i> 1780) it was usual
+for a student to spend three whole years in the same pleader's chambers,
+paying three hundred guineas for the course of study. Not many years
+passed before students saw it was not to their advantage to spend so
+long a period with the same instructor, and by the end of the century
+the industrious student who could command the fees wherewith to pay for
+such special tuition, usually spent a year or two in a pleader's
+chambers, and another year or two in the chambers of an equity
+draughtsman, or conveyancer. Lord Campbell, at the opening of the
+present century, spent three years in the chambers of the eminent
+Special Pleader, Mr. Tidd, of whose learning and generosity the
+biographer of the Chancellors makes cordial and grateful acknowledgment.
+Finding that Campbell could not afford to pay a second hundred guineas
+for a second year's instruction, Tidd not only offered him the run of
+his chambers without payment, but made the young Scotchman take back the
+&pound;105 which he had paid for the first twelve months.</p>
+
+<p>In his later years Lord Campbell delighted to trace his legal pedigree
+to the great pleader and 'pupillizer' of the last century, Tom Warren.
+The chart ran thus: "Tom Warren had for pupil Sergeant Runnington, who
+instructed in the mysteries of special pleading the learned Tidd, who
+was the teacher of John Campbell." With honest pride and pleasant vanity
+the literary Chancellor maintained that he had given the genealogical
+tree another generation of forensic honor, as Solicitor General Dundas
+and Vaughan Williams, of the Common Pleas Bench, were his pupils.</p>
+
+<p>Though Campbell speaks of <i>Tom Warren</i> as "the greater founder of the
+special pleading race," and maintains that "the voluntary discipline of
+the special pleader's office" was unknown before the middle of the last
+century, it is certain that the voluntary discipline of a legal
+instructor's office or chambers was an affair of frequent occurrence
+long before Warren's rise. Roger North, in his 'Discourse on the Study
+of the Laws,' makes no allusion to any such voluntary discipline as an
+ordinary feature of a law-student's career; but in his 'Life of Lord
+Keeper Guildford' he expressly informs us that he was a pupil in his
+brother's chambers. "His lordship," writes the biographer, "having taken
+that advanced post, and designing to benefit a relation (the Honorable
+Roger North), who was a student in the law, and kept him company, caused
+his clerk to put into his hands all his draughts, such as he himself had
+corrected, and after which conveyances had been engrossed, that, by a
+perusal of them, he might get some light into the formal skill of
+conveyancing. And that young gentleman instantly went to work, and first
+numbered the draughts, and then made an index of all the clauses,
+referring to that number and folio; so that, in this strict perusal and
+digestion of the various matters, he acquired, not only a formal style,
+but also apt precedents, and a competent notion of instruments of all
+kinds. And to this great condescension was owing that little progress he
+made, which afterwards served to prepare some matters for his lordship's
+own perusal and settlement." Here then is a case of a pupil in a
+barrister's chambers in Charles II.'s reign; and it is a case that
+suffers nothing from the fact that the teacher took no fee.</p>
+
+<p>In like manner, John Trevor (subsequently Master of the Rolls and
+Speaker of the Commons) about the same time was "bred a sort of clerk in
+old Arthur Trevor's chamber, an eminent and worthy professor of the law
+in the Inner Temple." On being asked what might be the name of the boy
+with such a hideous squint who sate at a clerk's desk in the outer room,
+Arthur Trevor answered, "A kinsman of mine that I have allowed to sit
+here, to learn the knavish part of the law." It must be observed that
+John Trevor was not a clerk, but merely a "sort of a clerk" in his
+kinsman's chamber.</p>
+
+<p>In the latter half of the seventeenth century, and in the earlier half
+of the eighteenth century, students who wished to learn the practice of
+the law usually entered the offices of attorneys in large practice. At
+that period, the division between the two branches of the profession was
+much less wide than it subsequently became; and no rule or maxim of
+professional etiquette forbade Inns-of-Court men to act as the
+subordinates of attorneys and solicitors. Thus Philip Yorke (Lord
+Hardwicke) in Queen Anne's reign acted as clerk in the office of Mr.
+Salkeld, an attorney residing in Brook Street, Holborn, whilst he kept
+his terms at the Temple; and nearly fifty years later, Ned Thurlow (Lord
+Thurlow), on leaving Cambridge, and taking up his residence in the
+Temple, became a pupil in the office of Mr. Chapman, a solicitor, whose
+place of business was in Lincoln's Inn. There is no doubt that it was
+customary for young men destined the bar thus to work in attorneys'
+offices; and they continued to do so without any sense of humiliation or
+thought of condescension, until the special pleaders superseded the
+attorneys as instructors.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> The mention of 'the Hardwicke' brings a droll story to the
+writer's mind. Some few years since the members of that learned
+fraternity assembled at their customary plate of meeting&mdash;a large room
+in Anderton's Hotel, Fleet Street&mdash;to discuss a knotty point of law
+about anent Uses. The master of young men was strong; and amongst
+them&mdash;conspicuous for his advanced years, jovial visage, red nose, and
+air of perplexity&mdash;sate an old gentleman who was evidently a stranger to
+every lawyer present. Who was he? Who brought him? Was there any one in
+the room who knew him? Such were the whispers that floated about,
+concerning the portly old man, arrayed in blue coat and drab breeches
+and gaiters, who took his snuff in silence, and watched the proceedings
+with evident surprise and dissatisfaction. After listening to three
+speeches this antique, jolly stranger rose, and with much embarrassment
+addressed the chair. "Mr. President," he said&mdash;"excuse me; but may I
+ask,&mdash;is this 'The Convivial Rabbits?'" A roar of laughter followed this
+enquiry from a 'convivial rabbit,' who having mistaken the evening of
+the week, had wandered into the room in which his convivial
+fellow-clubsters had held a meeting on the previous evening. On
+receiving the President's assurance that the learned members of a
+law-debating society were not 'convivial rabbits,' the elderly stranger
+buttoned his blue coat and beat a speedy retreat.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="PART_VIII" id="PART_VIII"></a>PART VIII.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'>MIRTH.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXXIX.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>WIT OF LAWYERS.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>No lawyer has given better witticisms to the jest-books than Sir Thomas
+More. Like all legal wits, he enjoyed a pun, as Sir Thomas Manners, the
+mushroom Earl of Rutland discovered, when he winced under the cutting
+reproof of his insolence, conveyed in the translation of 'Honores mutant
+mores'&mdash;<i>Honors change manners</i>. But though he would condescend to play
+with words as a child plays with shells on a sea-beach, he could at will
+command the laughter of his readers without having recourse to mere
+verbal antics. He delighted in what may be termed humorous
+mystification. Entering Bruges at a time when his leaving had gained
+European notoriety, he was met by the challenge of a noisy fellow who
+proclaimed himself ready to dispute with the whole world&mdash;or any other
+man&mdash;"in omni scibili et de quolibet ente." Accepting the invitation,
+and entering the lists in the presence of all the scholastic magnates of
+Bruges, More gravely inquired, "An averia caruc&aelig; capta in vetitonamio
+sint irreplegibilia?" Not versed in the principles and terminology of
+the common law of England, the challenger could only stammer and
+blush&mdash;whilst More's eye twinkled maliciously, and his auditors were
+convulsed with laughter.</p>
+
+<p>Much of his humor was of the sort that is ordinarily called <i>quiet</i>
+humor, because its effect does not pass off in shouts of merriment. Of
+this kind of pleasantry he gave the Lieutenant of the Tower a specimen,
+when he said, with as much courtesy as irony, "Assure yourself I do not
+dislike my cheer; but whenever I do, then spare not to thrust me out of
+your doors!" Of the same sort were the pleasantries with which, on the
+morning of his execution, he with fine consideration for others strove
+to divert attention from the cruelty of his doom. "I see no danger," he
+observed, with a smile, to his friend Sir Thomas Pope, shaking his
+water-bottle as he spoke, "but that this man may live longer if it
+please the king." Finding in the craziness of the scaffold a good
+pretext for leaning in friendly fashion on his gaoler's arm, he extended
+his hand to Sir William Kingston, saying, "Master Lieutenant, I pray you
+see me safe up; for my coming down let me shift for myself." Even to the
+headsman he gave a gentle pleasantry and a smile from the block itself,
+as he put aside his beard so that the keen blade should not touch it.
+"Wait, my good friend, till I have removed my beard," he said, turning
+his eyes upwards to the official, "for it has never offended his
+highness."</p>
+
+<p>His wit was not less ready than brilliant, and on one occasion its
+readiness saved him from a sudden and horrible death. Sitting on the
+roof of his high gate-house at Chelsea, he was enjoying the beauties of
+the Thames and the sunny richness of the landscape, when his solitude
+was broken by the unlooked-for arrival of a wandering maniac. Wearing
+the horn and badge of a Bedlamite, the unfortunate creature showed the
+signs of his malady in his equipment as well as his countenance. Having
+cast his eye downwards from the parapet to the foot of the tower, he
+conceived a mad desire to hurl the Chancellor from the flat roof. "Leap,
+Tom! leap!" screamed the athletic fellow, laying a firm hand on More's
+shoulder. Fixing his attention with a steady look, More said, coolly,
+"Let us first throw my little dog down, and see what sport that will
+be." In a trice the dog was thrown into the air. "Good!" said More,
+feigning delight at the experiment: "now run down, fetch the dog, and
+we'll throw him off again." Obeying the command, the dangerous intruder
+left More free to secure himself by a bar, and to summon assistance with
+his voice.</p>
+
+<p>For a good end this wise and mirth-loving lawyer would play the part of
+a practical joker; and it is recorded that by a jest of the practical
+sort he gave a wholesome lesson to an old civic magistrate, who, at the
+Sessions of the Old Bailey, was continually telling the victims of
+cut-purses that they had only themselves to thank for their losses&mdash;that
+purses would never be cut if their wearers took proper care to retain
+them in their possession. These orations always terminated with, "I
+never lose <i>my</i> purse; cut-purses never take <i>my</i> purse; no, i'faith,
+because I take proper care of it." To teach his worship wisdom, and cure
+him of his self-sufficiency, More engaged a cut-purse to relieve the
+magistrate of his money-bag whilst he sat upon the bench. A story is
+recorded of another Old Bailey judge who became the victim of a thief
+under very ridiculous circumstances. Whilst he was presiding at the
+trial of a thief in the Old Bailey, Sir John Sylvester, Recorder of
+London, said incidentally that he had left his watch at home. The trial
+ended in an acquittal, the prisoner had no sooner gained his liberty
+than he hastened to the recorder's house, and sent in word to Lady
+Sylvester that he was a constable and had been sent from the Old Bailey
+to fetch her husband's watch. When the recorder returned home and found
+he had lost his watch, it is to be feared that Lady Sylvester lost her
+usual equanimity. <i>Apropos</i> of these stories Lord Campbell tells&mdash;how,
+at the opening period of his professional career, soon after the
+publication of his 'Nisi Prius Reports,' he on circuit successfully
+defended a prisoner charged with a criminal offence; and how, whilst the
+success of his advocacy was still quickening his pulses, he discovered
+that his late client, with whom he held a confidential conversation, had
+contrived to relieve him of his pocket-book, full of bank-notes. As soon
+as the presiding judge, Lord Chief Baron Macdonald, heard of the mishap
+of the reporting barrister, he exclaimed, "What! does Mr. Campbell think
+that no one is entitled to <i>take notes</i> in court except himself?"</p>
+
+<p>By the urbane placidity which marked the utterance of his happiest
+speeches, Sir Nicholas Bacon often recalled to his hearers the courteous
+easiness of More's <i>repartees</i>. Keeping his own pace in society, as well
+as in the Court of Chancery, neither satire nor importunity could ruffle
+or confuse him. When Elizabeth, looking disdainfully at his modest
+country mansion, told him that the place was too small, he answered with
+the flattery of gratitude, "Not so, madam, your highness has made me too
+great for my house." Leicester having suddenly asked him his opinion of
+two aspirants for court favor, he responded on the spur of the moment,
+"By my troth, my lord, the one is a grave councillor: the other is a
+proper young man, and so he will be as long as he lives." To the queen,
+who pressed him for his sentiments respecting the effect of
+monopolies&mdash;a delicate question for a subject to speak his mind
+upon&mdash;he answered, with conciliatory lightness, "Madam, will you have me
+speak the truth? <i>Licenti&acirc;</i> omnes deteriores sumus." In court he used to
+say, "Let us stay a little, that we may have done the sooner." But
+notwithstanding his deliberation and the stutter that hindered his
+utterances, he could be quicker than the quickest, and sharper than the
+most acrid, as the loquacious barrister discovered who was suddenly
+checked in a course of pert talkativeness by this tart remark from the
+stammering Lord Keeper: "There is a difference between you and me,&mdash;for
+me it is a pain to s-speak, for you a pain to hold your tongue." That
+the familiar story of his fatal attack of cold is altogether true one
+cannot well believe, for it seems highly improbable that the Lord
+Keeper, in his seventieth year, would have sat down to be shaved near an
+open window in the month of February. But though the anecdote may not be
+historically exact, it may be accepted as a faithful portraiture of his
+more stately and severely courteous humor. "Why did you suffer me to
+sleep thus exposed?" asked the Lord Keeper, waking in a fit of shivering
+from slumber into which his servant had allowed him to drop, as he sat
+to be shaved in a place where there was a sharp current of air. "Sir, I
+durst not disturb you," answered the punctilious valet, with a lowly
+obeisance. Having eyed him for a few seconds, Sir Nicholas rose and
+said, "By your civility I lose my life." Whereupon the Lord Keeper
+retired to the bed from which he never rose.</p>
+
+<p>Amongst Elizabethan Judges who aimed at sprightliness on the Bench,
+Hatton merits a place; but there is reason to think that the idlers, who
+crowded his court to admire the foppishness of his judicial costume, did
+not get one really good <i>mot</i> from his lips to every ten bright sayings
+that came from the clever barristers practising before him. One of the
+best things attributed to him is a pun. In a case concerning the limits
+of certain land, the counsel on one side having remarked with
+explanatory emphasis, "We lie on this side, my Lord;" and the counsel on
+the other side having interposed with equal vehemence, "We lie on this
+side, my Lord,"&mdash;the Lord Chancellor leaned backwards, and dryly
+observed, "If you lie on both sides, whom am I to believe?" In
+Elizabethan England the pun was as great a power in the jocularity of
+the law-courts as it is at present; the few surviving witticisms that
+are supposed to exemplify Egerton's lighter mood on the bench, being for
+the most part feeble attempts at punning. For instance, when he was
+asked, during his tenure of the Mastership of the Rolls, to <i>commit</i> a
+cause, <i>i.e.</i>, to refer it to a Master in Chancery, he used to answer,
+"What has the cause done that it should be committed?" It is also
+recorded of him that, when he was asked for his signature to a petition
+of which he disapproved, he would tear it in pieces with both hands,
+saying, "You want my hand to this? You shall have it; aye, and both my
+hands, too."</p>
+
+<p>Of Egerton's student days a story is extant, which has merits,
+independent of its truth or want of truth. The hostess of a Smithfield
+tavern had received a sum of money from three graziers, in trust for
+them, and on engagement to restore it to them on their joint demand.
+Soon after this transfer, one of the co-depositors, fraudulently
+representing himself to be acting as the agent of the other two, induced
+the old lady to give him possession of the whole of the money&mdash;and
+thereupon absconded. Forthwith the other two depositors brought an
+action against the landlady, and were on the point of gaining a decision
+in their favor, when young Egerton, who had been taking notes of the
+trial, rose as <i>amicus curi&aelig;</i>, and argued, "This money, by the contract,
+was to be returned to <i>three</i>, but <i>two</i> only sue;&mdash;where is the
+<i>third</i>? let him appear with the others; till then the money cannot be
+demanded from her." Nonsuit for the plaintiffs&mdash;for the young student a
+hum of commendation.</p>
+
+<p>Many of the pungent sayings current in Westminster Hall at the present
+time, and attributed to eminent advocates who either are still upon the
+forensic stage, or have recently withdrawn from it, were common jests
+amongst the lawyers of the seventeenth century. What law-student now
+eating dinners at the Temple has not heard the story of Sergeant
+Wilkins, who, on drinking a pot of stout in the middle of the day,
+explained that, as he was about to appear in court, he thought it right
+to fuddle his brain down to the intellectual standard of a British jury.
+This merry thought, two hundred and fifty years since, was currently
+attributed to Sir John Millicent, of Cambridgeshire, of whom it is
+recorded&mdash;"being asked how he did conforme himselfe to the grave
+justices his brothers, when they met, 'Why, in faithe,' sayes he, 'I
+have no way but to drinke myself downe to the capacitie of the Bench.'"</p>
+
+<p>Another witticism, currently attributed to various recent celebrities,
+but usually fathered upon Richard Brinsley Sheridan&mdash;on whose reputation
+have been heaped the brilliant <i>mots</i> of many a speaker whom he never
+heard, and the indiscretions of many a sinner whom he never knew&mdash;is
+certainly as old as Shaftesbury's bright and unprincipled career. When
+Charles II. exclaimed, "Shaftesbury, you are the most profligate man in
+my dominions," the reckless Chancellor answered, "Of a subject, sir, I
+believe I am." It is likely enough that Shaftesbury merely repeated the
+witticism of a previous courtier; but it is certain that Sheridan was
+not the first to strike out the pun.</p>
+
+<p>In this place let a contradiction be given to a baseless story, which
+exalts Sir William Follett's reputation for intellectual readiness and
+argumentative ability. The story runs, that early in the January of
+1845, whilst George Stephenson, Dean Buckland, and Sir William Follett
+were Sir Robert Peel's guests at Drayton Manor, Dean Buckland vanquished
+the engineer in a discussion on a geological question. The next morning,
+George Stephenson was walking in the gardens of Drayton Manor before
+breakfast, when Sir William Follett accosted him, and sitting down in an
+arbor asked for the facts of the argument. Having quickly 'picked up the
+case,' the lawyer joined Sir Robert Peel's guests at breakfast, and
+amused them by leading the dean back to the dispute of the previous day,
+and overthrowing his fallacies by a skilful use of the same arguments
+which the self-taught engineer had employed with such ill effect. "What
+do you say, Mr. Stephenson?" asked Sir Robert Peel, enjoying the dean's
+discomfiture. "Why," returned George Stephenson, "I only say this, that
+of all the powers above and under earth, there seems to me no power so
+great as the gift of the gab." This is the story. But there are facts
+which contradict it. The only visit paid by George Stephenson to Drayton
+Manor was made in the December of 1844, not the January of 1845. The
+guests (invited for Dec. 14, 1844), were Lord Talbot, Lord Aylesford,
+the Bishop of Lichfield, Dr. Buckland, Dr. Lyon Playfair, Professor
+Owen, George Stephenson, Mr. Smith of Deanston, and Professor
+Wheatstone. Sir William Follett was not of the party, and did not set
+foot within Drayton Manor during George Stephenson's visit there. Of
+this, Professor Wheatstone (who furnished the present writer with these
+particulars), is certain. Moreover, it is not to be believed that Sir
+William Follett, an overworked invalid (who died in the June of 1845 of
+the pulmonary disease under which he had suffered for years), would sit
+in an arbor before breakfast on a winter's morning to hold debate with
+a companion on any subject. The story is a revival of an anecdote first
+told long before George Stephenson was born.</p>
+
+<p>In lists of legal <i>faceti&aelig;</i> the habit of punning is not more noticeable
+than the prevalent unamiability of the jests. Advocates are intellectual
+gladiators, using their tongues as soldiers of fortune use their swords;
+and when they speak, it is to vanquish an adversary. Antagonism is an
+unavoidable condition of their existence; and this incessant warfare
+gives a merciless asperity to their language, even when it does not
+infuse their hearts with bitterness. Duty enjoins the barrister to leave
+no word unsaid that can help his client, and encourages him to perplex
+by satire, baffle by ridicule, or silence by sarcasm, all who may oppose
+him with statements that cannot be disproved, or arguments that cannot
+be upset by reason. That which duty bids him do, practice enables him to
+do with terrible precision and completeness; and in many a case the
+caustic tone, assumed at the outset as a professional weapon, becomes
+habitual, and, without the speaker's knowledge, gives more pain within
+his home than in Westminster Hall.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the well-known witticisms attributed to great lawyers are so
+brutally personal and malignant, that no man possessing any respect for
+human nature can read them without endeavoring to regard them as mere
+biographic fabrications. It is recorded of Charles Yorke that, after his
+election to serve as member for the University of Cambridge, he, in
+accordance with etiquette, made a round of calls on members of senate,
+giving them personal thanks for their votes; and that on coming to the
+presence of a supporter&mdash;an old 'fellow' known as the ugliest man in
+Cambridge&mdash;he addressed him thus, after smiling 'an aside' to a knot of
+bystanders&mdash;"Sir, I have reason to be thankful to my friends in
+general; but I confess myself under particular obligation to you for
+the very <i>remarkable countenance</i> you have shown me on this occasion."
+There is no doubt that Charles Yorke could make himself unendurably
+offensive; it is just credible that without a thought of their double
+meaning he uttered the words attributed to him; but it is not to be
+believed that he&mdash;an English gentleman&mdash;thus intentionally insulted a
+man who had rendered him a service.</p>
+
+<p>A story far less offensive than the preceding anecdote, but in one point
+similar to it, is told of Judge Fortescue-Aland (subsequently Lord
+Fortescue), and a counsel. Sir John Fortescue-Aland was disfigured by a
+nose which was purple, and hideously misshapen by morbid growth. Having
+checked a ready counsel with the needlessly harsh observation, "Brother,
+brother, you are handling the case in a very lame manner," the angry
+advocate gave vent to his annoyance by saying, with a perfect appearance
+of <i>sang-froid</i>, "Pardon me, my lord; have patience with me, and I will
+do my best to make the case as plain as&mdash;as&mdash;the nose on your lordship's
+face." In this case the personality was uttered in hot blood, by a man
+who deemed himself to be striking the enemy of his professional
+reputation.</p>
+
+<p>If they were not supported by incontrovertible testimony, the admirers
+of the great Sir Edward Coke would reject as spurious many of the
+overbearing rejoinders which escaped his lips in courts of justice. His
+tone in his memorable altercation with Bacon at the bar of the Court of
+Exchequer speaks ill for the courtesy of English advocates in
+Elizabeth's reign; and to any student who can appreciate the dignified
+formality and punctilious politeness that characterized English
+gentlemen in the old time, it is matter of perplexity how a man of
+Coke's learning, capacity, and standing, could have marked his contempt
+for 'Cowells Interpreter,' by designating the author in open court Dr.
+Cowheel. Scarcely in better taste were the coarse personalities with
+which, as Attorney General, he deluged Garnet the Jesuit, whom he
+described as "a Doctor of Jesuits; that is, a Doctor of six D's&mdash;as
+Dissimulation, Deposing of princes, Disposing of kingdoms, Daunting and
+Deterring of Subjects, and Destruction."</p>
+
+<p>In comparatively recent times few judges surpassed Thurlow in
+overbearing insolence to the bar. To a few favorites, such as John Scott
+and Kenyon, he could be consistently indulgent, although even to them
+his patronage was often disagreeably contemptuous; but to those who
+provoked his displeasure by a perfectly independent and fearless bearing
+he was a malignant persecutor. For instance, in his animosity to Richard
+Pepper Arden (Lord Alvanley), he often forgot his duty as a judge and
+his manners as a gentleman. John Scott, on one occasion, rising in the
+Court of Chancery to address the court after Arden, who was his leader
+in the cause, and had made an unusually able speech, Lord Thurlow had
+the indecency to say, "Mr. Scott, I am glad to find that you are engaged
+in the cause, for I now stand some chance of knowing something about the
+matter." To the Chancellor's habitual incivility and insolence it is
+allowed that Arden always responded with dignity and self-command,
+humiliating his powerful and ungenerous adversary by invariable
+good-breeding. Once, through inadvertence, he showed disrespect to the
+surly Chancellor, and then he instantly gave utterance to a cordial
+apology, which Thurlow was not generous enough to accept with
+appropriate courtesy. In the excitement of professional altercation with
+counsel respecting the ages of certain persons concerned in a suit, he
+committed the indecorum of saying aloud, "I'll lay you a bottle of
+wine." Ever on the alert to catch his enemy tripping, Thurlow's eye
+brightened as his ear caught the careless words; and in another instant
+he assumed a look of indignant disgust. But before the irate judge could
+speak, Arden exclaimed, "My lord, I beg your lordship's pardon; I really
+forgot where I was." Had Thurlow bowed a grave acceptance of the
+apology, Arden would have suffered somewhat from the misadventure; but
+unable to keep his abusive tongue quiet, the 'Great Bear' growled out,
+in allusion to the offender's Welsh judgeship, "You thought you were in
+your own court, I presume."</p>
+
+<p>More laughable, but not more courteous, was the same Chancellor's speech
+to a solicitor who had made a series of statements in a vain endeavor to
+convince his lordship of a certain person's death. "Really, my lord," at
+last the solicitor exclaimed, goaded into a fury by Thurlow's repeated
+ejaculations of "That's no proof of the man's death;" "Really, my lord,
+it is very hard, and it is not right that you won't believe me. I saw
+the man dead in his coffin. My lord, I tell you he was my client, and he
+is dead." "No wonder," retorted Thurlow, with a grunt and a sneer,
+"<i>since he was your client</i>. Why did you not tell me that sooner? It
+would kill me to have such a fellow as you for my attorney." That this
+great lawyer could thus address a respectable gentleman is less
+astonishing when it is remembered, that he once horrified a party of
+aristocratic visitors at a country-house by replying to a lady who
+pressed him to take some grapes, "Grapes, madam, grapes! Did not I say a
+minute ago that I had the <i>gripes</i>!" Once this ungentle lawyer was
+fairly worsted in a verbal conflict by an Irish pavier. On crossing the
+threshold of his Ormond Street house one morning, the Chancellor was
+incensed at seeing a load of paving-stones placed before his door.
+Singling out the tallest of a score of Irish workmen who were repairing
+the thoroughfare, he poured upon him one of those torrents of curses
+with which his most insolent speeches were usually preluded, and then
+told the man to move the stones away instantly. "Where shall I take them
+to, your honor?" the pavier inquired. From the Chancellor another volley
+of blasphemous abuse, ending with, "You lousy scoundrel, take them to
+hell!&mdash;do you hear me?" "Have a care, your honor," answered the workman,
+with quiet drollery, "don't you think now that if I took 'em to the
+other place your honor would be less likely to fall over them?"</p>
+
+<p>Thurlow's incivility to the solicitor reminds us of the cruel answer
+given by another great lawyer to a country attorney, who, through fussy
+anxiety for a client's interests, committed a grave breach of
+professional etiquette. Let this attorney be called Mr. Smith, and let
+it be known that Mr. Smith, having come up to London from a secluded
+district of a remote country, was present at a consultation of
+counsellors learned in the law upon his client's cause. At this
+interview, the leading counsel in the cause, the Attorney General of the
+time, was present and delivered his final opinion with characteristic
+clearness and precision. The consultation over, the country attorney
+retreated to the Hummums Hotel, Covent Garden, and, instead of sleeping
+over the statements made at the conference, passed a wretched and
+wakeful night, harassed by distressing fears, and agitated by a
+conviction that the Attorney General had overlooked the most important
+point of the case. Early next day, Mr. Smith, without appointment, was
+at the great counsellor's chambers, and by vehement importunity, as well
+as a liberal donation to the clerk, succeeded in forcing his way to the
+advocate's presence. "Well, Mis-ter Smith," observed the Attorney
+General to his visitor, turning away from one of his devilling juniors,
+who chanced to be closeted with him at the moment of the intrusion,
+"what may you want to say? Be quick, for I am pressed for time."
+Notwithstanding the urgency of his engagements, he spoke with a slowness
+which, no less than the suspicious rattle of his voice, indicated the
+fervor of displeasure. "Sir Causticus Witherett, I trust you will excuse
+my troubling you; but, sir, after our yesterday's interview, I went to
+my hotel, the Hummums, in Covent Garden, and have spent the evening and
+all night turning over my client's case in my mind, and the more I turn
+the matter over in my mind, the more reason I see to fear that you have
+not given one point due consideration." A pause, during which Sir
+Causticus steadily eyed his visitor, who began to feel strangely
+embarrassed under the searching scrutiny: and then&mdash;"State the point,
+Mis-ter Smith, but be brief." Having heard the point stated, Sir
+Causticus Witherett inquired, "Is that all you wish to say?" "All,
+sir&mdash;all," replied Mr. Smith; adding nervously, "And I trust you will
+excuse me for troubling you about the matter; but, sir, I could not
+sleep a wink last night; all through the night I was turning this matter
+over in my mind." A glimpse of silence. Sir Causticus rose and standing
+over his victim made his final speech&mdash;"Mis-ter Smith, if you take my
+advice, given with sincere commiseration for your state, you will
+without delay return to the tranquil village in which you habitually
+reside. In the quietude of your accustomed scenes you will have leisure
+to <i>turn this matter over in what you are pleased to call your mind</i>.
+And I am willing to hope that <i>your mind</i> will recover its usual
+serenity. Mr. Smith, I wish you a very good morning."</p>
+
+<p>Legal biography abounds with ghastly stories that illustrate the
+insensibility with which the hanging judges in past generations used to
+don the black cap jauntily, and smile at the wretched beings whom they
+sentenced to death. Perhaps of all such anecdotes the most thoroughly
+sickening is that which describes the conduct of Jeffreys, when, as
+Recorder of London, he passed sentence of death on his old and familiar
+friend, Richard Langhorn, the Catholic barrister&mdash;one of the victims of
+the Popish Plot phrensy. It is recorded that Jeffreys, not content with
+consigning his friend to a traitor's doom, malignantly reminded him of
+their former intercourse, and with devilish ridicule admonished him to
+prepare his soul for the next world. The authority which gives us this
+story adds, that by thus insulting a wretched gentleman and personal
+associate, Jeffreys, instead of rousing the disgust of his auditors,
+elicited their enthusiastic applause.</p>
+
+<p>In a note to a passage in one of the Waverley Novels, Scott tells a
+story of an old Scotch judge, who, as an enthusiastic chess-player, was
+much mortified by the success of an ancient friend, who invariably beat
+him when they tried their powers at the beloved game. After a time the
+humiliated chess-player had his day of triumph. His conqueror happened
+to commit murder, and it became the judge's not altogether painful duty
+to pass upon him the sentence of the law. Having in due form and with
+suitable solemnity commended his soul to the divine mercy, he, after a
+brief pause, assumed his ordinary colloquial tone of voice, and nodding
+humorously to his old friend, observed&mdash;"And noo, Jammie, I think ye'll
+alloo that I hae checkmated you for ance."</p>
+
+<p>Of all the bloodthirsty wearers of the ermine, no one, since the opening
+of the eighteenth century, has fared worse than Sir Francis Page&mdash;the
+virulence of whose tongue and the cruelty of whose nature were marks for
+successive satirists. In one of his Imitations of Horace, Pope says&mdash;</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+"Slanderer, poison dread from Delia's rage,<br />
+Hard words or hanging, if your judge be Page."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>In the same spirit the poet penned the lines of the 'Dunciad'&mdash;</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+"Mortality, by her false guardians drawn,<br />
+Chicane in furs, and Casuistry in lawn,<br />
+Gasps, as they straighten at each end the cord,<br />
+And dies, when Dulness gives her&mdash;&mdash;the Sword."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Powerless to feign insensibility to the blow, Sir Francis openly fitted
+this <i>black</i> cap to his dishonored head by sending his clerk to
+expostulate with the poet. The ill-chosen ambassador performed his
+mission by showing that, in Sir Francis's opinion, the whole passage
+would be sheer nonsense, unless 'Page' were inserted in the vacant
+place. Johnson and Savage took vengeance on the judge for the judicial
+misconduct which branded the latter poet a murderer; and Fielding, in
+'Tom Jones,' illustrating by a current story the offensive levity of the
+judge's demeanor at capital trials, makes him thus retort on a
+horse-stealer: "Ay! thou art a lucky fellow; I have traveled the circuit
+these forty years, and never found a horse in my life; but I'll tell
+thee what, friend, thou wast more lucky than thou didst know of; for
+thou didst not only find a horse, but a halter too, I promise thee."
+This scandal to his professional order was permitted to insult the
+humane sentiments of the nation for a long period. Born in 1661, he died
+in 1741, whilst he was still occupying a judicial place; and it is said
+of him, that in his last year he pointed the ignominious story of his
+existence by a speech that soon ran the round of the courts. In answer
+to an inquiry for his health, the octogenarian judge observed, "My dear
+sir&mdash;you see how it fares with me; I just manage to keep <i>hanging on,
+hanging on</i>." This story is ordinarily told as though the old man did
+not see the unfavorable significance of his words; but it is probable
+that, he uttered them wittingly and with, a sneer&mdash;in the cynicism and
+shamelessness of old age.</p>
+
+<p>A man of finer stuff and of various merits, but still famous as a
+'hanging judge,' was Sir Francis Buller, who also made himself odious to
+the gentler sex by maintaining that husbands might flog their wives, if
+the chastisement were administered with a stick not thicker than the
+operator's thumb. But the severity to criminals, which gave him a place
+amongst hanging judges, was not a consequence of natural cruelty.
+Inability to devise a satisfactory system of secondary punishments, and
+a genuine conviction that ninety-nine out of every hundred culprits were
+incorrigible, caused him to maintain that the gallows-tree was the most
+efficacious as well as the cheapest instrument that could be invented
+for protecting society against malefactors. Another of his stern <i>dicta</i>
+was, that previous good character was a reason for increasing rather
+than a reason for lessening a culprit's punishment; "For," he argued,
+"the longer a prisoner has enjoyed the good opinion of the world, the
+less are the excuses for his misdeeds, and the more injurious is his
+conduct to public morality."</p>
+
+<p>In contrast to these odious stories of hanging judges are some anecdotes
+of great men, who abhorred the atrocities of our penal system, long
+before the worst of them were swept away by reform. Lord Mansfield has
+never been credited with lively sensibilities, but his humanity was so
+shocked by the bare thought of killing a man for committing a trifling
+theft, that he on one occasion ordered a jury to find that a stolen
+trinket was of less value than forty shillings&mdash;in order that the thief
+might escape the capital sentence. The prosecutor, a dealer in jewelry,
+was so mortified by the judge's leniency, that he exclaimed, "What, my
+lord, my golden trinket not worth forty shillings? Why, the fashion
+alone cost me twice the money!" Removing his glance from the vindictive
+tradesman, Lord Mansfield turned towards the jury, and said, with solemn
+gravity, "As we stand in need of God's mercy, gentlemen, let us not hang
+a man for fashion's sake."</p>
+
+<p>Tenderness of heart was even less notable in Kenyon than in Murray; but
+Lord Mansfield's successor was at least on one occasion stirred by
+apathetic consequence of the bloody law against persons found guilty of
+trivial theft. On the Home Circuit, having passed sentence of death on a
+poor woman who had stolen property to the value of forty shillings in a
+dwelling-house, Lord Kenyon saw the prisoner drop lifeless in the dock,
+just as he ceased to speak. Instantly the Chief Justice sprang to his
+feet, and screamed in a shrill tone, "I don't mean to hang you&mdash;do you
+hear!&mdash;don't you hear?&mdash;Good&mdash;&mdash;will nobody tell her that I don't mean
+to hang her?"</p>
+
+<p>One of the humorous aspects of a repulsive subject is seen in the
+curiosity and fastidiousness of prisoners on trial for capital offences
+with regard to the professional <i>status</i> of the judges who try them. A
+sheep-stealer of the old bloody days liked that sentence should be
+passed upon him by a Chief Justice; and in our own time murderers
+awaiting execution, sometimes grumble at the unfairness of their trials,
+because they have been tried by judges of inferior degree. Lord Campbell
+mentions the case of a sergeant, who, whilst acting as Chief Justice
+Abbott's deputy, on the Oxford circuit, was reminded that he was 'merely
+a temporary' by the prisoner in the dock. Being asked in the usual way
+if he had aught to say why sentence of death should not be passed upon
+him, the prisoner answered&mdash;"<i>Yes; I have been tried before a journeyman
+judge.</i>"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XL" id="CHAPTER_XL"></a>CHAPTER XL.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>HUMOROUS STORIES.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>Alike commendable for its subtlety and inoffensive humor was the
+pleasantry with which young Philip Yorke (afterwards Lord Hardwicke),
+answered Sir Lyttleton Powys's banter on the Western Circuit. An amiable
+and upright, but far from brilliant judge, Sir Lyttleton had a few pet
+phrases&mdash;-amongst them, "I humbly conceive," and "Look, do you
+see"&mdash;which he sprinkled over his judgments and colloquial talk with
+ridiculous profuseness. Surprised at Yorke's sudden rise into lucrative
+practice, this most gentlemanlike worthy was pleased to account for the
+unusual success by maintaining that young Mr. Yorke must have written a
+law-book, which had brought him early into favor with the inferior
+branch of the profession. "Mr. Yorke," said the venerable justice,
+whilst the barristers were sitting over their wine at a 'judges'
+dinner,' "I cannot well account for your having so much business,
+considering how short a time you have been at the bar: I humbly conceive
+you must have published something; for look you, do you see, there is
+scarcely a cause in court but you are employed in it on one side or the
+other. I should therefore be glad to know, Mr. Yorke, do you see,
+whether this be the case." Playfully denying that he possessed any
+celebrity as a writer on legal matters, Yorke, with an assumption of
+candor, admitted that he had some thoughts of lightening the labors of
+law-students by turning Coke upon Littleton into verse. Indeed, he
+confessed that he had already begun the work of versification. Not
+seeing the nature of the reply, Sir Lyttleton Powys treated the droll
+fancy as a serious project, and insisted that the author should give a
+specimen of the style of his contemplated work. Whereupon the young
+barrister&mdash;not pausing to remind a company of lawyers of the words of
+the original. "Tenant in fee simple is he which hath lands or tenements
+to hold to him and his heirs for ever"&mdash;recited the lines&mdash;</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+"He that holdeth his lands in fee<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Need neither to quake nor quiver,</span><br />
+<i>I humbly conceive: for look, do you see</i><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They are his and his heirs' forever."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>The mimicry of voice being not less perfect than the verbal imitation,
+Yorke's hearers were convulsed with laughter, but so unconscious was Sir
+Lyttleton of the ridicule which he had incurred, that on subsequently
+encountering Yorke in London, he asked how "that translation of Coke
+upon Littleton was getting on." Sir Lyttleton died in 1732, and exactly
+ten years afterwards appeared the first edition of 'The Reports of Sir
+Edward Coke, Knt., in Verse'&mdash;a work which its author may have been
+inspired to undertake by Philip Yorke's proposal to versify 'Coke on
+Littleton.'</p>
+
+<p>Had Yorke's project been carried out, lawyers would have a large supply
+of that comic but sound literature of which Sir James Burrow's Reports
+contain a specimen in the following poetical version of Chief Justice
+Pratt's memorable decision with regard to a woman of English birth, who
+was the widow of a foreigner:</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+"A woman having settlement<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Married a man with none,</span><br />
+The question was, he being dead,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If what she had was gone.</span><br />
+<br />
+"Quoth Sir John Pratt, 'The settlement<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Suspended did remain,</span><br />
+Living the husband; but him dead<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">It doth revive again.'</span><br />
+<br />
+(<i>Chorus of Puisne Judges.</i>)<br />
+<br />
+"Living the husband; but him dead<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">It doth revive again."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Chief Justice Pratt's decision on this point having been reversed by his
+successor, Chief Justice Ryder's judgment was thus reported:</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+"A woman having a settlement,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Married a man with none,</span><br />
+He flies and leaves her destitute;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What then is to be done?</span><br />
+<br />
+"Quoth Ryder, the Chief Justice,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'In spite of Sir John Pratt,</span><br />
+You'll send her to the parish<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In which she was a brat.</span><br />
+<br />
+"'<i>Suspension of a settlement</i><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Is not to be maintained;</span><br />
+That which she had by birth subsists<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Until another's gained.'</span><br />
+<br />
+(<i>Chorus of Puisne Judges.</i>)<br />
+<br />
+"That which she had by birth subsists<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Until another's gained."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>In the early months of his married life, whilst playing the part of an
+Oxford don, Lord Eldon was required to decide in an important action
+brought by two undergraduates against the cook of University College.
+The plaintiffs declared that the cook had "sent to their rooms an
+apple-pie <i>that could not be eaten</i>." The defendant pleaded that he had
+a remarkably fine fillet of veal in the kitchen. Having set aside this
+plea on grounds obvious to the legal mind, and not otherwise then
+manifest to unlearned laymen, Mr. John Scott ordered the apple-pie to be
+brought in court; but the messenger, dispatched to do the judge's
+bidding, returned with the astounding intelligence that during the
+progress of the litigation a party of undergraduates had actually
+devoured the pie&mdash;fruit and crust. Nothing but the pan was left.
+Judgment: "The charge here is, that the cook has sent up an apple-pie
+that cannot be eaten. Now that cannot be said to have been uneatable
+which has been eaten; and as this apple-pie has been eaten, it was
+eatable. Let the cook be absolved."</p>
+
+<p>But of all the judicial decisions on record, none was delivered with
+more comical effect than Lord Loughborough's decision not to hear a
+cause brought on a wager about a point in the game of 'Hazard.' A
+constant frequenter of Brookes's and White's, Lord Loughborough was well
+known by men of fashion to be fairly versed in the mysteries of
+gambling, though no evidence has ever been found in support of the
+charge that he was an habitual dicer. That he ever lost much by play is
+improbable; but the scandal-mongers of Westminster had some plausible
+reasons for laughing at the virtuous indignation of the spotless
+Alexander Wedderburn, who, whilst sitting at <i>Nisi Prius</i>, exclaimed,
+"Do not swear the jury in this case, but let it be struck out of the
+paper. I will not try it. The administration of justice is insulted by
+the proposal that I should try it. To my astonishment I find that the
+action is brought on a wager as to the mode of playing an illegal,
+disreputable, and mischievous game called 'Hazard;' whether, allowing
+seven to be the main, and eleven to be a nick to seven, there are more
+ways than six of nicking seven on the dice? Courts of justice are
+constituted to try rights and redress injuries, not to solve the
+problems of the gamesters. The gentlemen of the jury and I may have
+heard of 'Hazard' as a mode of dicing by which sharpers live, and young
+men of family and fortune are ruined; but what do any of us know of
+'seven being the main,' or 'eleven being the nick to seven?' Do we come
+here to be instructed in this lore, and are the unusual crowds (drawn
+hither, I suppose, by the novelty of the expected entertainment) to take
+a lesson with us in these unholy mysteries, which they are to practice
+in the evening in the low gaming-houses in St. James Street, pithily
+called by a name which should inspire a salutary terror of entering
+them? Again, I say, let the cause be struck out of the paper. Move the
+court, if you please, that it may be restored, and if my brethren think
+that I do wrong in the course that I now take, I hope that one of them
+will officiate for me here, and save me from the degradation of trying
+'whether there be more than six ways of nicking seven on the dice,
+allowing seven to be the main and eleven to be a nick to seven'&mdash;a
+question, after all, admitting of no doubt, and capable of mathematical
+demonstration."</p>
+
+<p>With equal fervor Lord Kenyon inveighed against the pernicious usage of
+gambling, urging that the hells of St. James's should, be indicted as
+common nuisances. The 'legal monk,' as Lord Carlisle stigmatized him for
+his violent denunciations of an amusement countenanced by women of the
+highest fashion, even went so far as to exclaim&mdash;"If any such
+prosecutions are fairly brought before me, and the guilty parties are
+convicted, whatever may be their rank or station in the country, though
+they may be the first ladies in the land, they shall certainly exhibit
+themselves in the pillory."</p>
+
+<p>The same considerations, which decided Lord Loughborough not to try an
+action brought by a wager concerning chicken-hazard, made Lord
+Ellenborough decline to hear a cause where the plaintiff sought to
+recover money wagered on a cock-fight. "There is likewise," said Lord
+Ellenborough, "another principle on which I think an action on such
+wagers cannot be maintained. They tend to the degradation of courts of
+justice. It is impossible to be engaged in ludicrous inquiries of this
+sort consistently with that dignity which it is essential to the public
+welfare that a court of justice should always preserve. I will not try
+the plaintiff's right to recover the four guineas, which might involve
+questions on the weight of the cocks and the construction of their steel
+spurs."</p>
+
+<p>It has already been remarked that in all ages the wits of Westminster
+Hall have delighted in puns; and it may be here added, with the
+exception of some twenty happy verbal freaks, the puns of lawyers have
+not been remarkable for their excellence. L'Estrange records that when a
+stone was hurled by a convict from the dock at Charles I.'s Chief
+Justice Richardson, and passed just over the head of the judge, who
+happened to be sitting at ease and lolling on his elbow, the learned man
+smiled, and observed to those who congratulated him on his escape, "You
+see now, if I had been an <i>upright judge</i> I had been slaine." Under
+George III. Joseph Jekyll<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> was at the same time the brightest wit and
+most shameless punster of Westminster Hall; and such pride did he take
+in his reputation as a punster, that after the fashion of the wits of an
+earlier period he was often at considerable pains to give a pun a
+well-wrought epigrammatic setting. Bored with the long-winded speech of
+a prosy sergeant, he wrote on a slip of paper, which was in due course
+passed along the barristers' benches in the court where he was
+sitting&mdash;</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+"The sergeants are a grateful race,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Their dress and language show it;</span><br />
+Their purple garments come from <i>Tyre</i>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Their arguments go to it."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>When Garrow, by a more skilful than successful cross-examination, was
+endeavoring to lure a witness (an unmarried lady of advanced years) into
+an acknowledgment that payment of certain money in dispute had been
+tendered, Jekyll threw him this couplet&mdash;</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+"Garrow, forbear; that tough old jade<br />
+Will never prove a <i>tender maid</i>."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>So also, when Lord Eldon and Sir Arthur Pigott each made a stand in
+court for his favorite pronunciation of the word 'lien;' Lord Eldon
+calling the word <i>lion</i> and Sir Arthur maintaining that it was to be
+pronounced like <i>lean</i>, Jekyll, with an allusion to the parsimonious
+arrangements of the Chancellor's kitchen, perpetrated the <i>jeu
+d'esprit</i>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+"Sir Arthur, Sir Arthur, why what do you mean<br />
+By saying the Chancellor's <i>lion</i> is <i>lean</i>?<br />
+D'ye think that his kitchen's so bad as all that,<br />
+That nothing within it can ever get fat?"<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>By this difference concerning the pronunciation of a word the present
+writer is reminded of an amicable contest that occurred in Westminster
+Hall between Lord Campbell and a Q.C. who is still in the front rank of
+court-advocates. In an action brought to recover for damages done to a
+carriage, the learned counsel repeatedly called, the vehicle in question
+a broug-ham, pronouncing both syllables of the word <i>brougham</i>.
+Whereupon, Lord Campbell with considerable pomposity observed, "<i>Broom</i>
+is the more usual pronunciation; a carriage of the kind you mean is
+generally and not incorrectly called a <i>broom</i>&mdash;that pronunciation is
+open to no grave objection, and it has the great advantage of saving the
+time consumed by uttering an extra syllable." Half an hour later in the
+same trial Lord Campbell, alluding to a decision given in a similar
+action, said, "In that case the carriage which had sustained injury was
+an <i>omnibus</i>&mdash;&mdash;" "Pardon me, my lord," interposed the Queen's Counsel,
+with such promptitude that his lordship was startled into silence, "a
+carriage of the kind, to which you draw attention is usually termed
+'bus;' that pronunciation is open to no grave objection, and it has the
+great advantage of saving the time consumed by uttering two extra
+syllables." The interruption was followed by a roar of laughter, in
+which Lord Campbell joined more heartily than any one else.</p>
+
+<p>One of Jekyll's happy sayings was spoken at Exeter, when he defended
+several needlemen who were charged with raising a riot for the purpose
+of forcing the master-tailors to give higher wages. Whilst Jekyll was
+examining a witness as to the number of tailors present at the alleged
+riot, Lord Eldon&mdash;then Chief Justice of the Common Pleas&mdash;reminded him
+that three persons can make that which the law regards as a riot;
+whereupon the witty advocate answered, "Yes, my lord, Hale and Hawkins
+lay down the law as your lordship states it, and I rely on their
+authority; for if there must be three men to make a riot, the rioters
+being <i>tailors</i>, there must be nine times three present, and unless the
+prosecutor make out that there were twenty-seven joining in this breach
+of the peace, my clients are entitled to an acquittal." On Lord Eldon
+enquiring whether he relied on common-law or statute-law, the counsel
+for the defence answered firmly, "My lord, I rely on a well-known maxim,
+as old as Magna Charta, <i>Nine Tailors make a Man</i>." Finding themselves
+unable to reward a lawyer for so excellent a jest with an adverse
+verdict, the jury acquitted the prisoners. Towards the close of his
+career Eldon made a still better jest than this of Jekyll's concerning
+tailors. In 1829, when Lyndhurst was occupying the woolsack for the
+first time, and Eldon was longing to recover the seals, the latter
+presented a petition from the Tailors' Company at Glasgow against
+Catholic Belief.</p>
+
+<p>"What!" asked Lord Lyndhurst from the woolsack, in a low voice, "do the
+<i>tailors</i> trouble themselves about such <i>measures</i>?" Whereto, with
+unaccustomed quickness, the old Tory of the Tories retorted, "No wonder;
+you can't suppose that <i>tailors</i> like <i>turncoats</i>."</p>
+
+<p>As specimens of a kind of pleasantry becoming more scarce every year,
+some of Sir George Rose's court witticisms are excellent. When Mr.
+Beams, the reporter, defended himself against the <i>friction</i> of passing
+barristers by a wooden bar, the flimsiness of which was pointed out to
+Sir George (then Mr. Rose), the wit answered&mdash;</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+"Yes&mdash;the partition is certainly thin&mdash;<br />
+Yet thick enough, truly, the Beams within."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>The same originator of happy sayings pointed to Eldon's characteristic
+weakness in the lines&mdash;</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+"Mr. Leach made a speech,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pithy, clear, and strong;</span><br />
+Mr. Hart, on the other part,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Was prosy, dull, and long;</span><br />
+Mr. Parker made that darker<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which was dark enough without;</span><br />
+Mr. Bell spoke so well,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That the Chancellor said&mdash;'I doubt.'"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Far from being offended by this allusion to his notorious mental
+infirmity, Lord Eldon, shortly after the verses had floated into
+circulation, concluded one of his decisions by saying, with a
+significant smile, "And here <i>the Chancellor does not doubt</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Not less remarkable for precipitancy than Eldon for procrastination, Sir
+John Leach, Vice-Chancellor, was said to have done more mischief by
+excessive haste in a single term than Eldon in his whole life wrought
+through extreme caution. The holders of this opinion delighted to repeat
+the poor and not perspicuous lines&mdash;</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+"In equity's high court there are<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Two sad extremes, 'tis clear;</span><br />
+Excessive slowness strikes us there,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Excessive quickness here.</span><br />
+<br />
+"Their source, 'twixt good and evil, brings<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A difficulty nice;</span><br />
+The first from Eldon's <i>virtue</i>, springs,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The latter from his <i>vice</i>."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>It is needless to remark that this attempt to gloss the Chancellor's
+shortcomings is an illustration of the readiness with which censors
+apologize for the misdeeds of eminently fortunate offenders. Whilst
+Eldon's procrastination and Leach's haste were thus put in contrast, an
+epigram also placed the Chancellor's frailty in comparison with the
+tedious prolixity of the Master of the Rolls&mdash;</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+"To cause delay in Lincoln's Inn<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Two diff'rent methods tend:</span><br />
+His lordship's judgments ne'er begin,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">His honors never end."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>A mirth-loving judge, Justice Powell, could be as thoroughly humorous in
+private life as he was fearless and just upon the bench. Swift describes
+him as a surpassingly merry old gentleman, laughing heartily at all
+comic things, and his own droll stories more than aught else. In court
+he could not always refrain from jocularity. For instance, when he
+tried Jane Wenham for witch-craft, and she assured him that she could
+fly, his eye twinkled as he answered, "Well, then you may; there is no
+law against flying." When Fowler, Bishop of Gloucester&mdash;a thorough
+believer in what is now-a-days called spiritualism&mdash;was persecuting his
+acquaintance with silly stories about ghosts, Powell gave him a telling
+reproof for his credulity by describing a horrible apparition which was
+represented as having disturbed the narrator's rest on the previous
+night. At the hour of midnight, as the clocks were striking twelve, the
+judge was roused from his first slumber by a hideous sound. Starting up,
+he saw at the foot of his uncompanioned bed a figure&mdash;dark, gloomy,
+terrible, holding before its grim and repulsive visage a lamp that shed
+an uncertain light. "May Heaven have mercy on us!" tremulously
+ejaculated the bishop at this point of the story. The judge continued
+his story: "Be calm, my lord bishop; be calm. The awful part of this
+mysterious interview has still to be told. Nerving myself to fashion the
+words of inquiry, I addressed the nocturnal visitor thus&mdash;'Strange
+being, why hast thou come at this still hour to perturb a sinful
+mortal?' You understand, my lord, I said this in hollow tones&mdash;in what I
+may almost term a sepulchral voice." "Ay&mdash;ay," responded the bishop,
+with intense excitement; "go on&mdash;I implore you to go on. What did <i>it</i>
+answer?" "It answered in a voice not greatly different from the voice of
+a human creature&mdash;'Please, sir, <i>I am the watchman on beat, and your
+street-door is open</i>.'" Readers will remember the use which Barham has
+made of this story in the Ingoldsby Legends.</p>
+
+<p>As a Justice of the King's Bench, Powell had in Chief Justice Holt an
+associate who could not only appreciate the wit of others, but could
+himself say smart things. When Lacy, the fanatic, forced his way into
+Holt's house in Bedford Row, the Chief Justice was equal to the
+occasion. "I come to you," said Lacy, "a prophet from the Lord God, who
+has sent me to thee and would have thee grant a <i>nolle prosequi</i> for
+John Atkins, his servant, whom thou hast sent to prison." Whereto the
+judge answered, with proper emphasis, "Thou art a false prophet and a
+lying knave. If the Lord God had sent thee, it would have been to the
+Attorney General, for the Lord God knows that it belongeth not to the
+Chief Justice, to grant a <i>nolle prosequi</i>; but I, as Chief Justice, can
+grant a warrant to commit thee to John Atkins's company." Whereupon the
+false prophet, sharing the fate of many a true one, was forthwith
+clapped in prison.</p>
+
+<p>Now that so much has been said of Thurlow's brutal sarcasms, justice
+demands for his memory an acknowledgment that he possessed a vein of
+genuine humor that could make itself felt without wounding. In his
+undergraduate days at Cambridge he is said to have worried the tutors of
+Caius with a series of disorderly pranks and impudent <i>escapades</i>, but
+on one occasion he unquestionably displayed at the university the quick
+wit that in after life rescued him from many an embarrassing position.
+"Sir," observed a tutor, giving the unruly undergraduate a look of
+disapproval, "I never come to the window without seeing you idling in
+the court." "Sir," replied young Thurlow, imitating the don's tone, "I
+never come into the court without seeing you idling at the window."
+Years later, when he had become a great man, and John Scott was paying
+him assiduous court, Thurlow said, in ridicule of the mechanical
+awkwardness of many successful equity draughtsmen, "Jack Scott, don't
+you think we could invent a machine to draw bills and answers in
+Chancery?" Having laughed at the suggestion when it was made, Scott put
+away the droll thought in his memory; and when he had risen to be
+Attorney General reminded Lord Thurlow of it under rather awkward
+circumstances. Macnamara, the conveyancer, being concerned as one of the
+principals in a Chancery suit, Lord Thurlow advised him to submit the
+answer to the bill filed against him to the Attorney General. In due
+course the answer came under Scott's notice, when he found it so
+wretchedly drawn, that he advised Macnamara to have another answer drawn
+by some one who understood pleading. On the same day he was engaged at
+the bar of the House of Lords, when Lord Thurlow came to him, and said,
+"So I understand you don't think my friend Mac's answer will do?" "Do!"
+Scott replied, contemptuously. "My Lord, it won't do at all! it must
+have been drawn by that wooden machine which you once told me might be
+invented to draw bills and answers." "That's very unlucky," answered
+Thurlow, "and impudent too, if you had known&mdash;<i>that I drew the answer
+myself</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Lord Lyndhurst used to maintain that it was one of the chief duties of a
+judge to render it disagreeable to counsel to talk nonsense. Jeffreys in
+his milder moments no doubt salved his conscience with the same
+doctrine, when he recalled how, after elating him with a compliment, he
+struck down the rising junior with "Lord, sir! you must be cackling too.
+We told you, Mr. Bradbury, your objection was very ingenious; that must
+not make you troublesome: you cannot lay an egg, but you must be
+cackling over it." Doubtless, also, he felt it one of the chief duties
+of a judge to restrain attorneys from talking nonsense when&mdash;on hearing
+that the solicitor from whom he received his first brief had boastfully
+remarked, in allusion to past services, "My Lord Chancellor! I <i>made</i>
+him!"&mdash;he exclaimed, "Well, then, I'll lay my maker by the heels," and
+forthwith committed his former client and patron to the Fleet prison. If
+this bully of the bench actually, as he is said to have done,
+interrupted the venerable Maynard by saying, "You have lost your
+knowledge of law; your memory, I tell you, is failing through old age,"
+how must every hearer of the speech have exulted when Maynard quietly
+answered, "Yes, Sir George, I have forgotten more law than you ever
+learned; but allow me to say, I have not forgotten much."</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand it should be remembered that Maynard was a man
+eminently qualified to sow violent animosities, and that he was a
+perpetual thorn in the flesh of the political barristers, whose
+principles he abhorred. A subtle and tricky man, he was constantly
+misleading judges by citing fictitious authorities, and then smiling at
+their professional ignorance when they had swallowed his audacious
+fabrications. Moreover, the manner of his speech was sometimes as
+offensive as its substance was dishonest. Strafford spoke a bitter
+criticism not only with regard to Maynard and Glyn, but with regard to
+the prevailing tone of the bar, when, describing the conduct of the
+advocates who managed his prosecution, he said: "Glynne and Maynard used
+me <i>like advocates</i>, but Palmer and Whitelock <i>like gentlemen</i>; and yet
+the latter left out nothing against me that was material to be urged
+against me." As a Devonshire man Maynard is one of the many cases which
+may be cited against the smart saying of Sergeant Davy, who used to
+observe: "The further I journey toward the West, the more convinced I am
+that the wise men come from the East." But shrewd, observant, liberal
+though he was in most respects, he was on one matter so far behind the
+spirit of the age that, blinded and ruled by an unwise sentiment, he
+gave his parliamentary support to an abortive measure "to prevent
+further building in London and the neighborhood." In support of this
+measure he observed, "This building is the ruin of the gentry and ruin
+of religion, as leaving many good people without churches to go to.
+This enlarging of London makes it filled with lacqueys and pages. In St.
+Giles's parish scarce the fifth part come to church, and we shall have
+no religion at last."</p>
+
+<p>Whilst justice has suffered something in respect of dignity from the
+overbearing temper of judges to counsel, from collisions of the bench
+with the bar, and from the mutual hostility of rival advocates, she has
+at times sustained even greater injury from the jealousies and
+altercations of judges. Too often wearers of the ermine, sitting on the
+same bench, nominally for the purpose of assisting each other, have
+roused the laughter of the bar, and the indignation of suitors, by their
+petty squabbles. "It now comes to my turn," an Irish judge observed,
+when it devolved on him to support the decision of one or the other of
+two learned coadjutors, who had stated with more fervor than courtesy
+altogether irreconcilable opinions&mdash;"It now comes to my turn to declare
+my view of the case, and fortunately I can be brief. I agree with my
+brother A, from the irresistible force of my brother B's arguments."
+Extravagant as this case may appear, the King's Bench of Westminster
+Hall, under Mansfield and Kenyon, witnessed several not less scandalous
+and comical differences. Taking thorough pleasure in his work, Lord
+Mansfield was not less industrious than impartial in the discharge of
+his judicial functions; so long as there was anything for him to learn
+with regard to a cause, he not only sought for it with pains but with a
+manifest pleasure similar to that delight in judicial work which caused
+the French Advocate, Cottu, to say of Mr. Justice Bayley: "Il s'amuse &agrave;
+juger:" but notwithstanding these good qualities, he was often culpably
+deficient in respect for the opinions of his subordinate coadjutors. At
+times a vain desire to impress on the minds of spectators that his
+intellect was the paramount power of the bench; at other times a
+personal dislike to one of his <i>puisnes</i> caused him to derogate from the
+dignity of his court, in cases where he was especially careful to
+protect the interests of suitors. With silence more disdainful than any
+words could have been, he used to turn away from Mr. Justice Willes, at
+the moment when the latter expected his chief to ask his opinion; and on
+such occasions the indignant <i>puisne</i> seldom had the prudence and nerve
+to conceal his mortification. "I have not been consulted, and I will be
+heard!" he once shrieked forth in a paroxysm of rage caused by
+Mansfield's contemptuous treatment; and forty years afterwards Jeremy
+Bentham, who was a witness of the insult and its effect, observed: "At
+this distance of time&mdash;five-and-thirty or forty years&mdash;the feminine
+scream issuing out of his manly frame still tingles in my ears."
+Mansfield's overbearing demeanor to his <i>puisnes</i> was reproduced with
+less dignity by his successor; but Buller, the judge who wore ermine
+whilst he was still in his thirty-third year, and who confessed that his
+"idea of heaven was to sit at Nisi Prius all day, and to play whist all
+night," seized the first opportunity to give Taffy Kenyon a lesson in
+good manners by stating, with impressive self-possession and convincing
+logic, the reasons which induced him to think the judgment delivered by
+his chief to be altogether bad in law and argument.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> One of Jekyll's best displays of brilliant impudence was
+perpetrated on a Welsh judge, who was alike notorious for his greed of
+office and his want of personal cleanliness. "My dear sir," Jekyll
+observed in his most amiable manner to this most unamiable personage,
+"you have asked the minister for almost everything else, why <i>don't</i> you
+ask him for a piece of soap and a nail-brush?"</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLI" id="CHAPTER_XLI"></a>CHAPTER XLI.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>WITS IN 'SILK' AND PUNSTERS IN 'ERMINE.'</small></p>
+
+
+<p>Whilst Lord Camden held the chiefship of the Common Pleas, he was
+walking with his friend Lord Dacre on the outskirts of an Essex village,
+when they passed the parish stocks. "I wonder," said the Chief Justice,
+"whether a man in the stocks endures a punishment that is physically
+painful? I am inclined to think that, apart from the sense of
+humiliation and other mental anguish, the prisoner suffers nothing,
+unless the populace express their satisfaction at his fate by pelting
+him with brick-bats." "Suppose you settle your doubts by putting your
+feet into the holes," rejoined Lord Dacre, carelessly. In a trice the
+Chief Justice was sitting on the ground with his feet some fifteen
+inches above the level of his seat, and his ankles encircled by hard
+wood. "Now, Dacre!" he exclaimed, enthusiastically, "fasten the bolts,
+and leave me for ten minutes." Like a courteous host Lord Dacre complied
+with the whim of his guest, and having placed it beyond his power to
+liberate himself bade him 'farewell' for ten minutes. Intending to
+saunter along the lane and return at the expiration of the stated
+period, Lord Dacre moved away, and falling into one of his customary
+fits of reverie, soon forgot all about the stocks, his friend's freak,
+and his friend. In the meantime the Chief Justice went through every
+torture of an agonizing punishment&mdash;acute shootings along the confined
+limbs, aching in the feet, angry pulsations under the toes, violent
+cramps in the muscles and thighs, gnawing pain at the point where his
+person came in immediate contact with the cold ground, pins-and-needles
+everywhere. Amongst the various forms of his physical discomfort,
+faintness, fever, giddiness, and raging thirst may be mentioned. He
+implored a peasant to liberate him, and the fellow answered with a shout
+of derision; he hailed a passing clergyman, and explained that he was
+not a culprit, but Lord Camden, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and
+one of Lord Dacre's guests. "Ah!" observed the man of cloth, not so much
+answering the wretched culprit as passing judgment on his case, "mad
+with liquor. Yes, drunkenness is sadly on the increase; 'tis droll,
+though, for a drunkard in the stocks to imagine himself a Chief
+Justice!" and on he passed. A farmer's wife jogged by on her pillion,
+and hearing the wretched man exclaim that he should die of thirst, the
+good creature gave him a juicy apple, and hoped that his punishment
+would prove for the good of his soul. Not ten minutes, but ten hours did
+the Chief Justice sit in the stocks, and when at length he was carried
+into Lord Dacre's house, he was in no humor to laugh at his own
+miserable plight. Not long afterwards he presided at a trial in which a
+workman brought an action against a magistrate who had wrongfully placed
+him in the stocks. The counsel for the defence happening to laugh at the
+statement of the plaintiff, who maintained that he had suffered intense
+pain during his confinement, Lord Camden leaned forwards and inquired in
+a whisper, "Brother were you ever in the stocks?" "Never, my lord,"
+answered the advocate, with a look of lively astonishment "I have been,"
+was the whispered reply; "and let me assure you that the agony inflicted
+by the stocks is&mdash;<i>awful</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>Of a different sort, but scarcely less intense, was the pain endured by
+Lord Mansfield whenever a barrister pronounced a Latin word with a false
+quantity. "My lords," said the Scotch advocate, Crosby, at the bar of
+the House of Lords, "I have the honor to appear before your lordships as
+counsel for the Curators." "Ugh!" groaned the Westminster Oxford
+law-lord, softening his reproof by an allusion to his Scotch
+nationality, "Curators, Mr. Crosby, Curators: I wish <i>our</i> countrymen
+would pay a little more attention to prosody." "My Lord," replied Mr.
+Crosby, with delightful readiness and composure, "I can assure you that
+<i>our</i> countrymen are very proud of your lordship as the greatest
+senator and orator of the present age." The barrister who made Baron
+Alderson shudder under his robes by applying for a 'nolle prosequi,' was
+not equally quick at self-defence, when that judge interposed, "Stop,
+sir&mdash;consider that this is the last day of term, and don't make things
+unnecessarily long." It was Baron Alderson who, in reply to the
+juryman's confession that he was deaf in one ear, observed, "Then leave
+the box before the trial begins; for it is necessary that jurymen should
+<i>hear both sides</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Amongst legal wits, Lord Ellenborough enjoys a high place; and though in
+dealing out satire upon barristers and witnesses, and even on his
+judicial coadjutors, he was often needlessly severe, he seldom
+perpetrated a jest the force of which lay solely in its cruelty. Perhaps
+the most harsh and reprehensible outburst of satiric humor recorded of
+him is the crushing speech by which he ruined a young man for life. "The
+<i>unfortunate</i> client for whom it is my privilege to appear," said a
+young barrister, making his first essay in Westminster Hall&mdash;"the
+unfortunate client, my lord, for whom I appear&mdash;hem! hem!&mdash;I say, my
+lord, my <i>unfortunate client</i>&mdash;&mdash;" Leaning forwards, and speaking in a
+soft, cooing voice, that was all the more derisive, because it was so
+gentle, Lord Ellenborough said, "you may go on, sir&mdash;so far the court is
+with you." One would have liked his lordship better had he sacrificed
+his jest to humanity, and acted as long afterwards that true gentleman,
+Mr. Justice Talfourd, acted, who, seeing a young barrister overpowered
+with nervousness, gave him time to recover himself by saying, in the
+kindest possible manner, "Excuse me for interrupting you&mdash;but for a
+minute I am not at liberty to pay you attention." Whereupon the Judge
+took up his pen and wrote a short note to a friend. Before the note was
+finished, the young barrister had completely recovered his
+self-possession, and by an admirable speech secured a verdict for his
+client. A highly nervous man, he might on that day have been broken for
+life, like Ellenborough's victim, by mockery; but fortunate in appearing
+before a judge whose witty tongue knew not how to fashion unkind words,
+he triumphed over his temporary weakness, and has since achieved well
+deserved success in his profession. Talfourd might have made a jest for
+the thoughtless to laugh at; but he preferred to do an act, on which
+those who loved him like to think.</p>
+
+<p>When Preston, the great conveyancer, gravely informed the judges of the
+King's Bench that "an estate in fee simple was the highest estate known
+to the law of England," Lord Ellenborough checked the great Chancery
+lawyer, and said with politest irony, "Stay, stay, Mr. Preston, let me
+take that down. An estate" (the judge writing as he spoke) "in fee
+simple is&mdash;the highest estate&mdash;known to&mdash;the law of England. Thank you,
+Mr. Preston! The court, sir, is much indebted to you for the
+information." Having inflicted on the court an unspeakably dreary
+oration, Preston, towards the close of the day, asked when it would be
+their lordship's pleasure to hear the remainder of his argument;
+whereupon Lord Ellenborough uttered a sigh of resignation, and answered,
+'We are bound to hear you, and we will endeavor to give you our
+undivided attention on Friday next; but as for <i>pleasure</i>, that, sir,
+has been long out of the question.'</p>
+
+<p>Probably mistelling an old story, and taking to himself the merit of
+Lord Ellenborough's reply to Preston, Sir Vicary Gibbs (Chief of the
+Common Pleas) used to tell his friends that Sergeant Vaughan&mdash;the
+sergeant who, on being subsequently raised to the bench through the
+influence of his elder brother, Sir Henry Halford, the court physician,
+was humorously described by the wits of Westminster Hall as a judge <i>by
+prescription</i>&mdash;once observed in a grandiose address to the Judges of the
+Common Pleas, "For though our law takes cognizance of divers different
+estates, I may be permitted to say, without reserve or qualification of
+any kind, that the highest estate known to the law of England is an
+estate in fee simple." Whereupon Sir Vicary, according to his own
+account, interrupted the sergeant with an air of incredulity and
+astonishment. "What is your proposition, brother Vaughan? Perhaps I did
+not hear you rightly!" Flustered by the interruption, which completely
+effected its object, the sergeant explained, "My lord, I mean to contend
+that an estate in fee simple is <i>one of the highest estates</i> known to
+the law of England, that is, my lord, that it may be under certain
+circumstances&mdash;and sometimes is so."</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding his high reputation for wit, Lord Ellenborough would
+deign to use the oldest jests. Thus of Mr. Caldecott, who over and over
+again, with dull verbosity, had said that certain limestone quarries,
+like lead and copper mines, "were not rateable, because the limestone
+could only be reached by boring, which was matter of science," he
+gravely inquired, "Would you, Mr. Caldecott, have us believe that every
+kind of <i>boring</i> is matter of science?" With finer humor he nipped in
+the bud one of Randle Jackson's flowery harangues. "My lords," said the
+orator, with nervous intonation, "in the book of nature it is
+written&mdash;&mdash;" "Be kind enough, Mr. Jackson," interposed Lord
+Ellenborough, "to mention the page from which you are about to quote."
+This calls to mind the ridicule which, at an earlier period of his
+career, he cast on Sheridan for saying at the trial of Warren Hastings,
+"The treasures in the Zenana of the Begum are offerings laid by the
+hand of piety on the altar of a saint." To this not too rhetorical
+statement, Edward Law, as leading counsel for Warren Hastings, replied
+by asking, "how the lady was to be considered a saint, and how the
+camels were to be laid upon the altar?" With greater pungency, Sheridan
+defended himself by saying, "This is the first time in my life that I
+ever heard of special pleading on a metaphor, or a bill of indictment
+against a trope; but such is the turn of the learned gentleman's mind,
+that when he attempts to be humorous no jest can be found, and when
+serious no fact is visible."<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> To the last Law delighted to point the
+absurdities of orators who in aiming at the sublime only achieved the
+ridiculous. "My lords," said Mr. Gaselee, arguing that mourning coaches
+at a funeral were not liable to post-horse duty, "it never could have
+been the intention of a Christian legislature to aggravate the grief
+which mourners endure whilst following to the grave the remains of their
+dearest relatives, by compelling them at the same time to pay the
+horse-duty." Had Mr. Gaselee been a humorist, Lord Ellenborough would
+have laughed; but as the advocate was well known to have no turn for
+raillery, the Chief Justice gravely observed, "Mr. Gaselee, you incur
+danger by sailing in high sentimental latitudes."</p>
+
+<p>To the surgeon in the witness-box who said, "I employ myself as a
+surgeon," Lord Ellenborough retorted, "But does anybody else employ you
+as a surgeon?"</p>
+
+<p>The demand to be examined <i>on affirmation</i> being preferred by a Quaker
+witness, whose dress was so much like the costume of an ordinary
+<i>conformist</i> that the officer of the court had begun to administer the
+usual oath, Lord Ellenborough inquired of the 'friend,' "Do you really
+mean to impose upon the court by appearing here in the disguise of a
+reasonable being?" Very pungent was his ejaculation at a cabinet dinner
+when he heard that Lord Kenyon was about to close his penurious old age
+by dying. "Die!&mdash;why should he die?&mdash;what would he get by that?"
+interposed Lord Ellenborough, adding to the pile of jests by which men
+have endeavored to keep a grim, unpleasant subject out of sight&mdash;a pile
+to which the latest <i>mot</i> was added the other day by Lord Palmerston,
+who during his last attack of gout exclaimed playfully. "<i>Die</i>, my dear
+doctor! That's the <i>last</i> thing I think of doing." Having jested about
+Kenyon's parsimony, as the old man lay <i>in extremis</i>, Ellenborough
+placed another joke of the same kind upon his coffin. Hearing that
+through the blunder of an illiterate undertaker the motto on Kenyon's
+hatchment in Lincoln's Inn Fields had been painted '<i>Mors Janua Vita</i>,'
+instead of 'Mors Janua Vit&aelig;,' he exclaimed, "Bless you, there's no
+mistake; Kenyon's will directed that it should be 'Vita,' so that his
+estate might be saved the expense of <i>a diphthong.</i>" Capital also was
+his reply when Erskine urged him to accept the Great Seal. "How can
+you," he asked, in a tone of solemn entreaty, "wish me to accept the
+office of Chancellor, when you know, Erskine, that I am as ignorant of
+its duties as you are yourself?" At the time of uttering these words,
+Ellenborough was well aware that if he declined them Erskine would take
+the seals. Some of his puns were very poor. For instance, his
+exclamation, "Cite to me the decisions of the judges of the land: not
+the judgments of the Chief Justice of Ely, who is fit only to <i>rule</i> a
+copybook."</p>
+
+<p>One of the best 'legal' puns on record is unanimously attributed by the
+gossipers of Westminster Hall to Lord Chelmsford. As Sir Frederick
+Thesiger he was engaged in the conduct of a cause, and objected to the
+irregularity of a learned sergeant who in examining his witnesses
+repeatedly put leading questions. "I have a right," maintained the
+sergeant, doggedly, "to <i>deal</i> with my witnesses as I please." "To that
+I offer no objection," retorted Sir Frederick; "you may <i>deal</i> as you
+like, but you shan't <i>lead</i>." Of the same brilliant conversationalist
+Mr. Grantley Berkeley has recorded a good story in 'My Life and
+Recollections.' Walking down St. James's Street, Lord Chelmsford was
+accosted by a stranger, who exclaimed "Mr. Birch I believe?" "If you
+believe that, sir, you'll believe anything," replied the ex-Chancellor,
+as he passed on.</p>
+
+<p>When Thelwall, instead of regarding his advocate with grateful silence,
+insisted on interrupting him with vexatious remarks and impertinent
+criticisms, Erskine neither threw up his brief nor lost his temper, but
+retorted with an innocent flash of merriment. To a slip of paper on
+which the prisoner had written, "I'll be hanged if I don't plead my own
+cause," he contented himself with returning answer, "You'll be hanged if
+you do." His <i>mots</i> were often excellent, but it was the tone and joyous
+animation of the speaker that gave them their charm. It is said that in
+his later years, when his habitual loquaciousness occasionally sank into
+garrulity, he used to repeat his jests with imprudent frequency,
+shamelessly giving his companions the same pun with each course of a
+long dinner. There is a story that after his retirement from public life
+he used morning after morning to waylay visitors on their road through
+the garden to his house, and, pointing to his horticultural attire and
+the spade in his hand assure them that he was 'enjoying his otium cum
+<i>digging a tatie</i>.' Indeed the tradition lives that before his fall from
+the woolsack, pert juniors used to lay bets as to the number of times he
+could fire off a favorite old pun in the course of a sitting in the
+Court of Chancery, and that wily leaders habitually strove to catch his
+favor by giving him opportunities for facetious interruptions during
+their arguments. If such traditions be truthful, it is no matter for
+surprise that Erskine's court-jokes have come down to us with so many
+variations. For instance, it is recorded with much circumstantiality
+that on circuit, accosting a junior who had lost his portmanteau from
+the back of a post-chaise, he said, with mock gravity, "Young gentlemen,
+henceforth imitate the elephant, the wisest of animals, who always
+<i>carries his trunk before him</i>;" and on equally good authority it is
+stated that when Polito, the keeper of the Exeter 'Change Menagerie, met
+with a similar accident and brought an action for damages against the
+proprietor of the coach from the hind-boot of which his property had
+disappeared, Erskine, speaking for the defence, told the jury that they
+would not be justified in giving a verdict favorable to the man, who,
+though he actually possessed an elephant, had neglected to imitate its
+prudent example and carry his trunk before him.</p>
+
+<p>As a <i>litt&eacute;rateur</i> Erskine met with meagre success; but some of his
+squibs and epigrams are greatly above the ordinary level of '<i>vers de
+soci&eacute;t&eacute;</i>.' For instance this is his:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 20em;">
+"<span class="smcap">De Quodam Rege.</span></p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+"I may not do right, though I ne'er can do wrong;<br />
+I never can die, though I can not live long;<br />
+My jowl it is purple, my hand it is fat&mdash;<br />
+Come, riddle my riddle. What is it? <i>What? What?</i>"<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>The liveliest illustrations of Erskine's proverbial egotism are the
+squibs of political caricaturists; and from their humorous
+exaggerations it is difficult to make a correct estimate of the lengths
+of absurdity to which his intellectual vanity and self-consciousness
+sometimes carried him. From what is known of his disposition it seems
+probable that the sarcasms aimed by public writers at his infirmity
+inclined him to justify their attacks rather than to disprove them by
+his subsequent demeanor, and that some of his most extravagant outbursts
+of self-assertion were designed in a spirit of bravado and reckless
+good-nature to increase the laughter which satirists had raised against
+him. However this may be, his conduct drew upon him blows that would
+have ruffled the composure of any less self-complacent or less amiable
+man. The Tory prints habitually spoke of him as Counsellor Ego whilst he
+was at the bar; and when it was known that he had accepted the seals,
+the opposition journals announced that he would enter the house as
+"Baron Ego, of Eye, in the county of Suffolk." Another of his nicknames
+was <i>Lord Clackmannan</i>; and Cobbett published the following notice of an
+harangue made by the fluent advocate in the House of Commons:&mdash;"Mr.
+Erskine delivered a most animated speech in the House of Commons on the
+causes and consequences of the late war, which lasted thirteen hours,
+eighteen minutes, and a second, by Mr. John Nichol's stop-watch. Mr.
+Erskine closed his speech with a dignified climax: 'I was born free,
+and, by G-d, I'll remain so!'&mdash;[A loud cry of '<i>Hear! hear</i>' in the
+gallery, in which were citizens Tallien and Barr&egrave;re.] On Monday three
+weeks we shall have the extreme satisfaction of laying before the public
+a brief analysis of the above speech, our letter-founder having entered
+into an engagement to furnish a fresh font of I's."<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a></p>
+
+<p>From the days of Wriothesley, who may be regarded as the most
+conspicuous and unquestionable instance of judicial incompetency in the
+annals of English lawyers, the multitudes have always delighted in
+stories that illustrate the ignorance and incapacity of men who are
+presumed to possess, by right of their office, an extraordinary share of
+knowledge and wisdom. What law-student does not rub his hands as he
+reads of Lord St. John's trouble during term whilst he held the seals,
+and of the impatience with which he looked forward to the long vacation,
+when he would not be required to look wise and speak authoritatively
+about matters concerning which he was totally ignorant. Delicious are
+the stories of Francis Bacon's clerical successor, who endeavored to get
+up a <i>quantum suff</i>. of Chancery law by falling on his knees and asking
+enlightenment of Heaven. Gloomily comical are the anecdotes of Chief
+Justice Fleming, whose most famous and disastrous blunder was his
+judgment in Bates's case. Great fun may be gathered from the tales that
+exemplify the ignorance of law which characterized the military, and
+also the non-military laymen, who helped to take care of the seals
+during the civil troubles of the seventeenth century. Capital is Roger
+North's picture of Bob Wright's ludicrous shiftlessness whenever the
+influence of his powerful relations brought the loquacious, handsome,
+plausible fellow a piece of business. "He was a comely fellow," says
+Roger North, speaking of the Chief Justice Wright's earlier days, "airy
+and flourishing both in his habits and way of living; and his relation
+Wren (being a powerful man in those parts) set him in credit with the
+country; but withal, he was so poor a lawyer that he used to bring such
+cases as came to him to his friend Mr. North, and he wrote the opinion
+on the paper, and the lawyer copied it, and signed under the case as if
+it had been his own. It ran so low with him that when Mr. North was at
+London he sent up his cases to him, and had opinions returned by the
+post; and, in the meantime he put off his clients on pretence of taking
+the matter into serious consideration." Perhaps some readers of this
+page can point to juniors of the present date whose professional
+incapacity closely resembles the incompetence of this gay young
+barrister of Charles II.'s time. Laughter again rises at the thought of
+Lord Chancellor Bathurst and the judicial perplexities and blunders
+which caused Sir Charles Williams to class him with those who</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+"Were cursed and stigmatized by power,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And rais'd to be expos'd."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Much more than an average or altogether desirable amount of amiability
+has fallen to the reader who can refrain from a malicious smile, when he
+is informed by reliable history that Lord Loughborough (no mean lawyer
+or inefficient judge), gave utterance to so much bad law, as Chairman of
+Quarter Sessions in canny Yorkshire, that when on appeal his decisions
+were reversed with many polite expressions of <i>sincere</i> regret by the
+King's Bench, all Westminster Hall laughed in concert at the mistakes of
+the sagacious Chief of the Common Pleas.</p>
+
+<p>But no lawyer, brilliant or dull, has been more widely ridiculed for
+incompetence than Erskine. Sir Causticus Witherett, being asked some
+years since why a certain Chancellor, unjustly accused of intellectual
+dimness by his political adversaries and by the uninformed public,
+preferred his seat amongst the barons to his official place on the
+woolsack, is said to have replied: "The Lord Chancellor usually takes
+his seat amongst the peers whenever he can do so with propriety, because
+he is a highly nervous man, and when he is on the woolsack, he is apt to
+be frightened at finding himself all alone&mdash;<i>in the dark</i>." As soon as
+Erskine was mentioned as a likely person to be Lord Chancellor, rumors
+began to circulate concerning his total unfitness for the office; and no
+sooner had he mounted the woolsack than the wits declared him to be
+alone and in the dark. Lord Ellenborough's sarcasm was widely repeated,
+and gave the cue to the advocate's detractors, who had little difficulty
+in persuading the public that any intelligent law-clerk would make as
+good a Chancellor as Thomas Erskine. With less discretion than
+good-humor, Erskine gave countenance to the representations of his
+enemies by ridiculing his own unfitness for the office. During the
+interval between his appointment and his first appearance as judge in
+the Court of Chancery, he made a jocose pretence of 'reading up' for his
+new duties: and whimsically exaggerating his deficiencies, he
+represented himself as studying books with which raw students have some
+degree of familiarity. Caught with 'Cruise's Digest' of the laws
+relating to real property, open in his hand, he observed to the visitor
+who had interrupted his studies, "You see, I am taking a little from my
+<i>cruise</i> daily, without any prospect of coming to the end of it."</p>
+
+<p>In the autumn of 1819 two gentlemen of the United States having differed
+in opinion concerning his incompetence in the Court of Chancery&mdash;the one
+of them maintaining that the greater number of his decrees had been
+reversed, and the other maintaining that so many of his decisions had
+not endured reversal&mdash;the dispute gave rise to a bet of three dozen of
+port. With comical bad taste one of the parties to the bet&mdash;the one who
+believed that the Chancellor's judgments had been thus frequently
+upset&mdash;wrote to Erskine for information on the point. Instead of giving
+the answer which his correspondent desired, Erskine informed him in the
+following terms that he had lost his wine:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p style="margin-left: 20em;">
+"Upper Berkley Street, Nov. 13, 1819.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">"Sir:</span>&mdash;I certainly was appointed Chancellor under the
+administration in which Mr. Fox was Secretary of State, in 1806, and
+could have been Chancellor under no administration in which he had
+not a post; nor would have accepted without him any office
+whatsoever. I believe the administration was said, by all the
+<i>Blockheads</i>, to be made up of all the <i>Talents</i> in the country.</p>
+
+<p>"But you have certainly lost your bet on the subject of my decrees.
+None of them were appealed against, except one, upon a branch of Mr.
+Thellusson's will&mdash;but it was affirmed without a dissentient voice,
+on the motion of Lord Eldon, then and now Lord Chancellor. If you
+think I was no lawyer, you may continue to think so. It is plain you
+are no lawyer yourself; but I wish every man to retain his opinion,
+though at the cost of three dozen of port.</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 20em;">
+"Your humble servant,</p>
+<p style="margin-left: 25em;">
+"<span class="smcap">Erskine</span>.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"To save you from spending your money on bets which you are sure to
+lose, remember that no man can be a great advocate who is no lawyer.
+The thing is impossible."</p></div>
+
+<p>Of the many good stories current about chiefs of the law who are still
+alive, the present writer, for obvious reasons, abstains from taking
+notice; but one humorous anecdote concerning a lively judge may with
+propriety be inserted in these pages, since it fell from his own lips
+when he was making a speech from the chair at a public dinner. Between
+sixty-five and seventy years from the present time, when Sir Frederick
+Pollock was a boy at St. Paul's school, he drew upon himself the
+displeasure of Dr. Roberts, the somewhat irascible head-master of the
+school, who frankly told Sir Frederick's father, "Sir, you'll live to
+see that boy of yours hanged." Years afterwards, when the boy of whom
+this dismal prophecy was made had distinguished himself at Cambridge and
+the bar, Dr. Roberts, meeting Sir Frederick's mother in society,
+overwhelmed her with congratulations upon her son's success, and
+fortunately oblivious of his former misunderstanding with his pupil,
+concluded his polite speeches by saying&mdash;"Ah! madam, I always said he'd
+fill an <i>elevated</i> situation." Told by the venerable judge at a recent
+dinner of 'Old Paulines,' this story was not less effective than the
+best of those post-prandial sallies with which William St. Julien
+Arabin&mdash;the Assistant Judge of Old Bailey notoriety&mdash;used to convulse
+his auditors something more than thirty years since. In the 'Arabiniana'
+it is recorded how this judge, in sentencing an unfortunate woman to a
+long term of transportation, concluded his address with&mdash;"You must go
+out of the country. You have disgraced <i>even</i> your own sex."</p>
+
+<p>Let this chapter close with a lawyer's testimony to the moral qualities
+of his brethren. In the garden of Clement's Inn may still be seen the
+statue of a negro, supporting a sun-dial, upon which a legal wit
+inscribed the following lines:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+"In vain, poor sable son of woe,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thou seek'st the tender tear;</span><br />
+From thee in vain with pangs they flow,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For mercy dwells not here.</span><br />
+From cannibals thou fled'st in vain;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lawyers less quarter give;</span><br />
+The <i>first</i> won't eat you till you're <i>slain</i>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The <i>last</i> will do't <i>alive</i>."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately these lines have been obliterated.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> Robert Dallas&mdash;one of Edward Law's coadjutors in the
+defence of Hastings&mdash;gave another 'manager' a more telling blow.
+Indignant with Burke for his implacable animosity to Hastings, Dallas
+(subsequently Chief Justice of the Common Pleas) wrote the stinging
+lines&mdash;
+</p>
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;"><br />
+"Oft have we wondered that on Irish ground<br />
+No poisonous reptile has e'er yet been found;<br />
+Reveal'd the secret stands of nature's work&mdash;<br />
+She saved her venom to produce her Burke."<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> In the 'Anti-Jacobin,' Canning, in the mock report of an
+imaginary speech, represented Erskine as addressing the 'Whig Club'
+thus:&mdash;"For his part he should only say that, having been, as he had
+been, both a soldier and a sailor, if it had been his fortune to have
+stood in either of these relations to the Directory&mdash;as <i>a</i> man and a
+major-general he should not have scrupled to direct his artillery
+against the national representatives:&mdash;as a naval officer he would
+undoubtedly have undertaken for the removal of the exiled deputies;
+admitting the exigency, under all its relations, as it appeared to him
+to exist, and the then circumstances of the times with all their
+bearings and dependencies, branching out into an infinity of collateral
+considerations and involving in each a variety of objects, political,
+physical, and moral; and these, again, under their distinct and separate
+heads, ramifying into endless subdivisions, which it was foreign to his
+purpose to consider, Mr. Erskine concluded by recapitulating, in a
+strain of agonizing and impressive eloquence, the several more prominent
+heads of his speech; he had been a soldier and a sailor, and had a son
+at Winchester school&mdash;he had been called by special retainers, during
+the summer, into many different and distant parts of the
+country&mdash;traveling chiefly in post-chaises. He felt himself called upon
+to declare that his poor faculties were at the service of his
+country&mdash;of the free and enlightened part of it at least. He stood there
+as a man&mdash;he stood in the eye, indeed, in the hand of God&mdash;to whom (in
+the presence of the company and the waiters), he solemnly appealed. He
+was of noble, perhaps royal, blood&mdash;he had a house at Hampsted&mdash;was
+convinced of the necessity of a thorough and radical reform. His
+pamphlets had gone through thirty editions, skipping alternately the odd
+and even numbers. He loved the Constitution, to which he would cling and
+grapple&mdash;and he was clothed with the infirmities of man's nature."</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLII" id="CHAPTER_XLII"></a>CHAPTER XLII.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>WITNESSES.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>In the days when Mr. Davenport Hill, the Recorder of Birmingham, made a
+professional reputation for himself in the committee-rooms of the Houses
+of Parliament, he had many a sharp tussle with one of those venal
+witnesses who, during the period of excitement that terminated in the
+disastrous railway panic, were ready to give scientific evidence on
+engineering questions, with less regard to truth than to the interests
+of the persons who paid for their evidence. Having by mendacious
+evidence gravely injured a cause in which Mr. Hill was interested as
+counsel, and Mr. Tite, the eminent architect, and present member for
+Bath, was concerned as a projector, this witness was struck with
+apoplexy and died&mdash;before he could complete the mischief which he had so
+adroitly begun. Under the circumstances, his sudden withdrawal from the
+world was not an occasion for universal regret. "Well, Hill, have you
+heard the news?" inquired Mr. Tite of the barrister, whom he encountered
+in Middle Temple Lane on the morning after the engineer's death. "Have
+you heard that &mdash;&mdash; died yesterday of apoplexy?" "I can't say," was the
+rejoinder, "that I shall shed many tears for his loss. He was an arrant
+scoundrel." "Come, come," replied the architect, charitably, "you have
+always been too hard on that man. He was by no means so bad a fellow as
+you would make him out. I do verily believe that in the whole course of
+his life that man never told a lie&mdash;<i>out of the witness-box</i>." Strange
+to say, this comical testimony to character was quite justified by the
+fact. This man, who lied in public as a matter of business, was
+punctiliously honorable in private life.</p>
+
+<p>Of the simplest method of tampering with witnesses an instance is found
+in a case which occurred while Sir Edward Coke was Chief Justice of the
+King's Bench. Loitering about Westminster Hall, one of the parties in an
+action stumbled upon the witness whose temporary withdrawal from the
+ways of men he was most anxious to effect. With a perfect perception of
+the proper use of hospitality, he accosted this witness (a staring,
+open-mouthed countryman), with suitable professions of friendliness, and
+carrying him into an adjacent tavern, set him down before a bottle of
+wine. As soon as the sack had begun to quicken his guest's circulation,
+the crafty fellow hastened into court with the intelligence that the
+witness, whom he had left drinking in a room not two hundred yards
+distant, was in a fit and lying at death's door. The court being asked
+to wait, the impudent rascal protested that to wait would be useless;
+and the Chief Justice, taking his view of the case, proceeded to give
+judgment without hearing the most important evidence in the cause.</p>
+
+<p>In badgering a witness with noisy derision, no barrister of Charles
+II.'s time could surpass George Jeffreys; but on more than one occasion
+that gentleman, in his most overbearing moments, met with his master in
+the witness whom he meant to brow-beat. "You fellow in the leathern
+doublet," he is said to have exclaimed to a countryman whom he was about
+to cross-examine, "Pray, what are you paid for swearing?" "God bless
+you, sir, and make you an honest man," answered the farmer, looking the
+barrister full in the face, and speaking with a voice of hearty
+good-humor; "if you had no more for lying than I have for swearing, you
+would wear a leather doublet as well as I."</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes Erskine's treatment of witnesses was very jocular, and
+sometimes very unfair; but his jocoseness was usually so distinct from
+mere flippant derisiveness, and his unfairness was redeemed by such
+delicacy of wit and courtesy of manner, that his most malicious <i>jeux
+d'esprit</i> seldom raised the anger of the witnesses at whom they were
+aimed. A religious enthusiast objecting to be sworn in the usual manner,
+but stating that though he would not "kiss the book," he would "hold up
+his hand" and swear, Erskine asked him to give his reason for preferring
+so eccentric a way to the ordinary mode of giving testimony. "It is
+written in the book of Revelations," answered the man, "that the angel
+standing on the sea <i>held up his hand</i>." "But that does not apply to
+your case," urged the advocate; "for in the first place, you are no
+angel; secondly, you cannot tell how the angel would have sworn if he
+had stood on dry ground, as you do." Not shaken by this reply, which
+cannot be called unfair, and which, notwithstanding its jocoseness, was
+exactly the answer which the gravest divine would have made to such
+scruples, the witness persisted in his position; and on being permitted
+to give evidence in his own peculiar way, he had enough influence with
+the jury to induce them to give a verdict adverse to Erskine's wishes.</p>
+
+<p>Less fair but more successful was Erskine's treatment of the commercial
+traveller, who appeared in the witness box dressed in the height of
+fashion, and wearing a starched white necktie folded with the 'Brummel
+fold.' In an instant reading the character of the man, on whom he had
+never before set eyes, and knowing how necessary it was to put him in a
+state of extreme agitation and confusion, before touching on the facts
+concerning which he had come to give evidence, Erskine rose, surveyed
+the coxcomb, and said, with an air of careless amusement, "You were born
+and bred in Manchester, <i>I perceive</i>." Greatly astonished at this
+opening remark, the man answered, nervously, that he was "a Manchester
+man&mdash;born and bred in Manchester." "Exactly," observed Erskine, in a
+conversational tone, and as though he were imparting information to a
+personal friend&mdash;"exactly so; I knew it from the absurd tie of your
+neckcloth." The roars of laughter which followed this rejoinder so
+completely effected the speaker's purpose that the confounded bagman
+could not tell his right hand from his left. Equally effective was
+Erskine's sharp question, put quickly to the witness, who, in an action
+for payment of a tailor's bill, swore that a certain dress-coat was
+badly made&mdash;one of the sleeves being longer than the other. "You will,"
+said Erskine, slowly, having risen to cross-examine, "swear&mdash;that one of
+the sleeves was&mdash;longer&mdash;than the other?" <i>Witness.</i> "I do swear it."
+<i>Erskine</i>, quickly, and with a flash of indignation, "Then, sir, I am to
+understand that you positively deny that one of the sleeves was
+<i>shorter</i> than the other?" Startled into a self-contradiction by the
+suddenness and impetuosity of this thrust, the witness said, "I do deny
+it." <i>Erskine</i>, raising his voice as the tumultuous laughter died away,
+"Thank you, sir; I don't want to trouble you with another question." One
+of Erskine's smartest puns referred to a question of evidence. "A case,"
+he observed, in a speech made during his latter years, "being laid
+before me by my veteran friend, the Duke of Queensbury&mdash;better known as
+'old Q'&mdash;as to whether he could sue a tradesman for breach of contract
+about the painting of his house; and the evidence being totally
+insufficient to support the case, I wrote thus: 'I am of opinion that
+this action will not <i>lie</i> unless the witnesses <i>do</i>.'" It is worthy of
+notice that this witticism was but a revival (with a modification) of a
+pun attributed to Lord Chancellor Hatton in Bacon's 'Apophthegmes.'</p>
+
+<p>In this country many years have elapsed since duels have taken place
+betwixt gentlemen of the long robe, or between barristers and witnesses
+in consequence of words uttered in the heat of forensic strife; but in
+the last century, and in the opening years of the present, it was no
+very rare occurrence for a barrister to be called upon for
+'satisfaction' by a person whom he had insulted in the course of his
+professional duty. During George II.'s reign, young Robert Henley so
+mercilessly badgered one Zephaniah Reeve, whom he had occasion to
+cross-examine in a trial at Bristol, that the infuriated witness&mdash;Quaker
+and peace-loving merchant though he was&mdash;sent his persecutor a challenge
+immediately upon leaving court. Rather than incur the ridicule of 'going
+out with a Quaker,' and the sin of shooting at a man whom he had
+actually treated with unjustifiable freedom, Henley retreated from an
+embarrassing position by making a handsome apology; and years
+afterwards, when he had risen to the woolsack, he entertained his old
+acquaintance, Zephaniah Reeve, at a fashionable dinner-party, when he
+assembled guests were greatly amused by the Lord Chancellor's account of
+the commencement of his acquaintance with his Quaker friend.</p>
+
+<p>Between thirty and forty years later Thurlow was 'called out' by the
+Duke of Hamilton's agent, Mr. Andrew Stewart, whom he had grievously
+offended by his conduct of the Great Douglas Case. On Jan. 14,
+1769-1770, Thurlow and his adversary met in Hyde Park. On his way to the
+appointed place, the barrister stopped at a tavern near Hyde Park
+Corner, and "ate an enormous breakfast," after which preparation for
+business, he hastened to the field of action. Accounts agree in saying
+that he behaved well upon the ground. Long after the bloodless
+<i>rencontre</i>, the Scotch agent, not a little proud of his 'affair' with a
+future Lord Chancellor, said, "Mr. Thurlow advanced and stood up to me
+like an elephant." But the elephant and the mouse parted without hurting
+each other; the encounter being thus faithfully described in the 'Scots'
+Magazine:' "On Sunday morning, January 14, the parties met with swords
+and pistols, in Hyde Park, one of them having for his second his
+brother, Colonel S&mdash;&mdash;, and the other having for his Mr. L&mdash;&mdash;, member
+for a city in Kent. Having discharged pistols, at ten yards' distance,
+without effect, they drew their swords, but the seconds interposed, and
+put an end to the affair."</p>
+
+<p>One of the best 'Northern Circuit stories' pinned upon Lord Eldon
+relates to a challenge which an indignant suitor is said to have sent to
+Law and John Scott. In a trial at York that arose from a horse-race, it
+was stated in evidence that one of the conditions of the race required
+that "each horse should be ridden by a gentleman." The race having been
+run, the holders refused to pay the stakes to the winner on the ground
+that he was not a gentleman; whereupon the equestrian whose gentility
+was thus called in question brought an action for the money. After a
+very humorous inquiry, which terminated in a verdict for the defendants,
+the plaintiff <i>was said</i> to have challenged the defendants' counsel.
+Messrs. Scott and Law, for maintaining that he was no gentleman; to
+which invitation, it also averred, reply was made that the challengees
+"could not think of fighting one who had been found <i>no gentleman</i> by
+the solemn verdict of twelve of his countrymen." Inquiry, however, has
+deprived this delicious story of much of its piquancy. Eldon had no part
+in the offence; and Law, who was the sole utterer of the obnoxious
+words, received no invitation to fight. "No message was sent," says a
+writer, supposed to be Lord Brougham, in the 'Law Magazine,' "and no
+attempt was made to provoke a breach of the peace. It is very possible
+Lord Eldon may have said, and Lord Ellenborough too, that they were not
+bound to treat one in such a predicament as a gentleman, and hence the
+story has arisen in the lady's mind. The fact was as well known on the
+Northern Circuit as the answer of a witness to a question, whether the
+party had a right by his circumstances to keep a pack of fox-hounds; 'No
+more right than I to keep a pack of archbishops.'"</p>
+
+<p>Curran is said to have received a call, before he left his bed one
+morning, from a gentleman whom he had cross-examined with needless
+cruelty and unjustifiable insolence on the previous day. "Sir!" said
+this irate man, presenting himself in Curran's bedroom, and rousing the
+barrister from slumber to a consciousness that he was in a very awkward
+position, "I am the gintleman whom you insulted yesterday in His
+Majesty's court of justice, in the presence of the whole county, and I
+am here to thrash you soundly!" Thus speaking, the Herculean intruder
+waved a horsewhip over the recumbent lawyer. "You don't mean to strike a
+man when he is lying down?" inquired Curran. "No, bedad; I'll just wait
+till you've got out of bed and then I'll give it to you sharp and fast."
+Curran's eye twinkled mischievously as he rejoined: "If that's the case,
+by &mdash;&mdash; I'll lie here all day." So tickled was the visitor with this
+humorous announcement, that he dropped his horsewhip, and dismissing
+anger with a hearty roar of laughter, asked the counsellor to shake
+hands with him.</p>
+
+<p>In the December of 1663, Pepys was present at a trial in Guildhall
+concerning the fraud of a merchant-adventurer, who having insured his
+vessel for &pound;2400 when, together with her cargo, she was worth no more
+than &pound;500, had endeavored to wreck her off the French coast. From
+Pepys's record it appears that this was a novel piece of rascality at
+that time, and consequently created lively sensation in general society,
+as well as in legal and commercial coteries. "All the great counsel in
+the kingdom" were employed in the cause; and though maritime causes
+then, as now, usually involved much hard swearing, the case was notable
+for the prodigious amount of perjury which it elicited. For the most
+part the witnesses were sailors, who, besides swearing with stolid
+indifference to truth, caused much amusement by the incoherence of their
+statements and by their free use of nautical expressions, which were
+quite unintelligible to Chief Justice (Sir Robert) Hyde. "It was," says
+Pepys, "pleasant to see what mad sort of testimonys the seamen did give,
+and could not be got to speak in order; and then their terms such as the
+judge could not understand, and to hear how sillily the counsel and
+judge would speak as to the terms necessary in the matter, would make
+one laugh; and above all a Frenchman, that was forced to speak in
+French, and took an English oath he did not understand, and had an
+interpreter sworn to tell us what he said, which was the best testimony
+of all." A century later Lord Mansfield was presiding at a trial
+consequent upon a collision of two ships at sea, when a common sailor,
+whilst giving testimony, said, "At the time I was standing abaft the
+binnacle;" whereupon his lordship, with a proper desire to master the
+facts of the case, observed, "Stay, stay a minute, witness: you say
+that at the time in question you were <i>standing abaft the binnacle</i>; now
+tell me, where is abaft the binnacle?" This was too much for the gravity
+of 'the salt,' who immediately before climbing into the witness-box had
+taken a copious draught of neat rum. Removing his eyes from the bench,
+and turning round upon the crowded court with an expression of intense
+amusement, he exclaimed at the top of his voice, "He's a pretty fellow
+for a judge! Bless my jolly old eyes!&mdash;[the reader may substitute a
+familiar form of 'imprecation on eye-sight']&mdash;you have got a pretty sort
+of a land-lubber for a judge! He wants me to tell him where <i>abaft the
+binnacle is</i>!" Not less amused than the witness, Lord Mansfield
+rejoined, "Well, my friend, you must fit me for my office by telling me
+where <i>abaft the binnacle</i> is; you've already shown me the meaning of
+<i>half seas over</i>."</p>
+
+<p>With less good-humor the same Chief Justice revenged himself on Dr.
+Brocklesby, who, whilst standing in the witness-box of the Court of
+King's Bench, incurred the Chief Justice's displeasure by referring to
+their private intercourse. Some accounts say that the medical witness
+merely nodded to the Chief Justice, as he might have done with propriety
+had they been taking seats at a convivial table; other accounts, with
+less appearance of probability, maintain that in a voice audible to the
+bar, he reminded the Chief Justice of certain jolly hours which they had
+spent together during the previous evening. Anyhow, Lord Mansfield was
+hurt, and showed his resentment in his 'summing-up' by thus addressing
+the Jury: "The next witness is one <i>R</i>ocklesby, or
+<i>B</i>rocklesby&mdash;<i>B</i>rocklesby or <i>R</i>ocklesby, I am not sure which; and
+first, <i>he swears that he is a physician</i>."</p>
+
+<p>On one occasion Lord Mansfield covered his retreat from an untenable
+position with a sparkling pleasantry. An old witness named <i>Elm</i> having
+given his evidence with remarkable clearness, although he was more than
+eighty years of age, Lord Mansfield examined him as to his habitual mode
+of living, and found that he had throughout life been an early riser and
+a singularly temperate man. "Ay," observed the Chief Justice, in a tone
+of approval, "I have always found that without temperance and early
+habits, longevity is never attained." The next witness, the <i>elder</i>
+brother of this model of temperance, was then called, and he almost
+surpassed his brother as an intelligent and clear-headed utterer of
+evidence. "I suppose," observed Lord Mansfield, "that you also are an
+early riser." "No, my lord," answered the veteran, stoutly; "I like my
+bed at all hours, and special-<i>lie</i> I like it of a morning." "Ah; but,
+like your brother, you are a very temperate man?" quickly asked the
+judge, looking out anxiously for the safety of the more important part
+of his theory. "My lord," responded this ancient Elm, disdaining to
+plead guilty to a charge of habitual sobriety, "I am a very old man, and
+my memory is as clear as a bell, but I can't remember the night when
+I've gone to bed without being more or less drunk." Lord Mansfield was
+silent. "Ah, my lord," Mr. Dunning exclaimed, "this old man's case
+supports a theory upheld by many persons, that habitual intemperance is
+favorable to longevity." "No, no," replied the Chief Justice, with a
+smile, "this old man and his brother merely teach us what every
+carpenter knows&mdash;that Elm, whether it be wet or dry, is a very tough
+wood." Another version of this excellent story makes Lord Mansfield
+inquire of the elder Elm, "Then how do you account for your prolonged
+tenure of existence?" to which question Elm is made to respond, more
+like a lawyer than a simple witness, "I account for it by the terms of
+the original lease."</p>
+
+<p>Few stories relating to witnesses are more laughable than that which
+describes the arithmetical process by which Mr. Baron Perrot arrived at
+the value of certain conflicting evidence. "Gentlemen of the jury," this
+judge is reported to have said, in summing up the evidence in a trial
+where the witnesses had sworn with noble tenacity of purpose, "there are
+fifteen witnesses who swear that the watercourse used to flow in a ditch
+on the north side of the hedge. On the other hand, gentlemen, there are
+nine witnesses who swear that the watercourse used to flow on the south
+side of the hedge. Now, gentlemen, if you subtract nine from fifteen,
+there remain six witnesses wholly uncontradicted; and I recommend you to
+give your verdict for the party who called those six witnesses."</p>
+
+<p>Whichever of the half-dozen ways in which it is told be accepted as the
+right one, the following story exemplifies the difficulty which
+occasionally arises in courts of justice, when witnesses use provincial
+terms with which the judge is not familiar. Mr. William Russell, in past
+days deputy-surveyor of 'canny Newcastle,' and a genuine Northumbrian in
+dialect, brogue, and shrewdness, was giving his evidence at an important
+trial in the Newcastle court-house, when he said&mdash;"As I was going along
+the quay, I saw a hubbleshew coming out of a chare-foot." Not aware that
+on Tyne-side the word 'hubbleshew' meant 'a concourse of riotous
+persons;' that the narrow alleys or lanes of Newcastle 'old town' were
+called by their inhabitants 'chares;' and that the lower end of each
+alley, where it opened upon quay-side, was termed a 'chare-foot;' the
+judge, seeing only one part of the puzzle, inquired the meaning of the
+word 'hubbleshew.' "A crowd of disorderly persons," answered the
+deputy-surveyor. "And you mean to say," inquired the judge of assize,
+with a voice and look of surprise, "that you saw a crowd of people come
+out of a chair-foot?" "I do, my lord," responded the witness.
+"Gentlemen of the jury," said his lordship, turning to the 'twelve good
+men' in the box, "it must be needless for me to inform you&mdash;<i>that this
+witness is insane</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>The report of a trial which occurred at Newcastle Assizes towards the
+close of the last century gives the following succession of questions
+and answers:&mdash;<i>Barrister.</i>&mdash;"What is your name?" <i>Witness.</i>&mdash;"Adam,
+sir&mdash;Adam Thompson." <i>Barrister.</i>&mdash;"Where do you live?" <i>Witness.</i>&mdash;"In
+Paradise." <i>Barrister</i> (with facetious tone).&mdash;"And pray, Mr. Adam, how
+long have you dwelt in Paradise?" <i>Witness.</i>&mdash;"Ever since the flood."
+Paradise is the name of a village in the immediate vicinity of
+Newcastle; and 'the flood' referred to by the witness was the inundation
+(memorable in local annals) of the Tyne, which in the year 1771 swept
+away the old Tyne Bridge.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIII" id="CHAPTER_XLIII"></a>CHAPTER XLIII.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>CIRCUITEERS.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>Exposed to some of the discomforts, if not all the dangers,<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> of
+travel; required to ride over black and cheerless tracts of moor and
+heath: now belated in marshy districts, and now exchanging shots with
+gentlemen of the road; sleeping, as luck favored them, in way-side
+taverns, country mansions, or the superior hotels of provincial
+towns&mdash;the circuiteers of olden time found their advantage in
+cultivating social hilarity and establishing an etiquette that
+encouraged good-fellowship in their itinerant societies. At an early
+date they are found varying the monotony of cross-country rides with
+racing-matches and drinking bouts, cock-fights and fox-hunting; and
+enlivening assize towns and country houses with balls and plays, frolic
+and song. A prodigious amount of feasting was perpetrated on an ordinary
+circuit-round of the seventeenth century; and at circuit-messes, judges'
+dinners, and sheriffs' banquets, saucy juniors were allowed a license of
+speech to staid leaders and grave dignitaries that was altogether
+exceptional to the prevailing tone of manners.</p>
+
+<p>In the days when Chief Justice Hyde, Clarendon's cousin, used to ride
+the Norfolk Circuit, old Sergeant Earl was the leader, or, to use the
+slang of the period, 'cock of the round'. A keen, close-fisted, tough
+practitioner, this sergeant used to ride from town to town, chuckling
+over the knowledge that he was earning more and spending less than any
+other member of the circuit. One biscuit was all the refreshment which
+he permitted himself on the road from Cambridge to Norwich; although he
+consented to dismount at the end of every ten miles to stretch his
+limbs. Sidling up to Sergeant Earl, as there was no greater man for him
+to toady, Francis North offered himself as the old man's travelling
+companion from the university to the manufacturing town; and when Earl
+with a grim smile accepted the courteous suggestion, the young man
+congratulated himself. On the following morning, however, he had reason
+to question his good fortune when the sergeant's clerk brought him a
+cake, and remarked, significantly, "Put it in your pocket, sir; you'll
+want it; for my master won't draw bit till he comes to Norwich." It was
+a hard day's work; but young Frank North was rewarded for his civility
+to the sergeant, who condescended to instruct his apt pupil in the
+tricks and chicaneries of their profession. "Sir," inquired North at the
+close of the excursion, emboldened by the rich man's affability, "by
+what system do you keep your accounts, which must be very complex, as
+you have lands, securities, and great comings-in of all kinds?"
+"Accounts! boy," answered the grey-headed curmudgeon; "I get as much as
+I can, and I spend as little as I can; that's how I keep my accounts."</p>
+
+<p>When North had raised himself to the Chiefship of the Common Pleas he
+chose the Western Circuit, "not for the common cause, it being a long
+circuit, and beneficial for the officers and servants, but because he
+knew the gentlemen to be loyal and conformable, and that he should have
+fair quarter amongst them;" and so much favor did he win amongst the
+loyal and conformable gentry that old Bishop Mew&mdash;the prelate of
+Winchester, popularly known as Bishop <i>Patch</i>, because he always wore a
+patch of black court-plaster over the scar of a wound which he received
+on one of his cheeks, whilst fighting as a trooper for Charles I.&mdash;used
+to term him the "Delici&aelig; occidentis, or Darling of the West." On one
+occasion this Darling of the West was placed in a ludicrous position by
+the alacrity with which he accepted an invitation from "a busy fanatic,"
+a Devonshire gentleman, of good family, and estate, named Duke. This
+"busy fanatic" invited the judges on circuit and their officers to dine
+and sleep at his mansion on their way to Exeter, and subsequently
+scandalized his guests&mdash;all of them of course zealous defenders of the
+Established Church&mdash;by reading family-prayers before supper. "The
+gentleman," says the historian, "had not the manners to engage the
+parish minister to come and officiate with any part of the evening
+service before supper: but he himself got behind the table in his hall,
+and read a chapter, and then a long-winded prayer, after the
+Presbyterian way." Very displeased were the Chief Justice and the other
+Judge of Assize; and their dissatisfaction was not diminished on the
+following day when on entering Exeter a rumor met them, that "the judges
+had been at a conventicle, and the grand jury intended to present them
+and all their retinue for it."</p>
+
+<p>Not many years elapsed before this Darling of the West was replaced, by
+another Chief Justice who asserted the power of constituted authorities
+with an energy that roused more fear than gratitude in the breasts of
+local magistrates. That grim, ghastly, hideous progress, which Jeffreys
+made in the plenitude of civil and military power through the Western
+Counties, was not without its comic interludes; and of its less
+repulsive scenes none was more laughable than that which occurred in
+Bristol Courthouse when the terrible Chief Justice upbraided the Bristol
+magistrates for taking part in a slave-trade of the most odious sort.
+The mode in which the authorities of the western port carried on their
+iniquitous traffic deserves commemoration, for no student can understand
+the history of any period until he has acquainted himself with its
+prevailing morality. At a time when by the wealth of her merchants and
+the political influence of her inhabitants Bristol was the second city
+of England, her mayor and aldermen used daily to sit in judgment on
+young men and growing boys, who were brought before them and charged
+with trivial offences. Some of the prisoners had actually broken the
+law: but in a large proportion of the cases the accusations were totally
+fictitious&mdash;the arrests having been made in accordance with the
+directions of the magistrates, on charges which the magistrates
+themselves knew to be utterly without foundation. Every morning the
+Bristol tolsey or court-house saw a crowd of those wretched
+captives&mdash;clerks out of employment, unruly apprentices, street boys
+without parents, and occasionally children of honest birth, ay, of
+patrician lineage, whose prompt removal from their native land was
+desired by brutal fathers or vindictive guardians; and every morning a
+mockery of judicial investigation was perpetrated in the name of
+justice. Standing in a crowd the prisoners were informed of the offences
+charged against them; huddled together in the dock, like cattle in a
+pen, they caught stray sentences from the lips of the perjured rascals
+who had seized them in the public ways; and whilst they thus in a frenzy
+of surprise and fear listened to the statements of counsel for the
+prosecution, and to the fabrications of lying witnesses, agents of the
+court whispered to them that if they wished to save their lives they
+must instantly confess their guilt, and implore the justices to
+transport them to the plantations. Ignorant, alarmed, and powerless, the
+miserable victims invariably acted on this perfidious counsel; and
+forthwith the magistrates ordered their shipment to the West Indies,
+where they were sold as slaves&mdash;the money paid for them by West India
+planters in due course finding its way into the pockets of the Bristol
+justices. It is asserted that the wealthier aldermen, through caution,
+or those few grains of conscience which are often found in the breasts
+of consummate rogues, forbore to share in the gains of this abominable
+traffic; but it cannot be gainsaid that the least guilty magistrates
+winked at the atrocious conduct of their brother-justices.</p>
+
+<p>Vowing vengeance on the Bristol kidnappers Jeffreys entered their
+court-house, and opened proceedings by crying aloud that "he had brought
+a broom to sweep them with." The Mayor of Bristol was in those days no
+common mayor; in Assize Commissions his name was placed before the
+names of Judges of Assize; and even beyond the limits of his
+jurisdiction he was a man of mark and influence. Great therefore was
+this dignitary's astonishment when Jeffreys ordered him&mdash;clothed as he
+was in official scarlet and furs&mdash;to stand in the dock. For a few
+seconds the local potentate demurred; but when the Chief Justice poured
+upon him a cataract of blasphemy, and vowed to hang him instantly over
+the entrance to the tolsey unless he complied immediately, the
+humiliated chief magistrate of the ancient borough took his place at the
+felon's bar, and received such a rating as no thief, murderer or rebel
+had ever heard from George Jeffrey's abusive mouth. Unfortunately the
+affair ended with the storm. Until the arrival of William of Orange the
+guilty magistrates were kept in fear of criminal prosecution; but the
+matter was hushed up and covered with amnesty by the new government; so
+that "the fright only, which was no small one, was all the punishment
+which these judicial kidnappers underwent; and the gains," says Roger
+North, "acquired by so wicked a trade, rested peacefully in their
+pockets." It should be remembered that the kidnapping justices whom the
+odious Jeffreys so indignantly denounced were tolerated and courted by
+their respectable and prosperous neighbors; and some of the worst
+charges, by which the judge's fame has been rendered odious to
+posterity, depend upon the evidence of men who, if they were not
+kidnappers themselves, saw nothing peculiarly atrocious in the conduct
+of magistrates who systematically sold their fellow-countrymen into a
+most barbarous slavery.</p>
+
+<p>Amongst old circuit stories of questionable truthfulness there is a
+singular anecdote recorded by the biographers of Chief Justice Hale,
+who, whilst riding the Western Circuit, tried a half-starved lad on a
+charges of burglary. The prisoner had been shipwrecked upon the Cornish
+coast, and on his way through an inhospitable district had endured the
+pangs of extreme hunger. In his distress, the famished wanderer broke
+the window of a baker's shop and stole a loaf of bread. Under the
+circumstances, Hale directed the jury to acquit the prisoner: but, less
+merciful than the judge, the gentlemen of the box returned a verdict of
+'Guilty'&mdash;a verdict which the Chief Justice stoutly refused to act upon.
+After much resistance, the jurymen were starved into submission; and the
+youth was set at liberty. Several years elapsed; and Chief Justice Hale
+was riding the Northern Circuit, when he was received with such costly
+and excessive pomp by the sheriff of a northern county, that he
+expostulated with his entertainer on the lavish profuseness of his
+conduct. "My lord," answered the sheriff, with emotion, "don't blame me
+for showing my gratitude to the judge who saved my life when I was an
+outcast. Had it not been for you, I should have been hanged in Cornwall
+for stealing a loaf, instead of living to be the richest landowner of my
+native county."</p>
+
+<p>A sketch of circuit-life in the middle of the last century may be found
+in 'A Northern Circuit, Described in a Letter to a Friend: a Poetical
+Essay. By a Gentleman of the Middle Temple. 1751.'&mdash;a piece of doggrel
+that will meet with greater mercy from the antiquary than the poetical
+critic.</p>
+
+<p>In seeking to avoid the customary exactions of their office, the
+sheriffs of the present generation were only following in the steps of
+sheriffs who, more than a century past, exerted themselves to reduce the
+expenses of shrievalties, and whose economical reforms were defended by
+reference to the conduct of sheriffs under the last of the Tudors.&mdash;In
+the days of Elizabeth, the sheriffs demanded and obtained relief from an
+obligation to supply judges on circuit, with food and lodging; under
+Victoria they have recently exclaimed against the custom which required
+them to furnish guards of javelin-bearers for the protection of Her
+Majesty's representatives; when George II. was king, they grumbled
+against lighter burdens&mdash;for instance, the cost of white kid-gloves and
+payments to bell-ringers. The sheriff is still required by custom to
+present the judges with white gloves whenever an assize has been held
+without a single capital conviction; but in past times, on every
+<i>maiden</i> assize, he was expected to give gloves not only to the judges,
+but to the entire body of circuiteers&mdash;barristers as well as officers of
+court.<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> Wishing to keep his official expenditure down to the lowest
+possible sum, a certain sheriff for Cumberland&mdash;called in 'A Northern
+Circuit,' Sir Frigid Gripus Knapper&mdash;directed his under-sheriff not to
+give white gloves on the occasion of a maiden assize at Carlisle, and
+also through the mouth of his subordinate, declined to pay the officers
+of the circuit certain customary fees. To put the innovator to shame,
+Sir William Gascoigne, the judge before whom the case was laid, observed
+in open court, "Though I can compel an immediate payment, it being a
+demand of right, and not a mere gift, yet I will set him an example by
+gifts which I might refuse, but will not, because they are customary,"
+and forthwith addressing the steward, added&mdash;"Call the sheriff's
+coachman, his pages, and musicians, singing-boys, and vergers, and give
+them the accustomed gifts as soon as the sheriff comes." From this
+direction, readers may see that under the old system of presents a judge
+was compelled to give away with his left hand much of that which he
+accepted with his right. It appears that Sir William Gascoigne's conduct
+had the desired effect; for as soon as the sheriff made his appearance,
+he repudiated the parsimonious conduct of the under-sheriff&mdash;though it
+is not credible that the subordinate acted without the direction or
+concurrence of his superior. "I think it," observed the sheriff, in
+reference to the sum of the customary payments, "as much for the honor
+of my office, and the country in general, as it is justice to those to
+whom it is payable; and if any sheriff has been of a different opinion
+it shall never bias me."</p>
+
+<p>From the days when Alexander Wedderburn, in his new silk gown, to the
+scandal of all sticklers for professional etiquette, made a daring but
+futile attempt to seize the lead of the circuit which seventeen years
+later he rode as judge, 'The Northern' had maintained the <i>prestige</i> of
+being the most important of the English circuits. Its palmiest and most
+famous days belong to the times of Norton and Wallace, Jack Lee and John
+Scott, Edward Law and Robert Graham; but still amongst the wise white
+heads of the upper house may be seen at times the mobile features of an
+aged peer who, as Mr. Henry Brougham, surpassed in eloquence and
+intellectual brilliance the brightest and most celebrated of his
+precursors on the great northern round. But of all the great men whose
+names illustrate the annals of the circuit, Lord Eldon is the person
+most frequently remembered in connexion with the jovial ways of
+circuiteers in the old time. In his later years the port-loving earl
+delighted to recall the times when as Attorney General of the Circuit
+Grand Court he used to prosecute offenders 'against the peace of our
+Lord the Junior,' devise practical jokes for the diversion of the bar,
+and over bowls of punch at York, Lancaster, or Kirkby Lonsdale, argue
+perplexing questions about the morals of advocacy. Just as John
+Campbell, thirty years later, used to recount with glee how in the mock
+courts of the Oxford Circuit he used to officiate as crier, "holding a
+fire-shovel in his hand as the emblem of his office;" so did old Lord
+Eldon warm with mirth over recollections of his circuit revelries and
+escapades. Many of his stories were apocryphal, some of them
+unquestionably spurious; but the least truthful of them contained an
+element of pleasant reality. Of course Jemmy Boswell, a decent lawyer,
+though better biographer, was neither duped by the sham brief, nor
+induced to apply in court for the writ of 'quare adhaesit pavimento;'
+but it is quite credible that on the morning after his removal in a
+condition of vinous prostration from the Lancaster flagstones, his
+jocose friends concocted the brief, sent it to him with a bad guinea,
+and proclaimed the success of their device. When the chimney-sweeper's
+boy met his death by falling from a high gallery to the floor of the
+court-house at the York Assizes, whilst Sir Thomas Davenport was
+speaking, it was John Scott who&mdash;arguing that the orator's dullness had
+sent the boy to sleep, and so caused his fatal fall&mdash;prosecuted Sir
+Thomas for murder in the High Court, alleging in the indictment that the
+death was produced by a "certain blunt instrument of <i>no value</i>, called
+a <i>long speech</i>." The records of the Northern Circuit abound with
+testimony to the hearty zeal with which the future Chancellor took part
+in the proceedings of the Grand Court&mdash;paying fines and imposing them
+with equal readiness, now upholding with mock gravity the high and
+majestic character of the presiding judge, and at another time
+inveighing against the levity and indecorum of a learned brother who had
+maintained in conversation that "no man would be such a&mdash;&mdash;fool as to go
+to a lawyer for advice who knew how to get on without it." The monstrous
+offender against religion and propriety who gave utterance to this
+execrable sentiment was Pepper Arden (subsequently Master of the Rolls
+and Lord Alvanley), and his punishment is thus recorded in the archives
+of the circuit:&mdash;"In this he was considered as doubly culpable, in the
+first place as having offended, against the laws of Almighty God by his
+profane cursing; for which, however, he made a very sufficient atonement
+by paying a bottle of claret; and secondly, as having made use of an
+expression which, if it should become a prevailing opinion, might have
+the most alarming consequences to the profession, and was therefore
+deservedly considered in a far more hideous light. For the last offence
+he was fin'd 3 bottles. Pd."</p>
+
+<p>One of the most ridiculous circumstances over which the Northern Circuit
+men of the last generation delighted to laugh occurred at Newcastle,
+when Baron Graham&mdash;the poor lawyer, but a singularly amiable and placid
+man, of whom Jeckyll observed, "no one but his sempstress could ruffle
+him"&mdash;rode the circuit, and was immortalized as 'My Lord 'Size,' in Mr.
+John Shield's capital song&mdash;</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+"The jailor, for trial had brought up a thief,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whose looks seemed a passport for Botany Bay;</span><br />
+The lawyers, some with and some wanting a brief,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Around the green table were seated so gay;</span><br />
+Grave jurors and witnesses waiting a call;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Attorneys and clients, more angry than wise;</span><br />
+With strangers and town-people, throng'd the Guildhall,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">All watching and gaping to see my Lord 'Size.</span><br />
+<br />
+"Oft stretch'd were their necks, oft erected their ears,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Still fancying they heard of the trumpets the sound,</span><br />
+When tidings arriv'd, which dissolv'd them in tears,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That my lord at the dead-house was then lying drown'd.</span><br />
+Straight left <i>t&ecirc;te-a-t&ecirc;te</i> were the jailor and thief;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The horror-struck crowd to the dead-house quick hies;</span><br />
+Ev'n the lawyers, forgetful of fee and of brief,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Set off helter-skelter to view my Lord 'Size.</span><br />
+<br />
+"And now the Sandhill with the sad tidings rings,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the tubs of the taties are left to take care;</span><br />
+Fishwomen desert their crabs, lobsters, and lings,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And each to the dead-house now runs like a hare;</span><br />
+The glassmen, some naked, some clad, heard the news,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And off they ran, smoking like hot mutton pies;</span><br />
+Whilst Castle Garth tailors, like wild kangaroos,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Came tail-on-end jumping to see my Lord 'Size.</span><br />
+<br />
+"The dead-house they reach'd, where his lordship they found,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pale, stretch'd on a plank, like themselves out of breath,</span><br />
+The coroner and jury were seated around,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Most gravely enquiring the cause of his death.</span><br />
+No haste did they seem in, their task to complete,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Aware that from hurry mistakes often rise;</span><br />
+Or wishful, perhaps, of prolonging the treat<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of thus sitting in judgment upon my Lord 'Size.</span><br />
+<br />
+"Now the Mansion House butler, thus gravely deposed:&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'My lord on the terrace seem'd studying his charge</span><br />
+And when (as I thought) he had got it compos'd,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He went down the stairs and examined the barge;</span><br />
+First the stem he surveyed, then inspected the stern,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then handled the tiller, and looked mighty wise;</span><br />
+But he made a false step when about to return,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And souse in the river straight tumbled Lord 'Size.'</span><br />
+<br />
+"'Now his narrative ended, the butler retir'd,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whilst Betty Watt, muttering half drunk through her teeth,</span><br />
+Declar'd 'in her breast great consarn it inspir'd,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That my lord should sae cullishly come by his death;'</span><br />
+Next a keelman was called on, Bold Airchy by name,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who the book as he kissed showed the whites of his eyes,</span><br />
+Then he cut an odd caper attention to claim,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And this evidence gave them respecting Lord 'Size;&mdash;</span><br />
+<br />
+"Aw was settin' the keel, wi' Dick Slavers an' Matt,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">An' the Mansion House stairs we were just alongside,</span><br />
+When we a' three see'd somethin', but didn't ken what,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That was splashin' and labberin', aboot i' the tide.</span><br />
+'It's a fluiker,' ki Dick; 'No,' ki Matt, 'its owre big,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">It luik'd mair like a skyet when aw furst seed it rise;'</span><br />
+Kiv aw&mdash;for aw'd getten a gliff o' the wig&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Ods marcy! wey, marrows, becrike, it's Lord 'Size.</span><br />
+<br />
+"'Sae aw huik'd him, an' haul'd him suin into the keel,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">An' o' top o' the huddock aw rowl'd him aboot;</span><br />
+An' his belly aw rubb'd, an' aw skelp'd his back weel,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But the water he'd druck'n it wadn't run oot;</span><br />
+So aw brought him ashore here, an' doctor's, in vain,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Furst this way, then that, to recover him tries;</span><br />
+For ye see there he's lyin' as deed as a stane,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">An' that's a' aw can tell ye aboot my Lord 'Size.'</span><br />
+<br />
+"Now the jury for close consultation retir'd:<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Some '<i>Death Accidental</i>' were willing to find;</span><br />
+'God's Visitation' most eager requir'd;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And some were for 'Fell in the River' inclin'd;</span><br />
+But ere on their verdict they all were agreed,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My Lord gave a groan, and wide opened his eyes;</span><br />
+Then the coach and the trumpeters came with great speed,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And back to the Mansion House carried Lord 'Size."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Amongst memorable Northern Circuit worthies was George Wood, the
+celebrated Special Pleader, in whose chambers Law, Erskine, Abbott and a
+mob of eminent lawyers acquired a knowledge of their profession. It is
+on record that whilst he and Mr. Holroyde were posting the Northern
+round, they were accosted on a lonely heath by a well-mounted horseman,
+who reining in his steed asked the barrister "What o'clock it was?"
+Favorably impressed by the stranger's appearance and tone of voice, Wood
+pulled out his valuable gold repeater, when the highwayman presenting a
+pistol, and putting it on the cock, said coolly, "<i>As you have</i> a watch,
+be kind enough to give it me, so that I may not have occasion to trouble
+you again about the time." To demur was impossible; the lawyer,
+therefore, who had met his disaster by <i>going to the country</i>, meekly
+submitted to circumstances and surrendered the watch. For the loss of an
+excellent gold repeater he cared little, but he winced under the banter
+of his professional brethren, who long after the occurrence used to
+smile with malicious significance as they accosted him with&mdash;"What's the
+time, Wood?"</p>
+
+<p>Another of the memorable Northern circuiteers was John Hullock, who,
+like George Wood, became a baron of the Exchequer, and of whom the
+following story is told on good authority. In an important cause tried
+upon the Northern Circuit, he was instructed by the attorney who
+retained him as leader on one side not to produce a certain deed unless
+circumstances made him think that without its production his client
+would lose the suit. On perusing the deed entrusted to him with this
+remarkable injunction, Hullock saw that it established his client's
+case, and wishing to dispatch the business with all possible
+promptitude, he produced the parchment before its exhibition was
+demanded by necessity. Examination instantly detected the spurious
+character of the deed, which had been fabricated by the attorney. Of
+course the presiding judge (Sir John Bayley) ordered the deed to be
+impounded; but before the order was carried out, Mr. Hullock obtained
+permission to inspect it again. Restored to his hands, the deed was
+forthwith replaced in his bag. "You must surrender that deed instantly,"
+exclaimed the judge, seeing Hullock's intention to keep it. "My lord,"
+returned the barrister, warmly, "no power on earth shall induce me to
+surrender it. I have incautiously put the life of a fellow-creature in
+peril; and though I acted to the best of my discretion, I should never
+be happy again were a fatal result to ensue." At a loss to decide on the
+proper course of action, Mr. Justice Bayley retired from court to
+consult with his learned brother. On his lordship's reappearance in
+court, Mr. Hullock&mdash;who had also left the court for a brief period&mdash;told
+him that during his absence the forged deed had been destroyed. The
+attorney escaped; the barrister became a judge.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Lord Eldon, when he was handsome Jack Scott of the
+Northern Circuit, was about to make a short cut over the sands from
+Ulverstone to Lancaster at the of the tide, when he was restrained from
+acting on his rash resolve by the representations of an hotel keeper.
+"Danger, danger," asked Scott, impatiently&mdash;"have you ever <i>lost</i>
+anybody there?" Mine host answered slowly, "Nae, sir, nae body has been
+<i>lost</i> on the sands, <i>the puir bodies have been found at low water</i>."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> With regard to the customary gifts of white gloves Mr.
+Foss says:&mdash;"Gloves were presented to the judges on some occasions:
+viz., when a man, convicted for murder, or manslaughter, came and
+pleaded the king's pardon; and, till the Act of 4 &amp; 5 William and Mary
+c. 18, which rendered personal appearance unnecessary, an outlawry could
+not be reversed, unless the defendant came into court, and with a
+present of gloves to the judges implored their favor to reverse it. The
+custom of giving the judge a pair of white gloves upon a maiden assize
+has continued till the present time." An interesting chapter might be
+written on the ancient ceremonies and usages obsolete and extant, of our
+courts of law. Here are a few of the practices which such a chapter
+would properly notice:&mdash;The custom, still maintained, which forbids the
+Lord Chancellor to utter any word or make any sign, when on Lord Mayor's
+Day the Lord Mayor of London enters the Court of Chancery, and by the
+mouth of the Recorder prays his lordship to honor the Guildhall banquet
+with his presence; the custom&mdash;extant so late as Lord Brougham's
+Chancellorship&mdash;which required the Holder of the Seals, at the
+installation of a new Master of Chancery, to install the new master by
+placing a cap or hat on his head; the custom which in Charles II.'s
+time, on motion days at the Chancellor's, compelled all barristers
+making motions to contribute to his lordship's 'Poor's Box'&mdash;barristers
+within the bar paying two shillings, and outer barristers one
+shilling&mdash;the contents of which box were periodically given to
+magistrates, for distribution amongst the deserving poor of London; the
+custom which required a newly-created judge to present his colleagues
+with biscuits and wine; the barbarous custom which compelled prisoners
+to plead their defence, standing in fetters, a custom enforced by Chief
+Justice Pratt at the trial of the Jacobite against Christopher Layer,
+although at the of trial of Cranburne for complicity in the
+'Assassination Plot,' Holt had enunciated the merciful maxim, "When the
+prisoners are tried they should stand at ease;" the custom which&mdash;in
+days when forty persons died of gaol fever caught at the memorable Black
+Sessions (May, 1759) at the Old Bailey, when Captain Clark was tried for
+killing Captain Innes in a duel&mdash;strewed rue, fennel, and other herbs on
+the ledge of the dock, in the faith that the odor of the herbage would
+act as a barrier to the poisonous exhalations from prisoners sick of
+gaol distemper, and would protect the assembly in the body of the court
+from the contagion of the disease.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIV" id="CHAPTER_XLIV"></a>CHAPTER XLIV.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>LAWYERS AND SAINTS.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>Notwithstanding the close connexion which in old times existed between
+the Church and the Law, popular sentiment holds to the opinion that the
+ways of lawyers are far removed from the ways of holiness, and that the
+difficulties encountered by wealthy travellers on the road to heaven are
+far greater with rich lawyers than with any other class of rich men. An
+old proverb teaches that wearers of the long robe never reach paradise
+<i>per saltum</i>, but 'by slow degrees;' and an irreverent ballad supports
+the vulgar belief that the only attorney to be found on the celestial
+rolls gained admittance to the blissful abode more by artifice than
+desert. The ribald broadside runs in the following style:&mdash;-</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+"Professions will abuse each other;<br />
+The priests won't call the lawyer brother;<br />
+While <i>Salkeld</i> still beknaves the parson,<br />
+And says he cants to keep the farce on.<br />
+Yet will I readily suppose<br />
+They are not truly bitter foes,<br />
+But only have their pleasant jokes,<br />
+And banter, just like other folks.<br />
+And thus, for so they quiz the law,<br />
+Once on a time th' Attorney Flaw,<br />
+A man to tell you, as the fact is,<br />
+Of vast chicane, of course of practice;<br />
+(But what profession can we trace<br />
+Where none will not the corps disgrace?<br />
+Seduced, perhaps, by roguish client,<br />
+Who tempt him to become more pliant),<br />
+A notice had to quit the world,<br />
+And from his desk at once was hurled.<br />
+Observe, I pray, the plain narration:<br />
+'Twas in a hot and long vacation,<br />
+When time he had but no assistance.<br />
+Tho' great from courts of law the distance,<br />
+To reach the court of truth and justice<br />
+(Where I confess my only trust is);<br />
+Though here below the special pleader<br />
+Shows talents worthy of a leader,<br />
+Yet his own fame he must support,<br />
+Be sometimes witty with the court<br />
+Or word the passion of a jury<br />
+By tender strains, or full of fury;<br />
+Misleads them all, tho' twelve apostles,<br />
+While with the new law the judge he jostles,<br />
+And makes them all give up their powers<br />
+To speeches of at least three hours&mdash;<br />
+But we have left our little man,<br />
+And wandered from our purpos'd plan:<br />
+'Tis said (without ill-natured leaven)<br />
+"If ever lawyers get to heaven,<br />
+It surely is by slow degrees"<br />
+(Perhaps 'tis slow they take their fees).<br />
+The case, then, now I fairly state:<br />
+Flaw reached at last to heaven's high gate;<br />
+Quite short he rapped, none did it neater;<br />
+The gate was opened by St. Peter,<br />
+Who looked astonished when he saw,<br />
+All black, the little man of law;<br />
+But charity was Peter's guide.<br />
+For having once himself denied<br />
+His master, he would not o'erpass<br />
+The penitent of any class;<br />
+Yet never having heard there entered<br />
+A lawyer, nay, nor ever ventured<br />
+Within the realms of peace and love,<br />
+He told him mildly to remove,<br />
+And would have closed the gate of day,<br />
+Had not old Flaw, in suppliant way,<br />
+Demurring to so hard a fate,<br />
+Begg'd but a look, tho' through the gate.<br />
+St. Peter, rather off his guard,<br />
+Unwilling to be thought too hard,<br />
+Opens the gate to let him peep in.<br />
+What did the lawyer? Did he creep in?<br />
+Or dash at once to take possession?<br />
+Oh no, he knew his own profession:<br />
+He took his hat off with respect,<br />
+And would no gentle means neglect;<br />
+But finding it was all in vain<br />
+For him admittance to obtain,<br />
+Thought it were best, let come what will,<br />
+To gain an entry by his skill.<br />
+So while St. Peter stood aside,<br />
+To let the door be opened wide,<br />
+He skimmed his hat with all his strength<br />
+Within the gate to no small length.<br />
+St. Peter stared; the lawyer asked him<br />
+"Only to fetch his hat," and passed him;<br />
+But when he reached the jack he'd thrown,<br />
+Oh, then was all the lawyer shown;<br />
+He clapt it on, and arms akembo<br />
+(As if he had been the gallant Bembo),<br />
+Cry'd out&mdash;'What think you of my plan?<br />
+Eject me, Peter, if you can.'"<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>The celestial courts having devised no process of ejectment that could
+be employed in this unlooked-for emergency, St. Peter hastily withdrew
+to take counsel's opinion; and during his absence Mr. Flaw firmly
+established himself in the realms of bliss, where he remains to this day
+the black sheep of the saintly family.</p>
+
+<p>But though a flippant humorist in these later times could deride the
+lawyer as a character who had better not force his way into heaven,
+since he would not find a single personal acquaintance amongst its
+inhabitants, in more remote days lawyers achieved the honors of
+canonization, and our forefathers sought their saintly intercession with
+devout fervor. Our calendars still regard the 15th of July as a sacred
+day, in memory of the holy Swithin, who was tutor to King Ethelwulf and
+King Alfred, and Chancellor of England, and who certainly deserved his
+elevation to the fellowship of saints, even had his title to the honor
+rested solely on a remarkable act which he performed in the exercise of
+his judicial functions. A familiar set of nursery rhymes sets forth the
+utter inability of all the King's horses and men to reform the shattered
+Humpty-Dumpty, when his rotund highness had fallen from a wall; but when
+a wretched market-woman, whose entire basketful of new-laid eggs had
+been wilfully smashed by an enemy, sought in her trouble the aid of
+Chancery, the holy Chancellor Swithin miraculously restored each broken
+shell to perfect shape, each yolk to soundness. Saith William of
+Malmesbury, recounting this marvellous achievement&mdash;"statimque porrecto
+crucis signo, fracturam omnium ovorum consolidat."</p>
+
+<p>Like Chancellor Swithin before him, and like Chancellor Wolsey in a
+later time, Chancellor Becket was a royal tutor;<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> and like Swithin,
+who still remains the pluvious saint of humid England, and unlike
+Wolsey, who just missed the glory of canonization, Becket became a
+widely venerated saint. But less kind to St. Thomas of Canterbury than
+to St. Swithin, the Reformation degraded Becket from the saintly rank by
+the decision which terminated the ridiculous legal proceedings
+instituted by Henry VIII. against the holy reputation of St. Thomas.
+After the saint's counsel had replied to the Attorney-General, who, of
+course, conducted the cause for the crown, the court declared that
+"Thomas, sometime Archbishop of Canterbury, had been guilty of
+contumacy, treason and rebellion; that his bones should be publicly
+burnt, to admonish the living of their duty by the punishment of the
+dead; and that the offerings made at his shrine should be forfeited to
+the crown."</p>
+
+<p>After the conclusion of the suit for the saint's degradation&mdash;a suit
+which was an extravagant parody of the process for establishing at Rome
+a holy man's title to the honors of canonization&mdash;proclamation was made
+that "forasmuch as it now clearly appeared that Thomas Becket had been
+killed in a riot excited by his own obstinacy and intemperate language,
+and had been afterwards canonized by the Bishop of Rome as the champion
+of his usurped authority, the king's majesty thought it expedient to
+declare to his loving subjects that he was no saint, but rather a rebel
+and traitor to his prince, and therefore strictly charged and commanded
+that he should not be esteemed or called a saint; that all images and
+pictures of him should be destroyed, the festivals in his honor be
+abolished, and his name and remembrance be erased out of all books,
+under pain of his majesty's indignation and imprisonment at his grace's
+pleasure."</p>
+
+<p>But neither St. Swithin nor St. Thomas of Canterbury, lawyers though
+they were, deigned to take the legal profession under especial
+protection, and to mediate with particular officiousness between the
+long robe and St. Peter. The peculiar saint of the profession was St.
+Evona, concerning whom Carr, in his 'Remarks of the Government of the
+Severall Parts of Germanie, Denmark, &amp;c.,' has the following passage:
+And now because I am speaking of Petty-foggers, give me leave to tell
+you a story I mett with when I lived in Rome. Goeing with a Romane to
+see some antiquityes, he showed me a chapell dedicated to St. Evona, a
+lawyer of Brittanie, who, he said, came to Rome to entreat the Pope to
+give the lawyers of Brittanie a patron, to which the Pope replied, that
+he knew of no saint but what was disposed to other professions. At which
+Evona was very sad, and earnestly begd of the Pope to think of one for
+him. At last the Pope proposed to St. Evona that he should go round the
+church of St. John de Latera blindfold, and after he had said so many
+Ave Marias, that the first saint he laid hold of should be his patron,
+which the good old lawyer willingly undertook, and at the end of his Ave
+Maryes he stopt at St. Michael's altar, where he layed hold of the
+Divell, under St. Michael's feet, and cry'd out, this is our saint, let
+him be our patron. So being unblindfolded, and seeing what a patron he
+had chosen, he went to his lodgings so dejected, that a few moneths
+after he died, and coming to heaven's gates knockt hard. Whereupon St.
+Peter asked who it was that knockt so bouldly. He replied that he was
+St. Evona the advocate. Away, away, said St. Peter, here is but one
+advocate in Heaven; here is no room for you lawyers. O but, said St.
+Evona, I am that honest lawyer who never tooke fees on both sides, or
+pleaded in a bad cause, nor did I ever set my Naibours together by the
+ears, or lived by the sins of the People. Well, then, said St. Peter,
+come in. This newes coming down to Rome, a witty poet wrote on St.
+Evona's tomb these words:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+'St. Evona un Briton,<br />
+Advocat non Larron.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Hallelujah.'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>This story put me in mind of Ben Jonson goeing throw a church in Surrey,
+seeing poore people weeping over a grave, asked one of the women why
+they wept. Oh, said shee, we have lost our pretious lawyer, Justice
+Randall; he kept us all in peace, and always was so good as to keep us
+from goeing to law; the best man ever lived. Well, said Ben Jonson, I
+will send you an epitaph to write upon his tomb, which was&mdash;</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+'God works wonders now and then,<br />
+Here lies a lawyer an honest man.'<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>An important vestige of the close relations which formerly existed
+between the Law and the Church is still found in the ecclesiastical
+patronage of the Lord Chancellor; and many are the good stories told of
+interviews that took place between our more recent chancellors and
+clergymen suing for preferment. "Who sent you, sir?" Thurlow asked
+savagely of a country curate, who had boldly forced his way into the
+Chancellor's library in Great Ormond Street, in the hope of winning the
+presentation to a vacant living. "In whose <i>name</i> do you come, that you
+venture to pester me about your private affairs? I say, sir&mdash;what great
+lords sent you to bother me in my house?" "My Lord," answered the
+applicant, with a happy combination of dignity and humor, "no great man
+supports my entreaty; but I may say with honesty, that I come to you in
+the name of the Lord of Hosts." Pleased by the spirit and wit of the
+reply, Thurlow exclaimed, "The Lord of Hosts! the Lord of Hosts! you are
+the first parson that ever applied to me in that Lord's name; and though
+his title can't be found in the Peerage, by &mdash;&mdash; you shall have the
+living." On another occasion the same Chancellor was less benign, but
+not less just to a clerical applicant. Sustained by Queen Charlotte's
+personal favor and intercession with Thurlow, the clergyman in question
+felt so sure of obtaining the valuable living which was the object of
+his ambition, that he regarded his interview with the Chancellor as a
+purely formal affair. "I have, sir," observed Lord Thurlow, "received a
+letter from the curate of the parish to which it is my intention to
+prefer you, and on inquiry I find him to be a very worthy man. The
+father of a large family, and a priest who has labored zealously in the
+parish for many years, he has written to me&mdash;not asking for the living,
+but modestly entreating me to ask the new rector to retain him as
+curate. Now, sir, you would oblige me by promising me to employ the poor
+man in that capacity." "My lord," replied Queen Charlotte's pastor, "it
+would give me great pleasure to oblige your lordship in this matter, but
+unfortunately I have arranged to take a personal friend for my curate."
+His eyes flashing angrily, Thurlow answered, "Sir, I cannot force you to
+take this worthy man for your curate, but I can make him the rector; and
+by &mdash;&mdash; he shall have the living, and be in a position to offer you the
+curacy."</p>
+
+<p>Of Lord Loughborough a reliable biographer records a pleasant and
+singular story. Having pronounced a decision in the House of Lords,
+which deprived an excellent clergyman of a considerable estate and
+reduced him to actual indigence, the Chancellor, before quitting the
+woolsack, addressed the unfortunate suitor thus:&mdash;"As a judge I have
+decided against you, whose virtues are not unknown to me; and in
+acknowledgment of those virtues I beg you to accept from me a
+presentation to a living now vacant, and worth &pound;600 per annum."</p>
+
+<p>Capital also are the best of many anecdotes concerning Eldon and his
+ecclesiastical patronage. Dating the letter from No. 2, Charlotte
+Street, Pimlico, the Chancellor's eldest son sent his father the
+following anonymous epistle:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+"Hear, generous lawyer! hear my prayer,<br />
+Nor let my freedom make, you stare,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">In hailing you Jack Scott!</span><br />
+Tho' now upon the woolsack placed,<br />
+With wealth, with power, with title graced,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Once</i> nearer was our lot.</span><br />
+<br />
+"Say by what name the hapless bard<br />
+May best attract your kind regard&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Plain Jack?&mdash;Sir John?&mdash;or Eldon?</span><br />
+Give from your ample store of giving,<br />
+A starving priest some little living&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">The world will cry out 'Well done.'</span><br />
+<br />
+"In vain, without a patron's aid,<br />
+I've prayed and preached, and preached and prayed&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Applauded</i> but <i>ill-fed</i>.</span><br />
+Such vain <i>&eacute;clat</i> let others share;<br />
+Alas, I cannot feed on air&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">I ask not <i>praise</i>, but <i>bread</i>."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Satisfactorily hoaxed by the rhymer, the Chancellor went to Pimlico in
+search of the clerical poetaster, and found him not.</p>
+
+<p>Prettier and less comic is the story of Miss Bridge's morning call upon
+Lord Eldon. The Chancellor was sitting in his study over a table of
+papers when a young and lovely girl&mdash;slightly rustic in her attire,
+slightly embarrassed by the novelty of her position, but thoroughly in
+command of her wits&mdash;entered the room, and walked up to the lawyer's
+chair. "My dear," said the Chancellor, rising and bowing with old-world
+courtesy, "who <i>are</i> you?" "Lord Eldon," answered the blushing maiden,
+"I am Bessie Bridge of Weobly, the daughter of the Vicar of Weobly, and
+papa has sent me to remind you of a promise which you made him when I
+was a little baby, and you were a guest in his house on the occasion of
+your first election as member of Parliament for Weobly." "A promise, my
+dear young lady?" interposed the Chancellor, trying to recall how he had
+pledged himself. "Yea, Lord Eldon, a promise. You were standing over my
+cradle when papa said to you, 'Mr. Scott, promise me that if ever you
+are Lord Chancellor, when my little girl is a poor clergyman's wife, you
+will give her husband a living;' and you answered, 'Mr. Bridge, my
+promise is not worth half-a-crown, but I give it to you, wishing it were
+worth more.'" Enthusiastically the Chancellor exclaimed, "You are quite
+right. I admit the obligation. I remember all about it;" and, then,
+after a pause, archly surveying the damsel, whose graces were the
+reverse of matronly, he added, "But surely the time for keeping my
+promise has not yet arrived? You cannot be any one's wife at present?"
+For a few seconds Bessie hesitated for an answer, and then, with a blush
+and a ripple of silver laughter she replied, "No, but I do so wish to be
+<i>somebody's</i> wife. I am engaged to a young clergyman; and there's a
+living in Herefordshire near my old home that has recently fallen
+vacant, and if you'll give it to Alfred, why then, Lord Eldon, we shall
+marry before the end of the year." Is there need to say that the
+Chancellor forthwith summoned his Secretary, that the secretary
+forthwith made out the presentation to Bessie's lover, and that having
+given the Chancellor a kiss of gratitude, Bessie made good speed back to
+Herefordshire, hugging the precious document the whole way home?</p>
+
+<p>A bad but eager sportsman, Lord Eldon used to blaze away at his
+partridges and pheasants with such uniform want of success that Lord
+Stowell had truth as well as humor on his side when he observed, "My
+brother has done much execution this shooting season; with his gun he
+has <i>killed a great deal of time</i>." Having ineffectually discharged two
+barrels at a covey of partridges, the Chancellor was slowly walking to
+the gate of one of his Encome turnip-fields when a stranger of clerical
+garb and aspect hailed him from a distance, asking, "Where is Lord
+Eldon?" Not anxious to declare himself to the witness of his ludicrously
+bad shot, the Chancellor answered evasively, and with scant courtesy,
+"Not far off." Displeased with the tone of this curt reply, the
+clergyman rejoined, "I wish you'd use your tongue to better purpose than
+you do your gun, and tell me civily where I can find the Chancellor."
+"Well," responded the sportsman, when he had slowly approached his
+questioner, "here you see the Chancellor&mdash;I am Lord Eldon." It was an
+untoward introduction to the Chancellor for the strange clergyman who
+had traveled from the North of Lancashire to ask for the presentation to
+a vacant living. Partly out of humorous compassion for the applicant who
+had offered rudeness, if not insult to the person whom he was most
+anxious to propitiate; partly because on inquiry he ascertained the
+respectability of the applicant; and partly because he wished to seal by
+kindness the lips of a man who could report on the authority of his own
+eyes that the best lawyer was also the worst shot in all England, Eldon
+gave the petitioner the desired preferment. "But now," the old
+Chancellor used to add in conclusion, whenever he told the story, "see
+the ingratitude of mankind. It was not long before a large present of
+game reached me, with a letter from my new-made rector, purporting that
+he had sent it to me, because <i>from what he had seen of my shooting he</i>
+supposed I must be badly off for game. Think of turning upon me in this
+way, and wounding me in my tenderest point."</p>
+
+<p>Amongst Eldon's humorous answers to applications for preferment should
+be remembered his letter to Dr. Fisher of the Charterhouse: on one side
+of a sheet of paper, "Dear Fisher, I cannot, to-day, give you the
+preferment for which you ask.&mdash;I remain your sincere friend,
+<span class="smcap">Eldon.</span>&mdash;<i>Turn over</i>;" and on the other side, "I gave it to you
+yesterday." This note reminds us of Erskine's reply to Sir John
+Sinclair's solicitation for a subscription to the testimonial which Sir
+John invited the nation to present to himself. On the one side of a
+sheet of paper it ran, "My dear Sir John, I am certain there are few in
+this kingdom who set a higher value on your services than myself, and I
+have the honor to subscribe," and on the other side it concluded,
+"myself your obedient faithful servant, <span class="smcap">Erskine</span>."</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> Swithin was tutor to Ethelwulf and Alfred. Becket was
+tutor to Henry II.'s eldest son. Wolsey&mdash;who took delight in discharging
+scholastic functions from the days when he birched schoolboys at
+Magdalen College, Oxford, till the time when in the plenitude of his
+grandeur he framed regulations for Dean Colet's school of St. Paul's and
+wrote an introduction to a Latin Grammar for the use of children&mdash;acted
+as educational director to the Princess Mary, and superintended the
+studies of Henry VIII.'s natural son, the Earl of Richmond. Amongst
+pedagogue-chancellors, by license of fancy, may be included the Earl of
+Clarendon, whose enemies used to charge him with 'playing the
+schoolmaster to his king,' and in their desire to bring him into
+disfavor at court used to announce his approach to Charles II. by
+saying, "Here comes your schoolmaster."</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="PART_IX" id="PART_IX"></a>PART IX.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'>AT HOME: IN COURT: AND IN SOCIETY.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLV" id="CHAPTER_XLV"></a>CHAPTER XLV.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>LAWYERS AT THEIR OWN TABLES.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>A long list, indeed, might be made of abstemious lawyers; but their
+temperance is almost invariably mentioned by biographers as matter for
+regret and apology, and is even made an occasion for reproach in cases
+where it has not been palliated by habits of munificent hospitality. In
+the catalogue of Chancellor Warham's virtues and laudable usages,
+Erasmus takes care to mention that the primate was accustomed to
+entertain his friends, to the number of two hundred at a time: and when
+the man of letters notices the archbishop's moderation with respect to
+wines and dishes&mdash;a moderation that caused his grace to eschew suppers,
+and never to sit more than an hour at dinner&mdash;he does not omit to
+observe that though the great man "made it a rule to abstain entirely
+from supper, yet if his friends were assembled at that meal he would sit
+down along with them and promote their conviviality."</p>
+
+<p>Splendid in all things, Wolsey astounded envious nobles by the
+magnificence of his banquets, and the lavish expenses of his kitchens,
+wherein his master-cooks wore raiment of richest materials&mdash;the <i>chef</i>
+of his private kitchen daily arraying himself in a damask-satin or
+velvet, and wearing on his neck a chain of gold. Of a far other kind
+were the tastes of Wolsey's successor, who, in the warmest sunshine of
+his power, preferred a quiet dinner with Erasmus to the pompous display
+of state banquets, and who wore a gleeful light in his countenance when,
+after his fall, he called his children and grandchildren about him, and
+said: "I have been brought up at Oxford, at an Inn of Chancery, at
+Lincoln's Inn, and in the King's Court&mdash;from the lowest degree to the
+highest, and yet have I in yearly revenues at this present, little left
+me above a hundred pounds by the year; so that now, if we wish to live
+together, you must be content to be contributaries together. But my
+counsel is that we fall not to the lowest fare first; we will not,
+therefore, descend to Oxford fare, nor to the fare of New Inn, but we
+will begin with Lincoln's Inn diet, where many right worshipful men of
+great account and good years do live full well; which if we find
+ourselves the first year not able to maintain, then will we in the next
+year come down to Oxford fare, where many great, learned, and ancient
+fathers and doctors are continually conversant; which if our purses
+stretch not to maintain neither, then may we after, with bag and wallet,
+go a-begging together, hoping that for pity some good folks will give us
+their charity and at every man's door to sing a <i>Salve Regina</i>, whereby
+we shall keep company and be merry together."</p>
+
+<p>Students recalling the social life of England should bear in mind the
+hours kept by our ancestors in the fourteenth and two following
+centuries. Under the Plantagenets noblemen used to sup at five
+<span class="smcap">P.M.</span>, and dine somewhere about the breakfast hour of Mayfair in
+a modern London season. Gradually hours became later; but under the
+Tudors the ordinary dinner hour for gentlepeople was somewhere about
+eleven <span class="smcap">A.M.</span>, and their usual time for supping was between five
+<span class="smcap">P.M.</span> and six <span class="smcap">P.M.</span>, tradesmen, merchants and farmers
+dining and supping at later hours than their social superiors. "With
+us," says Hall the chronicler, "the nobility, gentry, and students, do
+ordinarily go to dinner at eleven before noon, and to supper at five, or
+between five and six, at afternoon. The merchants dine and sup seldom
+before twelve at noon and six at night. The husbandmen also dine at high
+noon as they call it, and sup at seven or eight; but out of term in our
+universities the scholars dine at ten." Thus whilst the idlers of
+society made haste to eat and drink, the workers postponed the pleasures
+of the table until they had made a good morning's work. In the days of
+morning dinners and afternoon suppers, the law-courts used to be at the
+height of their daily business at an hour when Templars of the present
+generation have seldom risen from bed. Chancellors were accustomed to
+commence their daily sittings in Westminster at seven <span class="smcap">A.M.</span> in
+summer, and at eight <span class="smcap">A.M.</span> in winter months. Lord Keeper
+Williams, who endeavored to atone for want of law by extraordinarily
+assiduous attention to the duties of his office, used indeed to open his
+winter sittings by candlelight between six and seven o'clock.</p>
+
+<p>Many were the costly banquets of which successive Chancellors invited
+the nobility, the judges, and the bar, to partake at old York House; but
+of all the holders of the Great Seal who exercised pompous hospitality
+in that picturesque palace, Francis Bacon was the most liberal,
+gracious, and delightful entertainer. Where is the student of English
+history who has not often endeavored to imagine the scene when Ben
+Jonson sat amongst the honored guests of</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+"England's high Chancellor, the destin'd heir,<br />
+In his soft cradle, to his father's chair,"<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>and little prescient of the coming storm, spoke of his host as one</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+"Whose even thread the Fates spin round and full,<br />
+Out of their choicest and their whitest wool."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Even at the present day lawyers have reason to be grateful to Bacon for
+the promptitude with which, on taking possession of the Marble Chair, he
+revived the ancient usages of earlier holders of the seal, and set an
+example of courteous hospitality to the bar, which no subsequent
+Chancellor has been able to disregard without loss of respect and
+<i>prestige</i>. Though a short attack of gout qualified the new pleasure of
+his elevation&mdash;an attack attributed by the sufferer to his removal "from
+a field air to a Thames air," <i>i.e.</i>, from Gray's Inn to the south side
+of the Strand&mdash;Lord Keeper Bacon lost no time in summoning the judges
+and most eminent barristers to his table; and though the gravity of his
+indisposition, or the dignity of his office, forbade him to join in the
+feast, he sat and spoke pleasantly with them when the dishes had been
+removed. "Yesterday," he wrote to Buckingham, "which was my weary day, I
+bid all the judges to dinner, which was not used to be, and entertained
+them in a private withdrawing chamber with the learned counsel. When the
+feast was past I came amongst them and sat me down at the end of the
+table, and prayed them to think I was one of them, and but a foreman."
+Nor let us, whilst recalling Bacon's bounteous hospitalities, fail in
+justice to his great rival, Sir Edward Coke&mdash;-who, though he usually
+held himself aloof from frivolous amusements, and cared but little for
+expensive repasts, would with a liberal hand place lordly dishes before
+lordly guests; and of whom it is recorded in the 'Apophthegmes,' that
+when any great visitor dropped in upon him for pot-luck without notice
+he was wont to say, "Sir, since you sent me no notice of your coming,
+you must dine with me; but if I had known of it in due time I would have
+dined with you."</p>
+
+<p>From such great men as Lord Nottingham and Lord Guildford, who
+successively kept high state in Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, to
+fat <i>puisnes</i> occupying snug houses in close proximity to the Inns of
+Court, and lower downwards to leaders of the bar and juniors sleeping as
+well as working in chambers, the Restoration lawyers were conspicuous
+promoters of the hilarity which was one of the most prominent and least
+offensive characteristics of Charles II.'s London. Lord Nottingham's
+sumptuous hospitalities were the more creditable, because he voluntarily
+relinquished his claim to &pound;4000 per annum, which the royal bounty had
+assigned him as a fund to be expended in official entertainments.
+Similar praise cannot be awarded to Lord Guildford; but justice compels
+the admission that, notwithstanding his love of money, he maintained the
+<i>prestige</i> of his place, so far as a hospitable table and profuse
+domestic expenditure could support it.</p>
+
+<p>Contrasting strongly with the lawyers of this period, who copied in
+miniature the impressive state of Clarendon's princely establishments,
+were the jovial, catch-singing, three-bottle lawyers&mdash;who preferred
+drunkenness to pomp; an oaken table, surrounded by jolly fellows, to
+ante-rooms crowded with obsequious courtiers; a hunting song with a
+brave chorus to the less stormy diversion of polite conversation. Of
+these free-living lawyers, George Jeffreys was a conspicuous leader. Not
+averse to display, and not incapable of shining in refined society, this
+notorious man loved good cheer and jolly companions beyond all other
+sources of excitement; and during his tenure of the seals, he was never
+more happy than when he was presiding over a company of sharp-witted
+men-about-town whom he had invited to indulge in wild talk and choice
+wine at his mansion that overlooked the lawns, the water, and the trees
+of St. James's Park. On such occasions his lordship's most valued boon
+companion was Mountfort, the comedian, whom he had taken from the stage
+and made a permanent officer of the Duke Street household. Whether the
+actor was required to discharge any graver functions in the Chancellor's
+establishment is unknown; but we have Sir John Reresby's testimony that
+the clever mimic and brilliant libertine was employed to amuse his
+lordship's guests by ridiculing the personal and mental peculiarities of
+the judges and most eminent barristers. "I dined," records Sir John,
+"with the Lord Chancellor, where the Lord Mayor of London was a guest,
+and some other gentlemen. His lordship having, according to custom,
+drunk deep at dinner, called for one Mountfort, a gentleman of his, who
+had been a comedian, an excellent mimic; and to divert the company, as
+he was pleased to term it, he made him plead before him in a feigned
+cause, during which he aped the judges, and all the great lawyers of the
+age, in tone of voice and in action and gesture of body, to the very
+great ridicule, not only of the lawyers, but of the law itself, which to
+me did not seem altogether prudent in a man in his lofty station in the
+law; diverting it certainly was, but prudent in the Lord Chancellor I
+shall never think it." The fun of Mountfort's imitations was often
+heightened by the presence of the persons whom they held up to
+derision&mdash;some of whom would see and express natural displeasure at the
+affront; whilst others, quite unconscious of their own peculiarities,
+joined loudly in the laughter that was directed against themselves.</p>
+
+<p>As pet buffoon of the tories about town, Mountfort was followed, at a
+considerable distance of time, by Estcourt&mdash;an actor who united wit and
+fine humor with irresistible powers of mimicry; and who contrived to
+acquire the respect and affectionate regard of many of those famous
+Whigs whom it was alike his pleasure and his business to render
+ridiculous. In the <i>Spectator</i> Steele paid him a tribute of cordial
+admiration; and Cibber, noticing the marvellous fidelity of his
+imitations, has recorded, "This man was so amazing and extraordinary a
+mimic, that no man or woman, from the coquette to the privy counsellor,
+ever moved or spoke before him, but he could carry their voice, look,
+mien, and motion instantly into another company. I have heard him make
+long harangues, and form various arguments, even in the manner of
+thinking of an eminent pleader at the bar, with every the least article
+and singularity of his utterance so perfectly imitated, that he was the
+very <i>alter ipse</i>, scarce to be distinguished from the original."</p>
+
+<p>With the exception of Kenyon and Eldon, and one or two less conspicuous
+instances of judicial penuriousness, the judges of the Georgian period
+were hospitable entertainers. Chief Justice Lee, who died in 1754,
+gained credit for an adequate knowledge of law by the sumptuousness and
+frequency of the dinners with which he regaled his brothers of the bench
+and learned counsellors. Chief Justice Mansfield's habitual temperance
+and comparative indifference to the pleasures of the table did not cause
+him to be neglectful of hospitable duties. Notwithstanding the cold
+formality of Lord Hardwicke's entertainments, and the charges of
+niggardliness preferred against Lady Hardwicke's domestic system by
+Opposition satirists, Philip Yorke used to entertain the chiefs of his
+profession with pomp, if not with affability. Thurlow entertained a
+somewhat too limited circle of friends with English fare and a
+superabundance of choice port in Great Ormond Street. Throughout his
+public career, Alexander Wedderburn was a lavish and delightful host,
+amply atoning in the opinion of frivolous society for his political
+falsity by the excellence and number of his grand dinners. On entering
+the place of Solicitor-General, he spent &pound;8000 on a service of plate;
+and as Lord Loughborough he gratified the bar and dazzled the
+fashionable world by hospitality alike sumptuous and brilliant.</p>
+
+<p>Several of the Georgian lawyers had strong predilections for particular
+dishes or articles of diet. Thurlow was very fanciful about his fruit;
+and in his later years he would give way to ludicrous irritability, if
+inferior grapes or faulty peaches were placed before him. At Brighton,
+in his declining years, the ex-Chancellor's indignation at a dish of
+defective wall-fruit was so lively that&mdash;to the inexpressible
+astonishment of Horne Tooke and other guests&mdash;he caused the whole of a
+very fine dessert to be thrown out of the window upon the Marine Parade.
+Baron Graham's weakness was for oysters, eaten as a preparatory whet to
+the appetite before dinner; and it is recorded of him that on a certain
+occasion, when he had been indulging in this favorite pre-prandial
+exercise, he observed with pleasant humor&mdash;"Oysters taken before dinner
+are said to sharpen the appetite; but I have just consumed half-a-barrel
+of fine natives&mdash;and speaking honestly, I am bound to say that I don't
+feel quite as hungry as when I began." Thomas Manners Button's peculiar
+<i>penchant</i> was for salads; and in a moment of impulsive kindness he gave
+Lady Morgan the recipe for his favorite salad&mdash;a compound of rare merit
+and mysterious properties. Bitterly did the old lawyer repent his unwise
+munificence when he read 'O'Donnell.' Warmly displeased with the
+political sentiments of the novel, he ordered it to be burnt in the
+servants' hall, and exclaimed, peevishly, to Lady Manners, "I wish I
+had not given her the secret of my salad." In no culinary product did
+Lord Ellenborough find greater delight than lobster-sauce; and he gave
+expression to his high regard for that soothing and delicate compound
+when he decided that persons engaged in lobster-fishery were exempt from
+legal liability to impressment. "Then is not," inquired his lordship,
+with solemn pathos, "the lobster-fishery a fishery, and a most important
+fishery, of this kingdom, though carried on in shallow water? The
+framers of the law well knew that the produce of the deep sea, without
+the produce of the shallow water, would be of comparatively small value,
+and intended that turbot, when placed upon our tables, should be flanked
+by good lobster-sauce." Eldon's singular passion for fried 'liver and
+bacon' was amongst his most notorious and least pleasant peculiarities.
+Even the Prince Regent condescended to humor this remarkable taste by
+ordering a dish of liver and bacon to be placed on the table when the
+Chancellor dined with him at Brighton. Sir John Leach, Master of the
+Rolls, was however less ready to pander to a depraved appetite. Lord
+Eldon said, "It will give me great pleasure to dine with you, and since
+you are good enough to ask me to order a dish that shall test your new
+<i>chef's</i> powers&mdash;I wish you'd tell your Frenchman to fry some liver and
+bacon for me." "Are you laughing at me or my cook?" asked Sir John
+Leach, stiffly, thinking that the Chancellor was bent on ridiculing his
+luxurious mode of living. "At neither," answered Eldon, with equal
+simplicity and truth; "I was only ordering the dish which I enjoy beyond
+all other dishes."</p>
+
+<p>Although Eldon's penuriousness was grossly exaggerated by his
+detractors, it cannot be questioned that either through indolence, or
+love of money, or some other kind of selfishness, he was very neglectful
+of his hospitable duties to the bench and the bar. "Verily he is
+working off the arrears of the Lord Chancellor," said Romilly, when Sir
+Thomas Plummer, the Master of the Rolls, gave a succession of dinners to
+the bar; and such a remark would not have escaped the lips of the
+decorous and amiable Romilly had not circumstances fully justified it.
+Still it is unquestionable that Eldon's Cabinet dinners were suitably
+expensive; and that he never grudged his choicest port to the old
+attorneys and subordinate placemen who were his obsequious companions
+towards the close of his career. For the charges of sordid parsimony so
+frequently preferred against Kenyon it is to be feared there were better
+grounds. Under the steadily strengthening spell of avarice he ceased to
+invite even old friends to his table; and it was rumored that in course
+of time his domestic servants complained with reason that they were
+required to consume the same fare as their master deemed sufficient for
+himself. "In Lord Kenyon's house," a wit exclaimed, "all the year
+through it is Lent in the kitchen, and Passion Week in the Parlor."
+Another caustic quidnunc remarked, "In his lordship's kitchen the fire
+is dull, but the spits are always bright;" whereupon Jekyll interposed
+with an assumption of testiness, "Spits! in the name of common sense I
+order you not to talk about <i>his</i> spits, for nothing turns upon them."</p>
+
+<p>Very different was the temper of Erskine, who spent money faster than
+Kenyon saved it, and who died in indigence after holding the Great Seal
+of England, and making for many years a finer income at the bar than any
+of his contemporaries not enjoying crown patronage. Many are the bright
+pictures preserved to us of his hospitality to politicians and lawyers,
+wits, and people of fashion; but none of the scenes is more
+characteristic than the dinner described by Sir Samuel Romilly, when
+that good man met at Erskine's Hampstead villa the chiefs of the
+opposition and Mr. Pinkney, the American Minister. "Among the light,
+trifling topics of conversation after dinner," says Sir Samuel Romilly,
+"it may be worth while to mention one, as it strongly characterizes Lord
+Erskine. He has always expressed and felt a strong sympathy with
+animals. He has talked for years of a bill he was to bring into
+parliament to prevent cruelty towards them. He has always had some
+favorite animals to whom he has been much attached, and of whom all his
+acquaintance have a number of anecdotes to relate; a favorite dog which
+he used to bring, when he was at the bar, to all his consultations;
+another favorite dog, which, at the time when he was Lord Chancellor, he
+himself rescued in the street from some boys who were about to kill it
+under the pretence of its being mad; a favorite goose, which followed
+him wherever he walked about his grounds; a favorite macaw, and other
+dumb favorites without number. He told us now that he had got two
+favorite leeches. He had been blooded by them last autumn when he had
+been taken dangerously ill at Portsmouth; they had saved his life, and
+he had brought them with him to town, had ever since kept them in a
+glass, had himself every day given them fresh water, and had formed a
+friendship for them. He said he was sure they both knew him and were
+grateful to him. He had given them different names, 'Home' and 'Cline'
+(the names of two celebrated surgeons), their dispositions being quite
+different. After a good deal of conversation about them, he went
+himself, brought them out of his library, and placed them in their glass
+upon the table. It is impossible, however, without the vivacity, the
+tones, the details, and the gestures of Lord Erskine, to give an
+adequate idea of this singular scene." Amongst the listeners to Erskine,
+whilst he spoke eloquently and with fervor of the virtues of his two
+leeches, were the Duke of Norfolk, Lord Grenville, Lord Grey, Lord
+Holland, Lord Ellenborough, Lord Lauderdale, Lord Henry Petty, and
+Thomas Grenville.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLVI" id="CHAPTER_XLVI"></a>CHAPTER XLVI.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>WINE.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>From the time when Francis Bacon attributed a sharp attack of gout to
+his removal from Gray's Inn Fields to the river side, to a time not many
+years distant when Sir Herbert Jenner Fust<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> used to be brought into
+his court in Doctors' Commons and placed in the judicial seat by two
+liveried porters, lawyers were not remarkable for abstinence from the
+pleasures to which our ancestors were indebted for the joint-fixing,
+picturesque gout that has already become an affair of the past.
+Throughout the long period that lies between Charles II.'s restoration
+and George III.'s death, an English judge without a symptom of gout was
+so exceptional a character that people talked of him as an interesting
+social curiosity. The Merry Monarch made Clarendon's bedroom his
+council-chamber when the Chancellor was confined to his couch by
+<i>podagra</i>. Lord Nottingham was so disabled by gout, and what the old
+physicians were pleased to call a 'perversity of the humors,' that his
+duties in the House of Lords were often discharged by Francis North,
+then Chief Justice of the Common Pleas; and though he persevered in
+attending to the business of his court, a man of less resolution would
+have altogether succumbed to the agony of his disease and the burden of
+his infirmities. "I have known him," says Roger North, "sit to hear
+petitions in great pain, and say that his servants had let him out,
+though he was fitter for his chamber." Prudence saved Lord Guildford
+from excessive intemperance; but he lived with a freedom that would be
+remarkable in the present age. Chief Justice Saunders was a confirmed
+sot, taking nips of brandy with his breakfast, and seldom appearing in
+public "without a pot of ale at his nose or near him." Sir Robert Wright
+was notoriously addicted to wine; and George Jeffreys drank, as he
+swore, like a trooper. "My lord," said King Charles, in a significant
+tone, when he gave Jeffreys the <i>blood-stone</i> ring, "as it is a hot
+summer, and you are going the circuit, I desire you will not drink too
+much."</p>
+
+<p>Amongst the reeling judges of the Restoration, however, there moved one
+venerable lawyer, who, in an age when moralists hesitated to call
+drunkenness a vice, was remarkable for sobriety. In his youth, whilst he
+was indulging with natural ardor in youthful pleasures, Chief Justice
+Hale was so struck with horror at seeing an intimate friend drop
+senseless, and apparently lifeless, at a student's drinking-bout, that
+he made a sudden but enduring resolution to conquer his ebrious
+propensities, and withdraw himself from the dangerous allurements of
+ungodly company. Falling upon his knees he prayed the Almighty to
+rescue his friend from the jaws of death, and also to strengthen him to
+keep his newly-formed resolution. He rose an altered man. But in an age
+when the barbarous usage of toast-drinking was in full force, he felt
+that he could not be an habitually sober man if he mingled in society,
+and obeyed a rule which required the man of delicate and excitable
+nerves to drink as much, bumper for bumper, as the man whose sluggish
+system could receive a quart of spirits at a sitting and yet scarcely
+experience a change of sensation. At that time it was customary with
+prudent men to protect themselves against a pernicious and tyrannous
+custom, by taking a vow to abstain from toast-drinking, or even from
+drinking wine at all, for a certain stated period. Readers do not need
+to be reminded how often young Pepys was under a vow not to drink; and
+the device by which the jovial admiralty clerk strengthened an infirm
+will and defended himself against temptation was frequently employed by
+right-minded young men of his date. In some cases, instead of <i>vowing</i>
+not to drink, they <i>bound</i> themselves not to drink within a certain
+period; two persons, that is to say, agreeing that they would abstain
+from wine and spirits for a certain period, and each <i>binding</i> himself
+in case he broke the compact to pay over a certain sum of money to his
+partner in the bond. Young Hale saw that to effect a complete
+reformation of his life it was needful for him to abjure the practice of
+drinking healths. He therefore vowed <i>never again</i> to drink a health;
+and he kept his vow. Never again did he brim his bumper and drain it at
+the command of a toast-master, although his abstinence exposed him to
+much annoyance; and in his old age he thus urged his grandchildren to
+follow his example&mdash;"I will not have you begin or pledge any health, for
+it is become one of the greatest artifices of drinking, and occasions of
+quarrelling in the kingdom. If you pledge one health you oblige
+yourself to pledge another, and a third, and so onwards; and if you
+pledge as many as will be drunk, you must be debauched and drunk. If
+they will needs know the reason of your refusal, it is a fair answer,
+'that your grandfather that brought you up, from whom, under God, you
+have the estate you enjoy or expect, left this in command with you, that
+you should never begin or pledge a health.'"</p>
+
+<p>Jeffrey's <i>prot&eacute;g&eacute;</i>, John Trevor, liked good wine himself, but emulated
+the virtuous Hale in the pains which he took to place the treacherous
+drink beyond the reach of others&mdash;whenever they showed a desire to drink
+it at his expense. After his expulsion from the House of Commons, Sir
+John Trevor was sitting alone over a choice bottle of claret, when his
+needy kinsman, Roderic Lloyd, was announced. "You rascal," exclaimed the
+Master of the Rolls, springing to his feet, and attacking his footman
+with furious language, "you have brought my cousin, Roderic Lloyd,
+Esquire, Prothonotary of North Wales, Marshal to Baron Price, up my back
+stairs. You scoundrel, hear ye, I order you to take him this instant
+down my <i>back stairs</i>, and bring him up my <i>front stairs</i>." Sir John
+made such a point of showing his visitor this mark of respect, that the
+young barrister was forced to descend and enter the room by the state
+staircase; but he saw no reason to think himself honored by his cousin's
+punctilious courtesy, when on entering the room a second time he looked
+in vain for the claret bottle.</p>
+
+<p>On another occasion Sir John Trevor's official residence afforded
+shelter to the same poor relation when the latter was in great mental
+trouble. "Roderic," saith the chronicler, "was returning rather elevated
+from his club one night, and ran against the pump in Chancery Lane.
+Conceiving somebody had struck him, he drew and made a lunge at the
+pump. The sword entered the spout, and the pump, being crazy, fell
+down. Roderic concluded he had killed his man, left, his sword in the
+pump, and retreated to his old friend's house at the Rolls. There he was
+concealed by the servants for the night. In the morning his Honor,
+having heard the story, came himself to deliver him from his
+consternation and confinement in the coal-hole."</p>
+
+<p>Amongst the eighteenth century lawyers there was considerable difference
+of taste and opinion on questions relating to the use and abuse of wine.
+Though he never, or very seldom, exceeded the limits of sobriety, Somers
+enjoyed a bottle in congenial society; and though wine never betrayed
+him into reckless hilarity, it gave gentleness and comity to his
+habitually severe countenance and solemn deportment&mdash;if reliance may be
+placed on Swift's couplet&mdash;</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+"By force of wine even Scarborough is brave,<br />
+Hall grows more pert, and Somers not so grave."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>A familiar quotation that alludes to Murray's early intercourse with the
+wits warrants an inference that in opening manhood he preferred
+champagne to every other wine; but as Lord Mansfield he steadily adhered
+to claret, though fashion had taken into favor the fuller wine
+stigmatized as poison by John Home's famous epigram&mdash;</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+"Bold and erect the Caledonian stood;<br />
+Old was his mutton, and his claret good.<br />
+'Let him drink port,' an English statesman cried:<br />
+He drunk the poison and his spirit died."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Unlike his father, who never sinned against moderation in his cups,
+Charles Yorke was a deep drinker as well as a gourmand. Hardwicke's
+successor, Lord Northington, was the first of a line of
+port-wine-drinking judges that may at the present time be fairly said
+to have come to an end&mdash;although a few reverend fathers of the law yet
+remain, who drink with relish the Methuen drink when age has deprived it
+of body and strength. Until Robert Henley held the seals, Chancellors
+continued to hold after-dinner sittings in the Court of Chancery on
+certain days of the week throughout term. Hardwicke, throughout his long
+official career, sat on the evenings of Wednesdays and Fridays hearing
+causes, while men of pleasure were fuddling themselves with fruity
+vintages. Lord Northington, however, prevailed on George III. to let him
+discontinue these evening attendances in court. "But why," asked the
+monarch, "do you wish for a change?" "Sir," the Chancellor answered,
+with delightful frankness, "I want the change in order that I may finish
+my bottle of port at my ease; and your majesty, in your parental care
+for the happiness of your subjects, will, I trust, think this a
+sufficient reason." Of course the king's laughter ended in a favorable
+answer to the petition for reform, and from that time the Chancellor's
+evening sittings were discontinued. But ere he died, the jovial
+Chancellor paid the penalty which port exacts from all her fervent
+worshippers, and he suffered the acutest pangs of gout. It is recorded
+that as he limped from the woolsack to the bar of the House of Lords, he
+once muttered to a young peer, who watched his distress with evident
+sympathy&mdash;"Ah, my young friend, if I had known that these legs would one
+day carry a Chancellor, I would have taken better care of them when I
+was at your age." Unto this had come the handsome legs of young
+Counsellor Henley, who, in his dancing days, stepped minuets to the
+enthusiastic admiration of the <i>belles</i> of Bath.</p>
+
+<p>Some light is thrown on the manners of lawyers in the eighteenth century
+by an order made by the authorities of Barnard's Inn, who, in November,
+1706, named two quarts as the allowance of wine to be given to each
+mess of four men by two gentlemen on going through the ceremony of
+'initiation.' Of course, this amount of wine was an 'extra' allowance,
+in addition to the ale and sherry assigned to members by the regular
+dietary of the house. Even Sheridan, who boasted that he could drink any
+<i>given</i> quantity of wine, would have thought twice before he drank so
+large a given quantity, in addition to a liberal allowance of stimulant.
+Anyhow, the quantity was fixed&mdash;a fact that would have elicited an
+expression of approval from Chief Baron Thompson, who, loving port wine
+wisely, though too well, expressed at the same time his concurrence with
+the words, and his dissent from the opinion of a barrister, who
+observed&mdash;"I hold, my lord, that after a good dinner a certain quantity
+of wine does no harm." With a smile, the Chief Baron rejoined&mdash;"True,
+sir; it is the <i>uncertain</i> quantity that does the mischief."</p>
+
+<p>The most temperate of the eighteenth-century Chancellors was Lord
+Camden, who required no more generous beverage than sound malt liquor,
+as he candidly declared, in a letter to the Duke of Grafton, wherein he
+says&mdash;"I am, thank God, remarkably well, but your grace must not seduce
+me into my former intemperance. A plain dish and a draught of porter
+(which last is indispensable), are the very extent of my luxury." For
+porter, Edward Thurlow, in his student days, had high respect and keen
+relish; but in his mature years, as well as still older age, full-bodied
+port was his favorite drink, and under its influence were seen to the
+best advantage those colloquial powers which caused Samuel Johnson to
+exclaim&mdash;"Depend upon it, sir, it is when you come close to a man in
+conversation that you discover what his real abilities are; to make a
+speech in a public assembly is a knack. Now, I honor Thurlow, sir;
+Thurlow is a fine fellow: he fairly puts his mind to yours." Of
+Thurlow, when he had mounted the woolsack, Johnson also observed&mdash;"I
+would prepare myself for no man in England but Lord Thurlow. When I am
+to meet him, I would wish to know a day before." From the many stories
+told of Thurlow and ebriosity, one may be here taken and brought under
+the reader's notice&mdash;not because it has wit or humor to recommend it,
+but because it presents the Chancellor in company with another
+port-loving lawyer, William Pitt, from whose fame, by-the-by, Lord
+Stanhope has recently removed the old disfiguring imputations of
+sottishness. "Returning," says Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, a poor authority,
+but piquant gossip-monger, "by way of frolic, very late at night, on
+horseback, to Wimbledon, from Addiscombe, the seat of Mr. Jenkinson,
+near Croydon, where the party had dined, Lord Thurlow, the Chancellor,
+Pitt, and Dundas, found the turnpike gate, situate between Tooting and
+Streatham, thrown open. Being elevated above their usual prudence, and
+having no servant near them, they passed through the gate at a brisk
+pace, without stopping to pay the toll, regardless of the remonstrances
+and threats of the turnpike man, who running after them, and believing
+them to belong to some highwaymen who had recently committed some
+depredation on that road, discharged the contents of his blunderbuss at
+their backs. Happily he did no injury."</p>
+
+<p>Throughout their long lives the brothers Scott were steady, and,
+according to the rules of the present day, inordinate drinkers of port
+wine. As a young barrister, John Scott could carry more port with
+decorum than any other man of his inn; and in the days when he is
+generally supposed to have lived on sprats and table-beer, he seldom
+passed twenty-four hours without a bottle of his favorite wine.
+Prudence, however, made him careful to avoid intoxication, and when he
+found that a friendship often betrayed him into what he thought
+excessive drinking, he withdrew from the dangerous connexion. "I see
+your friend Bowes very often," he wrote in May, 1778, a time when Mr.
+Bowes was his most valuable client; "but I dare not dine with him above
+once in three months, as there is no getting away before midnight; and,
+indeed, one is sure to be in a condition in which no man would wish to
+be in the streets at any other season." Of the quantities imbibed at
+these three-monthly dinners, an estimate may be formed from the
+following story. Bringing from Oxford to London that fine sense of the
+merits of port wine which characterized the thorough Oxonion of a
+century since, William Scott made it for some years a rule to dine with
+his brother John on the first day of term at a tavern hard by the
+Temple; and on these occasions the brothers used to make away with
+bottle after bottle not less to the astonishment than the approval of
+the waiters who served them. Before the decay of his faculties, Lord
+Stowell was recalling these terminal dinners to his son-in-law, Lord
+Sidmouth, when the latter observed, "You drank some wine together, I
+dare say?" Lord Stowell, modestly, "Yes, we drank some wine."
+Son-in-law, inquisitively, "Two bottles?" Lord Stowell, quickly putting
+away the imputation of such abstemiousness, "More than that."
+Son-in-law, smiling, "What, three bottles?" Lord Stowell, "More."
+Son-in-law, opening his eyes with astonishment, "By Jove, sir, you don't
+mean to say that you took four bottles?" Lord Stowell, beginning to feel
+ashamed of himself, "More; I mean to say we had more. Now don't ask any
+more questions."</p>
+
+<p>Whilst Lord Stowell, smarting under the domestic misery of which his
+foolish marriage with the Dowager Marchioness of Sligo was fruitful,
+sought comfort and forgetfulness in the cellar of the Middle Temple,
+Lord Eldon drained magnums of Newcastle port at his own table. Populous
+with wealthy merchants, and surrounded by an opulent aristocracy,
+Newcastle had used the advantages given her by a large export trade with
+Portugal to draw to her cellars such superb port wine as could be found
+in no other town in the United Kingdom; and to the last the Tory
+Chancellor used to get his port from the canny capital of Northumbria.
+Just three weeks before his death, the veteran lawyer, sitting in his
+easy-chair and recalling his early triumphs, preluded an account of the
+great leading case, "Akroyd <i>v.</i> Smithson," by saying to his listener,
+"Come, Farrer, help yourself to a glass of Newcastle port, and help me
+to a little." But though he asked for a little, the old earl, according
+to his wont, drank much before he was raised from his chair and led to
+his sleeping-room. It is on record, and is moreover supported by
+unexceptionable evidence, that in his extreme old age, whilst he was
+completely laid upon the shelf, and almost down to the day of his death,
+which occurred in his eighty-seventh year, Lord Eldon never drank less
+than three pints of port daily with or after his dinner.</p>
+
+<p>Of eminent lawyers who were steady port-wine drinkers, Baron Platt&mdash;the
+amiable and popular judge who died in 1862, aged seventy-two years&mdash;may
+be regarded as one of the last. Of him it is recorded that in early
+manhood he was so completely prostrated by severe illness that beholders
+judged him to be actually dead. Standing over his silent body shortly
+before the arrival of the undertaker, two of his friends concurred in
+giving utterance to the sentiment: "Ah, poor dear fellow, we shall never
+drink a glass of wine with him again;" when, to their momentary alarm
+and subsequent delight, the dead man interposed with a faint assumption
+of jocularity, "But you will though, and a good many too, I hope." When
+the undertaker called he was sent away a genuinely sorrowful man; and
+the young lawyer, who was 'not dead yet,' lived to old age and good
+purpose.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> In old Sir Herbert's later days it was a mere pleasantry,
+or bold figure of speech to say that his court had risen, for he used to
+be lifted from his chair and carried bodily from the chamber of justice
+by two brawny footmen. Of course, as soon as the judge was about to be
+elevated by his bearers, the bar rose; and also as a matter of course
+the bar continued to stand until the strong porters had conveyed their
+weighty and venerable burden along the platform behind one of the rows
+of advocates and out of sight. As the <i>trio</i> worked their laborious way
+along the platform, there seemed to be some danger that they might
+blunder and fall through one of the windows into the space behind the
+court; and at a time when Sir Herbert and Dr. &mdash;&mdash; were at open
+variance, that waspish advocate had on one occasion the bad taste to
+keep his seat at the rising of the court, and with characteristic
+malevolence of expression to say to the footmen, "Mind, my men, and take
+care of that judge of yours&mdash;or, by Jove, you'll pitch him out of the
+window." It is needless to say that this brutal speech did not raise the
+speaker in the opinion of the hearers.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLVII" id="CHAPTER_XLVII"></a>CHAPTER XLVII.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><small>LAW AND LITERATURE.</small></p>
+
+
+<p>At the present time, when three out of every five journalists attached
+to our chief London newspapers are Inns-of-Court men; when many of our
+able and successful advocates are known to ply their pens in organs of
+periodical literature as regularly as they raise their voices in courts
+of justice; and when the young Templar, who has borne away the first
+honors of his university, deems himself the object of a compliment on
+receiving an invitation to contribute to the columns of a leading review
+or daily journal&mdash;it is difficult to believe that strong men are still
+amongst us who can remember the days when it was the fashion of the bar
+to disdain law-students who were suspected of 'writing for hire' and
+barristers who 'reported for the papers.' Throughout the opening years
+of the present century, and even much later, it was almost universally
+held on the circuits and in Westminster Hall, that Inns-of-Court men
+lowered the dignity of their order by following those literary
+avocations by which some of the brightest ornaments of the law supported
+themselves at the outset of their professional careers. Notwithstanding
+this prejudice, a few wearers of the long robe, daring by nature, or
+rendered bold by necessity, persisted in 'maintaining a connexion with
+the press, whilst they sought briefs on the circuit, or waited for
+clients in their chambers. Such men as Sergeant Spankie and Lord
+Campbell, as Master Stephen and Mr. Justice Talfourd, were reporters for
+the press whilst they kept terms; and no sooner had Henry Brougham's
+eloquence charmed the public, than it was whispered that for years his
+pen, no less ready than his tongue, had found constant employment in
+organs of political intelligence.</p>
+
+<p>But though such men were known to exist, they were regarded as the
+'black sheep' of the bar by a great majority of their profession. It is
+not improbable that this prejudice against gownsmen on the press was
+palliated by circumstances that no longer exist. When political writers
+were very generally regarded as dangerous members of society, and when
+conductors of respectable newspapers were harassed with vexatious
+prosecutions and heavy punishments for acts of trivial inadvertence, or
+for purely imaginary offences, the average journalist was in many
+respects inferior to the average journalist working under the present
+more favorable circumstances. Men of culture, honest purpose, and fine
+feeling were slow to enrol themselves members of a despised and
+proscribed fraternity; and in the dearth of educated gentlemen ready to
+accept literary employment, the task of writing for the public papers
+too frequently devolved upon very unscrupulous persons, who rendered
+their calling as odious as themselves. A shackled and persecuted press
+is always a licentious and venal press; and before legislation endowed
+English journalism with a certain measure of freedom and security, it
+was seldom manly and was often corrupt. It is therefore probable that
+our grandfathers had some show of reason for their dislike of
+contributors to anonymous literature. At the bar men of unquestionable
+amiability and enlightenment were often the loudest to express this
+aversion for their scribbling brethren. It was said that the scribblers
+were seldom gentlemen in temper; and that they never hesitated to puff
+themselves in their papers. These considerations so far influenced Mr.
+Justice Lawrence that, though he was a model of judicial suavity to all
+other members of the bar, he could never bring himself to be barely
+civil to advocates known to be 'upon the press.'</p>
+
+<p>At Lincoln's Inn this strong feeling against journalists found vent in a
+resolution, framed in reference to a particular person, which would have
+shut out journalists from the Society. It had long been understood that
+no student could be called to the bar <i>whilst</i> he was acting as a
+reporter in the gallery of either house; but the new decision of the
+benchers would have destroyed the ancient connexion of the legal
+profession and literary calling. Strange to say this illiberal measure
+was the work of two benchers who, notwithstanding their patrician
+descent and associations, were vehement asserters of liberal principles.
+Mr. Clifford&mdash;'O.P.' Clifford&mdash;was its proposer and Erskine was its
+seconder. Fortunately the person who was the immediate object of its
+provisions petitioned the House of Commons upon the subject, and the
+consequent debate in the Lower House decided the benchers to withdraw
+from their false position; and since their silent retreat no attempt has
+been made by any of the four honorable societies to affix an undeserved
+stigma on the followers of a serviceable art. Upon the whole the
+literary calling gained much from the discreditable action of Lincoln's
+Inn; for the speech in which Sheridan covered with derision this attempt
+to brand parliamentary reporters as unfit to associate with members of
+the bar, and the address in which Mr. Stephen, with manly reference to
+his own early experiences, warmly censured the conduct of the society of
+which he was himself a member, caused many persons to form a new and
+juster estimate of the working members of the London press. Having
+alluded to Dr. Johnson and Edmund Burke, who had both acted as
+parliamentary reporters, Sheridan stated that no less than twenty-three
+graduates of universities were then engaged as reporters of the
+proceedings of the house.</p>
+
+<p>The close connexion which for centuries has existed between men of law
+and men of letters is illustrated on the one hand by a long succession
+of eminent lawyers who have added to the lustre of professional honors
+the no less bright distinctions of literary achievements or friendships,
+and on the other hand by the long line of able writers who either
+enrolled themselves amongst the students of the law, or resided in the
+Inns of Court, or cherished with assiduous care the friendly regard of
+famous judges. Indeed, since the days of Chancellor de Bury, who wrote
+the 'Philobiblon,' there have been few Chancellors to whom literature is
+not in some way indebted; and the few Keepers of the Seal who neither
+cared for letters nor cultivated the society of students, are amongst
+the judges whose names most Englishmen would gladly erase from the
+history of their country. Jeffreys and Macclesfield represent the
+unlettered Chancellors; More and Bacon the lettered. Fortescue's 'De
+Laudibus' is a book for every reader. To Chancellor Warham, Erasmus&mdash;a
+scholar not given to distribute praise carelessly&mdash;dedicated his 'St.
+Jerom,' with cordial eulogy. Wolsey was a patron of letters. More may be
+said to have revived, if he did not create, the literary taste of his
+contemporaries, and to have transplanted the novel to English soil.
+Equally diligent as a writer and a collector of books, Gardyner spent
+his happiest moments at his desk, or over the folios of the magnificent
+library which was destroyed by Wyat's insurgents. Christopher Hatton was
+a dramatic author. To one person who can describe with any approach to
+accuracy Edward Hyde's conduct in the Court of Chancery, there are
+twenty who have studied Clarendon's 'Rebellion.' At the present date
+Hale's books are better known than his judgments, though his conduct
+towards the witches of Bury St. Edmunds conferred an unenviable fame on
+his judicial career. By timely assistance rendered to Burnet, Lord
+Nottingham did something to atone for his brutality towards Milton,
+whom, at an earlier period of his career, he had declared worthy of a
+felon's death, for having been Cromwell's Latin secretary. Lord Keeper
+North wrote upon 'Music;' and to his brother Roger literature is
+indebted for the best biographies composed by any writer of his period.
+In his boyhood Somers was a poet; in his maturer years the friend of
+poets. The friend of Prior and Gay, Arbuthnot and Pope, Lord Chancellor
+Harcourt, wrote verses of more than ordinary merit, and alike in periods
+of official triumph and in times of retirement valued the friendship of
+men of wit above the many successes of his public career. Lord
+Chancellor King, author of 'Constitution and Discipline of the Primitive
+Church,' was John Locke's dutiful nephew and favorite companion. King's
+immediate successor was extolled by Pope in the lines,</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+O teach us, Talbot! thou'rt unspoil'd by wealth,<br />
+That secret rare, between the extremes to move,<br />
+Of mad good-nature and of mean self-love.<br />
+Who is it copies Talbot's better part,<br />
+To ease th' oppress'd, and raise the sinking heart?<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>But Talbot's fairest eulogy was penned by his son's tutor, Alexander
+Thomson&mdash;a poet who had no reason to feel gratitude to Talbot's official
+successor. Ere he thoroughly resolved to devote himself to law, the cold
+and formal Hardwicke had cherished a feeble ambition for literary
+distinction; and under its influence he wrote a paper that appeared in
+the <i>Spectator</i>. Blackstone's entrance at the Temple occasioned his
+metrical 'Farewell' to his muse. In his undergraduate days at Cambridge
+Lord Chancellor Charles Yorke was a chief contributor to the 'Athenian
+Letters,' and it would have been well for him had he in after-life given
+to letters a portion of the time which he sacrificed to ambition.
+Thurlow's churlishness and overbearing temper are at this date trifling
+matters in comparison with his friendship for Cowper and Samuel Johnson,
+and his kindly aid to George Crabbe. Even more than for the wisdom of
+his judgments Mansfield is remembered for his intimacy with 'the wits,'
+and his close friendship with that chief of them all, who exclaimed,
+"How sweet an Ovid, Murray, was our boast," and in honor of that "Sweet
+Ovid" penned the lines,</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+"Graced as thou art, with all the power of words,<br />
+So known, so honored in the House of Lords"&mdash;<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>verses deliciously ridiculed by the parodist who wrote,</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15em;">
+"Persuasion tips his tongue whene'er he talks:<br />
+And he has chambers in the King's Bench walks."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>As an atonement for many defects, Alexander Wedderburn had one
+virtue&mdash;an honest respect for letters that made him in opening manhood
+seek the friendship of Hume, at a later date solicit a pension for Dr.
+Johnson, and after his elevation to the woolsack overwhelm Gibbon with
+hospitable civilities. Eldon was an Oxford Essayist in his young, the
+compiler of 'The Anecdote Book' in his old days; and though he cannot be
+commended for literary tastes, or sympathy with men of letters, he was
+one of the many great lawyers who found pleasure in the conversation of
+Samuel Johnson. Unlike his brother, Lord Stowell clung fast to his
+literary friendships, as 'Dr. Scott of the Commons' priding himself more
+on his membership in the Literary Club than on his standing in the
+Prerogative Court; and as Lord Stowell evincing cordial respect for the
+successors of Reynolds and Malone, even when love of money had taken
+firm hold of his enfeebled mind. Archdeacon Paley's London residence was
+in Edward Law's house in Bloomsbury Square. In Erskine literary ambition
+was so strong that, not content with the fame brought to him by
+excellent <i>vers de soci&eacute;t&eacute;</i>, he took pen in hand when he resigned the
+seals, and&mdash;more to the delight of his enemies than the satisfaction of
+his friends&mdash;wrote a novel, which neither became, nor deserved to be,
+permanently successful. With similar zeal and greater ability the
+literary reputation of the bar has been maintained by Lord Denman, who
+was an industrious <i>litt&eacute;rateur</i> whilst he was working his way up at the
+bar; by Sir John Taylor Coleridge, whose services to the <i>Quarterly
+Review</i> are an affair of literary history; by Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd,
+who, having reported in the gallery, lived to lake part in the debates
+of the House of Commons, and who, from the date of his first engagement
+on the <i>Times</i> till the sad morning when "God's finger touched him,"
+while he sat upon the bench, never altogether relinquished those
+literary pursuits, in which he earned well-merited honor; by Lord
+Macaulay, whose connexion with the legal profession is almost lost sight
+of in the brilliance of his literary renown; by Lord Campbell, who
+dreamt of living to wear an SS collar in Westminster Hall whilst he was
+merely John Campbell the reporter; by Lord Brougham, who, having
+instructed our grandfathers with his pen, still remains upon the stage,
+giving their grandsons wise lessons with his tongue; and by Lord
+Romilly, whose services to English literature have won for him the
+gratitude of scholars.</p>
+
+<p>Of each generation of writers between the accession of Elizabeth and the
+present time, several of the most conspicuous names are either found on
+the rolls of the inns, or are closely associated in the minds of
+students with the life of the law-colleges. Shakspeare's plays abound
+with testimony that he was no stranger in the legal inns, and the rich
+vein of legal lore and diction that runs through his writings has
+induced more judicious critics than Lord Campbell to conjecture that he
+may at some early time of his career have directed his mind to the
+study, if not the practice, of the law. Amongst Elizabethan writers who
+belonged to inns may be mentioned&mdash;George Ferrars, William Lambarde, Sir
+Henry Spelman, and that luckless pamphleteer John Stubbs, all of whom
+were members of Lincoln's Inn; Thomas Sackville, Francis Beaumont the
+Younger, and John Ferne, of the Inner Temple; Walter Raleigh, of the
+Middle Temple; Francis Bacon, Philip Sidney, George Gascoyne, and
+Francis Davison, of Gray's Inn. Sir John Denham, the poet, became a
+Lincoln's-Inn student in 1634; and Francis Quarles was a member of the
+same learned society. John Selden entered the Inner Temple in the second
+year of James I., where in due course he numbered, amongst his literary
+contemporaries,&mdash;William Browne, Croke, Oulde, Thomas Gardiner, Dynne,
+Edward Heywood, John Morgan, Augustus C&aelig;sar, Thomas Heygate, Thomas May,
+dramatist and translator of Lucan's 'Pharsalia,' William Rough and Rymer
+were members of Gray's Inn. Sir John David and Sir Simonds D'Ewes
+belonged to the Middle Temple. Massinger's dearest friends lived in the
+Inner Temple, of which society George Keate, the dramatist, and Butler's
+staunch supporter William Longueville, were members. Milton passed the
+most jocund hours of his life in Gray's Inn, in which college Cleveland
+and the author of 'Hudibras' held the meetings of their club. Wycherley
+and Congreve, Aubrey and Narcissus Luttrell were Inns-of-Court men. In
+later periods we find Thomas Edwards, the critic; Murphy, the dramatic
+writer; James Mackintosh, Francis Hargrave, Bentham, Curran, Canning, at
+Lincoln's Inn. The poet Cowper was a barrister of the Temple. Amongst
+other Templars of the eighteenth century, with whose names the
+literature of their time is inseparably associated, were Henry Fielding,
+Henry Brooke, Oliver Goldsmith, and Edmund Burke. Samuel Johnson resided
+both in Gray's Inn and the Temple, and his friend Boswell was an
+advocate of respectable ability as well as the best biographer on the
+roll of English writers.</p>
+
+<p>The foregoing are but a few taken from hundreds of names that illustrate
+the close union of Law and Literature in past times. To lengthen the
+list would but weary the reader; and no pains would make a perfect
+muster roll of all the literary lawyers and <i>legal litt&eacute;rateurs</i> who
+either are still upon the stage, or have only lately passed away. In
+their youth four well-known living novelists&mdash;Mr. William Harrison
+Ainsworth, Mr. Shirley Brooks, Mr. Charles Dickens, and Mr. Benjamin
+Disraeli&mdash;passed some time in solicitors' offices. Mr. John Oxenford was
+articled to an attorney. Mr. Theodore Martin resembles the authors of
+'The Rejected Addresses' in being a successful practitioner in the
+inferior branch of the law. Mr. Charles Henry Cooper was a successful
+solicitor. On turning over the leaves to that useful book, 'Men of the
+Time,' the reader finds mention made of the following men of letters and
+law&mdash;Sir Archibald Alison, Mr. Thomas Chisholm Anstey, Mr. William
+Edmonstone Aytoun, Mr. Philip James Bailey, Mr. J.N. Ball, Mr. Sergeant
+Peter Burke, Sir J.B. Burke, Mr. John Hill Burton, Mr. Hans Busk, Mr.
+Isaac Butt, Mr. George Wingrove Cooke, Sir E.S. Creasy, Dr. Dasent, Mr.
+John Thaddeus Delane, Mr. W. Hepworth Dixon, Mr. Commissioner
+Fonblanque, Mr. William Forsyth, Q.C., Mr. Edward Foss, Mr. William
+Carew Hazlitt, Mr. Thomas Hughes, Mr. Leone Levi, Mr. Lawrence
+Oliphant, Mr. Charles Reade, Mr. W. Stigant, Mr. Tom Taylor, Mr.
+McCullagh Torrens, Mr. M.F. Tupper, Dr. Travers, Mr. Samuel Warren, and
+Mr. Charles Weld. Some of the gentlemen in this list are not merely
+nominal barristers, but are practitioners with an abundance of business.
+Amongst those to whom the editor of 'Men of the Time' draws attention as
+'Lawyers,' and who either are still rendering or have rendered good
+service to literature, occur the names of Sir William A'Beckett, Mr. W.
+Adams, Dr. Anster, Sir Joseph Arnould, Sir George Bowyer, Sir John
+Coleridge, Mr. E. W. Cox, Mr. Wilson Gray, Mr. Justice Haliburton, Mr.
+Thomas Lewin, Mr. Thomas E. May, Mr. J.G. Phillimore, Mr. James Fitz
+James Stephen, Mr. Vernon Harcourt, Mr. James Whiteside. Some of the
+distinguished men mentioned in this survey have already passed to
+another world since the publication of the last edition of 'Men of the
+Time;' but their recorded connexion with literature as well as law no
+less serves to illustrate an important feature of our social life. It is
+almost needless to remark that the names of many of our ablest anonymous
+writers do not appear in 'Men of the Time.'</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
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+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,13427 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Book About Lawyers, by John Cordy
+Jeaffreson
+
+
+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: A Book About Lawyers
+
+
+Author: John Cordy Jeaffreson
+
+
+
+Release Date: January 12, 2009  [eBook #27785]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BOOK ABOUT LAWYERS***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Graeme Mackreth, and Project
+Gutenberg the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+A BOOK ABOUT LAWYERS.
+
+by
+
+JOHN CORDY JEAFFRESON,
+
+Barrister-at-Law
+Author of
+"A Book About Doctors,"
+Etc., Etc.
+
+Reprinted from the London Edition.
+
+Two Volumes in One.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+New York:
+_Carleton, Publisher, Madison Square._
+London: S. Low, Son & Co.,
+M DCCC LXXV.
+
+Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1807, by
+G.W. Carleton & Co.,
+In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the
+Southern District of New York.
+
+John F. Trow & Son, Printers,
+205-213 East 12th St., New York.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+PART I. HOUSES AND HOUSEHOLDERS.
+
+CHAPTER                                             PAGE
+
+      I. LADIES IN LAW COLLEGES                        7
+
+     II. THE LAST OF THE LADIES                       13
+
+    III. YORK HOUSE AND POWIS HOUSE                   22
+
+     IV. LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS                         27
+
+      V. THE OLD LAW QUARTER                          36
+
+
+PART II. LOVES OF THE LAWYERS.
+
+     VI. A LOTTERY                                    49
+
+    VII. GOOD QUEEN BESS                              55
+
+   VIII. REJECTED ADDRESSES                           62
+
+     IX. "CICERO" UPON HIS TRIAL                      71
+
+      X. BROTHERS IN TROUBLE                          75
+
+     XI. EARLY MARRIAGES                              86
+
+
+PART III. MONEY.
+
+    XII. FEES TO COUNSEL                              97
+
+   XIII. RETAINERS, GENERAL AND SPECIAL              113
+
+    XIV. JUDICIAL CORRUPTION                         122
+
+     XV. GIFTS AND SALES                             136
+
+    XVI. A ROD PICKLED BY WILLIAM COLE               143
+
+   XVII. CHIEF JUSTICE POPHAM                        149
+
+  XVIII. JUDICIAL SALARIES                           153
+
+
+PART IV. COSTUME AND TOILET.
+
+    XIX. BRIGHT AND SAD                              163
+
+    XX.  MILLINERY                                   169
+
+    XXI. WIGS                                        171
+
+   XXII. BANDS AND COLLARS                           182
+
+  XXIII. BAGS AND GOWNS                              187
+
+   XXIV. HATS                                        195
+
+
+PART V. MUSIC.
+
+    XXV. THE PIANO IN CHAMBERS                       206
+
+   XXVI. THE BATTLE OF THE ORGANS                    208
+
+  XXVII. THE THICKNESS IN THE THROAT                 219
+
+
+PART VI. AMATEUR THEATRICALS.
+
+ XXVIII. ACTORS AT THE BAR                           224
+
+   XXIX. "THE PLAY'S THE THING"                      230
+
+    XXX. THE RIVER AND THE STRAND BY TORCHLIGHT      238
+
+   XXXI. ANTI-PRYNNE                                 243
+
+  XXXII. AN EMPTY GRATE                              251
+
+
+PART VII. LEGAL EDUCATION
+
+ XXXIII. INNS OF COURT AND INNS OF CHANCERY          258
+
+  XXXIV. LAWYERS AND GENTLEMEN                       265
+
+   XXXV. LAW-FRENCH AND LAW-LATIN                    277
+
+  XXXVI. STUDENT LIFE IN OLD TIME                    287
+
+ XXXVII. READERS AND MOOTMEN                         298
+
+XXXVIII. PUPILS IN CHAMBERS                          307
+
+
+PART VIII. MIRTH.
+
+  XXXIX. WIT OF LAWYERS                              316
+
+     XL. HUMOROUS STORIES                            334
+
+    XLI. WITS IN 'SILK' AND PUNSTERS IN 'ERMINE'     349
+
+   XLII. WITNESSES                                   365
+
+  XLIII. CIRCUITEERS                                 376
+
+   XLIV. LAWYERS AND SAINTS                          390
+
+
+PART IX. AT HOME: IN COURT: AND IN SOCIETY.
+
+    XLV. LAWYERS AT THEIR OWN TABLES                 402
+
+   XLVI. WINE                                        413
+
+  XLVII. LAW AND LITERATURE                          423
+
+
+
+
+PART I.
+
+HOUSES AND HOUSEHOLDERS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+LADIES IN LAW COLLEGES.
+
+
+A law-student of the present day finds it difficult to realize the
+brightness and domestic decency which characterized the Inns of Court in
+the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Under existing
+circumstances, women of character and social position avoid the gardens
+and terraces of Gray's Inn and the Temple.
+
+Attended by men, or protected by circumstances that guard them from
+impertinence and scandal, gentlewomen can without discomfort pass and
+repass the walls of our legal colleges; but in most cases a lady enters
+them under conditions that announce even to casual passers the object of
+her visit. In her carriage, during the later hours of the day, a
+barrister's wife may drive down the Middle Temple Lane, or through the
+gate of Lincoln's Inn, and wait in King's Bench Walk or New Square,
+until her husband, putting aside clients and papers, joins her for the
+homeward drive. But even thus placed, sitting in her carriage and
+guarded by servants, she usually prefers to fence off inquisitive eyes
+by a bonnet-veil, or the blinds of her carriage-windows. On Sunday, the
+wives and daughters of gentle families brighten the dingy passages of
+the Temple, and the sombre courts of Lincoln's Inn: for the musical
+services of the grand church and little chapel, are amongst the
+religious entertainments of the town. To those choral celebrations
+ladies go, just as they are accustomed to enter any metropolitan church;
+and after service they can take a turn in the gardens of either Society,
+without drawing upon themselves unpleasant attention. So also,
+unattended by men, ladies are permitted to inspect the floral
+exhibitions with which Mr. Broome, the Temple gardener, annually
+entertains London sightseers.
+
+But, save on these and a few similar occasions and conditions,
+gentlewomen avoid an Inn of Court as they would a barrack-yard, unless
+they have secured the special attendance of at least one member of the
+society. The escort of a barrister or student, alters the case. What
+barrister, young or old, cannot recall mirthful eyes that, with quick
+shyness, have turned away from his momentary notice, as in answer to the
+rustling of silk, or stirred by sympathetic consciousness of women's
+noiseless presence, he has raised his face from a volume of reports, and
+seen two or three timorous girls peering through the golden haze of a
+London morning, into the library of his Inn? What man, thus drawn away
+for thirty seconds from prosaic toil, has not in that half minute
+remembered the faces of happy rural homes,--has not recalled old days
+when his young pulses beat cordial welcome to similar intruders upon the
+stillness of the Bodleian, or the tranquil seclusion of Trinity library?
+What occupant of dreary chambers in the Temple, reading this page,
+cannot look back to a bright day, when young, beautiful, and pure as
+sanctity, Lilian, or Kate, or Olive, entered his room radiant with
+smiles, delicate in attire, and musical with gleesome gossip about
+country neighbors, and the life of a joyous home?
+
+Seldom does a Templar of the present generation receive so fair and
+innocent a visitor. To him the presence of a gentlewoman in his court,
+is an occasion for ingenious conjecture; encountered on his staircase
+she is a cause of lively astonishment. His guests are men, more or less
+addicted to tobacco; his business callers are solicitors and their
+clerks; in his vestibule the masculine emissaries of tradesmen may
+sometimes be found--head-waiters from neighboring taverns, pot-boys from
+the 'Cock' and the 'Rainbow.' A printer's devil may from time to time
+knock at his door. But of women--such women as he would care to mention
+to his mother and sisters--he sees literally nothing in his dusty,
+ill-ordered, but not comfortless rooms. He has a laundress, one of a
+class on whom contemporary satire has been rather too severe.
+
+Feminine life of another sort lurks in the hidden places of the law
+colleges, shunning the gaze of strangers by daylight; and even when it
+creeps about under cover of night, trembling with a sense of its own
+incurable shame. But of this sad life, the bare thought of which sends a
+shivering through the frame of every man whom God has blessed with a
+peaceful home and wholesome associations, nothing shall be said in this
+page.
+
+In past time the life of law-colleges was very different in this
+respect. When they ceased to be ecclesiastics, and fixed themselves in
+the hospices which soon after the reception of the gowned tenants, were
+styled Inns of Courts; our lawyers took unto themselves wives, who were
+both fair and discreet. And having so made women flesh of their flesh
+and bone of their bone, they brought them to homes within the immediate
+vicinity of their collegiate walls, and sometimes within the walls
+themselves. Those who would appreciate the life of the Inns in past
+centuries, and indeed in times within the memory of living men, should
+bear this in mind. When he was not on circuit, many a counsellor learned
+in the law, found the pleasures not less than the business of his
+existence within the bounds of his 'honorable society.' In the fullest
+sense of the words, he took his ease in his Inn; besides being his
+workshop, where clients flocked to him for advice, it was his club, his
+place of pastime, and the shrine of his domestic affections. In this
+generation a successful Chancery barrister, or Equity draftsman, looks
+upon Lincoln's Inn merely as a place of business, where at a prodigious
+rent he holds a set of rooms in which he labors over cases, and
+satisfies the demands of clients and pupils. A century or two centuries
+since the case was often widely different. The rising barrister brought
+his bride in triumph to his 'chambers,' and in them she received the
+friends who hurried to congratulate her on her new honors. In those
+rooms she dispensed graceful hospitality, and watched her husband's
+toils. The elder of her children first saw the light in those narrow
+quarters; and frequently the lawyer, over his papers, was disturbed by
+the uproar of his heir in an adjoining room.
+
+Young wives, the mistresses of roomy houses in the western quarters of
+town, shudder as they imagine the discomforts which these young wives of
+other days must have endured. "What! live in chambers?" they exclaim
+with astonishment and horror, recalling the smallness and cheerless
+aspect of their husbands' business chambers. But past usages must not be
+hastily condemned,--allowance must be made for the fact that our
+ancestors set no very high price on the luxuries of elbow-room and
+breathing-room. Families in opulent circumstances were wont to dwell
+happily, and receive whole regiments of jovial visitors in little houses
+nigh the Strand and Fleet Street, Ludgate Hill and Cheapside;--houses
+hidden in narrow passages and sombre courts--houses, compared with
+which the lowliest residences in a "genteel suburb" of our own time
+would appear capacious mansions. Moreover, it must be borne in mind that
+the married barrister, living a century since with his wife in
+chambers--either within or hard-by an Inn or Court--was, at a
+comparatively low rent, the occupant of far more ample quarters than
+those for which a working barrister now-a-days pays a preposterous sum.
+Such a man was tenant of a 'set of rooms' (several rooms, although
+called 'a chamber') which, under the present system, accommodates a
+small colony of industrious 'juniors' with one office and a clerk's room
+attached. Married ladies, who have lived in Paris or Vienna, in the 'old
+town' of Edinburgh, or Victoria Street, Westminster, need no assurance
+that life 'on a flat' is not an altogether deplorable state of
+existence. The young couple in chambers had six rooms at their
+disposal,--a chamber for business, a parlor, not unfrequently a
+drawing-room, and a trim, compact little kitchen. Sometimes they had two
+'sets of rooms,' one above another; in which case the young wife could
+have her bridesmaids to stay with her, or could offer a bed to a friend
+from the country. Occasionally during the last fifty years of the last
+century, they were so fortunate as to get possession of a small detached
+house, originally built by a nervous bencher, who disliked the sound of
+footsteps on the stairs outside his door. Time was when the Inns
+comprised numerous detached houses, some of them snug dwellings, and
+others imposing mansions, wherein great dignitaries lived with proper
+ostentation. Most of them have bean pulled down, and their sites covered
+with collegiate 'buildings;' but a few of them still remain, the grand
+piles having long since been partitioned off into chambers, and the
+little houses striking the eye as quaint, misplaced, insignificant
+blocks of human habitation. Under the trees of Gray's Inn gardens may
+be seen two modest tenements, each of them comprising some six or eight
+rooms and a vestibule. At the present time they are occupied as offices
+by legal practitioners, and many a day has passed since womanly taste
+decorated their windows with flowers and muslin curtains; but a certain
+venerable gentleman, to whom the writer of this page is indebted for
+much information about the lawyers of the last century, can remember
+when each of those cottages was inhabited by a barrister, his young
+wife, and three or four lovely children. Into some such a house near
+Lincoln's Inn, a young lawyer who was destined to hold the seals for
+many years, and be also the father of a Lord Chancellor, married in the
+year of our Lord, 1718. His name was Philip Yorke: and though he was of
+humble birth, he had made such a figure in his profession that great
+men's doors, were open to him. He was asked to dinner by learned judges,
+and invited to balls by their ladies. In Chancery Lane, at the house of
+Sir Joseph Jekyll, Master of the Rolls, he met Mrs. Lygon, a beauteous
+and wealthy widow, whose father was a country squire, and whose mother
+was the sister of the great Lord Somers. In fact, she was a lady of such
+birth, position, and jointure, that the young lawyer--rising man though
+he was--seemed a poor match for her. The lady's family thought so; and
+if Sir Joseph Jekyll had not cordially supported the suitor with a
+letter of recommendation, her father would have rejected him as a man
+too humble in rank and fortune. Having won the lady and married her, Mr.
+Philip Yorke brought her home to a 'very small house' near Lincoln's
+Inn; and in that lowly dwelling, the ground-floor of which was the
+barrister's office, they spent the first years of their wedded life.
+What would be said of the rising barrister who, now-a-days, on his
+marriage with a rich squire's rich daughter and a peer's niece, should
+propose to set up his household gods in a tiny crip just outside
+Lincoln's Inn gate, and to use the parlor of the 'very small house' for
+professional purposes? Far from being guilty of unseemly parsimony in
+this arrangement, Philip Yorke paid proper consideration to his wife's
+social advantages, in taking her to a separate house. His contemporaries
+amongst the junior bar would have felt no astonishment if he had fitted
+up a set of chambers for his wealthy and well-descended bride. Not
+merely in his day, but for long years afterward, lawyers of gentle birth
+and comfortable means, who married women scarcely if at all inferior to
+Mrs. Yorke in social condition, lived upon the flats of Lincoln's Inn
+and the Temple.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE LAST OF THE LADIES.
+
+
+Whatever its drawbacks, the system which encouraged the young barrister
+to marry on a modest income, and make his wife 'happy in chambers,' must
+have had special advantages. In their Inn the husband was near every
+source of diversion for which he greatly cared, and the wife was
+surrounded by the friends of either sex in whose society she took most
+pleasure--friends who, like herself, 'lived in the Inn,' or in one of
+the immediately adjacent streets. In 'hall' he dined and drank wine with
+his professional compeers and the wits of the bar: the 'library'
+supplied him not only with law books, but with poems and dramas, with
+merry trifles written for the stage, and satires fresh from the Row;
+'the chapel'--or if he were a Templer, 'the church'--was his habitual
+place of worship, where there were sittings for his wife and children
+as well as for himself; on the walks and under the shady trees of 'the
+garden' he sauntered with his own, or, better still, a friend's wife,
+criticising the passers, describing the new comedy, or talking over the
+last ball given by a judge's lady. At times those gardens were pervaded
+by the calm of collegiate seclusion, but on 'open days' they were brisk
+with life. The women and children of the legal colony walked in them
+daily; the ladies attired in their newest fashions, and the children
+running with musical riot over lawns and paths. Nor were the grounds
+mere places of resort for lawyers and their families. Taking rank
+amongst the pleasant places of the metropolis, they attracted, on 'open
+days,' crowds from every quarter of the town--ladies and gallants from
+Soho Square and St. James's Street, from Whitehall and Westminster;
+sightseers from the country and gorgeous alderwomic dowagers from
+Cheapside. From the days of Elizabeth till the middle, indeed till the
+close, of the eighteenth century the ornamental grounds of the four
+great Inns were places of fashionable promenade, where the rank and
+talent and beauty of the town assembled for display and exercise, even
+as in our own time they assemble (less universally) in Hyde Park and
+Kensington Gardens.
+
+When ladies and children had withdrawn, the quietude of the gardens
+lured from their chambers scholars and poets, who under murmuring
+branches pondered the results of past study, or planned new works. Ben
+Jonson was accustomed to saunter beneath the elms of Lincoln's Inn; and
+Steele--alike on 'open' and 'close' days--used to frequent the gardens
+of the same society. "I went," he writes in May, 1809, "into Lincoln's
+Inn Walks, and having taking a round or two, I sat down, according to
+the allowed familiarity of these places, on a bench." In the following
+November he alludes to the privilege that he enjoyed of walking there
+as "a favor that is indulged me by several of the benchers, who are very
+intimate friends, and grown in the neighborhood."
+
+But though on certain days, and under fixed regulations, the outside
+public were admitted to the college gardens, the assemblages were always
+pervaded by the tone and humor of the law. The courtiers and grand
+ladies from 'the west' felt themselves the guests of the lawyers; and
+the humbler folk, who by special grant had acquired the privilege of
+entry, or whose decent attire and aspect satisfied the janitors of their
+respectability, moved about with watchfulness and gravity, surveying the
+counsellors and their ladies with admiring eyes, and extolling the
+benchers whose benevolence permitted simple tradespeople to take the air
+side by side with 'the quality.' In 1736, James Ralph, in his 'New
+Critical Review of the Publick Buildings,' wrote about the square and
+gardens of Lincoln's Inn in a manner which testifies to the respectful
+gratitude of the public for the liberality which permitted all outwardly
+decent persons to walk in the grounds. "I may safely add," he says,
+"that no area anywhere is kept in better order, either for cleanliness
+and beauty by day, or illumination by night; the fountain in the middle
+is a very pretty decoration, and if it was still kept playing, as it was
+some years ago, 'twould preserve its name with more propriety." In his
+remarks on the chapel the guide observes, "The raising this chapel on
+pillars affords a pleasing, melancholy walk underneath, and by night,
+particularly, when illuminated by the lamps, it has an effect that may
+be felt, but not described." Of the gardens Mr. Ralph could not speak in
+high praise, for they were ill-arranged and not so carefully kept as the
+square; but he observes, "they are convenient; and considering their
+situation cannot be esteemed to much. There is something hospitable in
+laying them open to public use; and while we share in their pleasures,
+we have no title to arraign their taste."
+
+The chief attraction of Lincoln's Inn gardens, apart from its beautiful
+trees, was for many years the terrace overlooking 'the Fields,' which
+was made _temp._ Car. II. at the cost of nearly L1000. Dugdale, speaking
+of the recent improvements of the Inn, says, "And the last was the
+enlargement of their garden, beautifying with a large tarras walk on the
+west side thereof, and raising the wall higher towards Lincoln's Inne
+Fields, which was done in An. 1663 (15 Car. II.), the charge thereof
+amounting to a little less than a thousand pounds, by reason that the
+levelling of most part of the ground, and raising the tarras, required
+such great labor." A portion of this terrace, and some of the old trees,
+were destroyed to make room for the new dining-hall.
+
+The old system supplied the barrister with other sources of recreation.
+Within a stone's throw of his residence was the hotel where his club had
+its weekly meeting. Either in hall, or with his family, or at a tavern
+near 'the courts,' it was his use, until a comparatively recent date, to
+dine in the middle of the day, and work again after the meal. Courts sat
+after dinner as well as before; and it was observable that counsellors
+spoke far better when they were full of wine and venison than when they
+stated the case in the earlier part of the day. But in the evening the
+system told especially in the barrister's favor. All his many friends
+lying within a small circle, he had an abundance of congenial society.
+Brother-circuiteers came to his wife's drawing-room for tea and chat,
+coffee and cards. There was a substantial supper at half-past eight or
+nine for such guests (supper cooked in my lady's little kitchen, or
+supplied by the 'Society's cook'); and the smoking dishes were
+accompanied by foaming tankards of ale or porter, and followed by
+superb and richly aromatic bowls of punch. On occasions when the learned
+man worked hard and shut out visitors by sporting his oak, he enjoyed
+privacy as unbroken and complete as that of any library in Kensington or
+Tyburnia. If friends stayed away, and he wished for diversion, he could
+run into the chambers of old college-chums, or with his wife's gracious
+permission could spend an hour at Chatelin's or Nando's, or any other
+coffeehouse in vogue with members of his profession. During festive
+seasons, when the judges' and leaders' ladies gave their grand balls,
+the young couple needed no carriage for visiting purposes. From Gray's
+Inn to the Temple they walked--if the weather was fine. When it rained
+they hailed a hackney-coach, or my lady was popped into a sedan and
+carried by running bearers to the frolic of the hour.
+
+Of course the notes of the preceding paragraphs of this chapter are but
+suggestions as to the mode in which the artistic reader must call up the
+life of the old lawyers. Encouraging him to realize the manners and
+usages of several centuries, not of a single generation, they do not
+attempt to entertain the student with details. It is needless to say
+that the young couple did not use hackney-coaches in times prior to the
+introduction of those serviceable vehicles, and that until sedans were
+invented my lady never used them.
+
+It is possible, indeed it is certain, that married ladies living in
+chambers occasionally had for neighbors on the same staircase women whom
+they regarded with abhorrence. Sometimes it happened that a dissolute
+barrister introduced to his rooms a woman more beautiful than virtuous,
+whom he had not married, though he called her his wife. People can no
+more choose their neighbors in a house broken up into sets of chambers,
+than they can choose them in the street. But the cases where ladies
+were daily liable to meet an offensive neighbor on their common
+staircase were comparatively rare; and when the annoyance actually
+occurred, the discipline of the Inn afforded a remedy.
+
+Uncleanness too often lurked within the camp, but it veiled its face;
+and though in rare cases the error and sin of a powerful lawyer may have
+been notorious, the preccant man was careful to surround himself with
+such an appearance of respectability that society should easily feign
+ignorance of his offence. An Elizabethan distich--familiar to all
+barristers, but too rudely worded for insertion in this page--informs us
+that in the sixteenth century Gray's Inn had an unenviable notoriety
+amongst legal hospices for the shamelessness of its female inmates. But
+the pungent lines must be regarded as a satire aimed at certain
+exceptional members, rather than as a vivacious picture of the general
+tone of morals in the society. Anyhow the fact that Gray's Inn[1] was
+alone designated as a home for infamy--whilst the Inner Temple was
+pointed to as the hospice most popular with rich men, the Middle Temple
+as the society frequented by Templars of narrow means, and Lincoln's Inn
+as the abode of gentlemen--is, of itself, a proof that the pervading
+manners of the last three institutions were outwardly decorous. Under
+the least favorable circumstances, a barrister's wife living in
+chambers, within or near Lincoln's Inn, or the Temple, during Charles
+II.'s reign, fared as well in this respect as she would have done had
+Fortune made her a lady-in-waiting at Whitehall.
+
+A good story is told of certain visits paid to William Murray's chambers
+at No. 5, King's Bench Walk Temple, in the year 1738. Born in 1705,
+Murray was still a young man when in 1738 he made his brilliant speech
+in behalf of Colonel Sloper, against whom Colley Cibber's rascally son
+had brought an action for _crim. con._ with his wife--the lovely actress
+who was the rival of Mrs. Clive. Amongst the many clients who were drawn
+to Murray by that speech, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, was neither the
+least powerful nor the least distinguished. Her grace began by sending
+the rising advocate a general retainer, with a fee of a thousand
+guineas; of which sum he accepted only the two-hundredth part,
+explaining to the astonished duchess that "the professional fee, with a
+general retainer, could neither be less nor more than five guineas." If
+Murray had accepted the whole sum he would not have been overpaid for
+his trouble; for her grace persecuted him with calls at most
+unseasonable hours. On one occasion, returning to his chambers after
+"drinking champagne with the wits," he found the duchess's carriage and
+attendants on King's Bench Walk. A numerous crowd of footmen and
+link-bearers surrounded the coach; and when the barrister entered his
+chambers he encountered the mistress of that army of lackeys. "Young
+man," exclaimed the grand lady, eying the future Lord Mansfield with a
+look of warm displeasure, "if you mean to rise in the world, you must
+not sup out." On a subsequent night Sarah of Marlborough called without
+appointment at the same chambers, and waited till past midnight in the
+hope that she would see the lawyer ere she went to bed. But Murray being
+at an unusually late supper-party, did not return till her grace had
+departed in an over-powering rage. "I could not make out, sir, who she
+was," said Murray's clerk, describing her grace's appearance and manner,
+"for she would not tell me her name; _but she swore so dreadfully that I
+am sure she must be a lady of quality_."
+
+Perhaps the Inns of Court may still shelter a few married ladies, who
+either from love of old-world ways, or from stern necessity, consent to
+dwell in their husbands' chambers. If such ladies can at the present
+time be found, the writer of this page would look for them in Gray's
+Inn--that straggling caravansary for the reception of money-lenders,
+Bohemians, and eccentric gentlemen--rather than in the other three Inns
+of Court, which have undoubtedly quite lost their old population of
+lady-residents. But from those three hospices the last of the ladies
+must have retreated at a comparatively recent date. Fifteen years since,
+when the writer of this book was a beardless undergraduate, he had the
+honor of knowing some married ladies, of good family and unblemished
+repute, who lived with their husbands in the Middle Temple. One of those
+ladies--the daughter of a country magistrate, the sister of a
+distinguished classic scholar--was the wife of a common law barrister
+who now holds a judicial appointment in one of our colonies. The women
+of her old home circle occasionally called on this young wife: but as
+they could not reach her quarters in Sycamore Court without attracting
+much unpleasant observation, their visits were not frequent. Living in a
+barrack of unwed men, that charming girl was surrounded by honest
+fellows who would have resented as an insult to themselves an
+impertinence offered to her. Still her life was abnormal, unnatural,
+deleterious; it was felt by all who cared for her that she ought not to
+be where she was; and when an appointment with a good income in a
+healthy and thriving colony was offered to her husband, all who knew
+her, and many who had never spoken to her, rejoiced at the intelligence.
+At the present time, in the far distant country which looks up to her
+as a personage of importance, this lady--not less exemplary as wife and
+mother than brilliant as a woman of society--takes pleasure in recalling
+the days when she was a prisoner in the Temple.
+
+One of the last cases of married life in the Temple, that came before
+the public notice, was that of a barrister and his wife who incurred
+obloquy and punishment for their brutal conduct to a poor servant girl.
+No one would thank the writer for re-publishing the details of that
+nauseous illustration of the degradation to which it is possible for a
+gentleman and scholar to sink. But, however revolting, the case is not
+without interest for the reader who is curious about the social life of
+the Temple.
+
+The portion of the Temple in which the old-world family life of the Inns
+held out the longest, is a clump of commodious houses lying between the
+Middle Temple Garden and Essex Street, Strand. Having their
+entrance-doors in Essex Street, these houses are, in fact, as private as
+the residences of any London quarter. The noise of the Strand reaches
+them, but their occupants are as secure from the impertinent gaze or
+unwelcome familiarities of law-students and barristers' clerks, as they
+would be if they lived at St. John's Wood. In Essex Street, on the
+eastern side, the legal families maintained their ground almost till
+yesterday. Fifteen years since the writer of this page used to be
+invited to dinners and dances in that street--dinners and dances which
+were attended by prosperous gentlefolk from the West End of the town. At
+that time he often waltzed in a drawing-room, the windows of which
+looked upon the spray of the fountain--at which Ruth Pinch loved to gaze
+when its jet resembled a wagoner's whip. How all old and precious things
+pass away! The dear old 'wagoner's whip' has been replaced by a pert,
+perky squirt that will never stir the heart or brain of a future Ruth.
+
+[1] The scandalous state of Gray's Inn at this period is shown by the
+following passage in Dugdale's 'Origines:'--"In 23 Eliz. (30 Jan.) there
+was an order made that no laundress, nor women called victuallers,
+should thenceforth come into the gentlemen's chambers of this society,
+until they were full forty years of age, and not send their
+maid-servants, of what age soever, in the said gentlemen's chambers,
+upon penalty, for the first offence of him that should admit of any
+such, to be put out of Commons: and for the second, to be expelled the
+House." The stringency and severity of this order show a determination
+on the part of the authorities to cure the evil.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter III.
+
+YORK HOUSE AND POWIS HOUSE.
+
+
+Whilst the great body of lawyers dwelt in or hard by the Inns, the
+dignitaries of the judicial bench, and the more eminent members of the
+bar, had suitable palaces or mansions at greater or less distances from
+the legal hostelries. The ecclesiastical Chancellors usually enjoyed
+episcopal or archiepiscopal rank, and lived in the London palaces
+attached to their sees or provinces. During his tenure of the seals,
+Morton, Bishop of Ely, years before he succeeded to the archbishopric of
+Canterbury, and received the honors of the Cardinalate, grew
+strawberries in his garden on Holborn Hill, and lived in the palace
+surrounded by that garden. As Archbishop of Canterbury, Chancellor
+Warham maintained at Lambeth Palace the imposing state commemorated by
+Erasmus.
+
+When Wolsey made his first progress to the Court of Chancery in
+Westminster Hall, a progress already alluded to in these pages, he
+started from the archiepiscopal palace, York House or Place--an official
+residence sold by the cardinal to Henry VIII. some years later; and when
+the same superb ecclesiastic, towards the close of his career, went on
+the memorable embassy to France, he set out from his palace at
+Westminster, "passing through all London over London Bridge, having
+before him of gentlemen a great number, three in rank in black velvet
+livery coats, and the most of them with great chains of gold about their
+necks."
+
+At later dates Gardyner, whilst he held the seals, kept his numerous
+household at Winchester House in Southwark; and Williams, the last
+clerical Lord Keeper, lived at the Deanery, Westminster.
+
+The lay Chancellors also maintained costly and pompous establishments,
+apart from the Inns of Court. Sir Thomas More's house stood in the
+country, flanked by a garden and farm, in the cultivation of which
+ground the Chancellor found one of his chief sources of amusement. In
+Aldgate, Lord Chancellor Audley built his town mansion, on the site of
+the Priory of the Canons of the Holy Trinity of Christ Church.
+Wriothesley dwelt in Holborn at the height of his unsteady fortunes, and
+at the time of his death. The infamous but singularly lucky Rich lived
+in Great St. Bartholomew's, and from his mansion there wrote to the Duke
+of Northumberland, imploring that messengers might be sent to him to
+relieve him of the perilous trust of the Great Seal. Christopher Hatton
+wrested from the see of Ely the site of Holborn, whereon he built his
+magnificent palace. The reluctance with which the Bishop of Ely
+surrendered the ground, and the imperious letter by which Elizabeth
+compelled the prelate to comply with the wish of her favorite courtier,
+form one of the humorous episodes of that queen's reign. Hatton House
+rose over the soil which had yielded strawberries to Morton; and of that
+house--where the dancing Chancellor received Elizabeth as a visitor, and
+in which he died of "diabetes _and_ grief of mind"--the memory is
+preserved by Hatton Garden, the name of the street where some of our
+wealthiest jewelers and gold assayers have places of business.
+
+Public convenience had long suggested the expediency of establishing a
+permanent residence for the Chancellors of England, when either by
+successive expressions of the royal will, or by the individual choice of
+several successive holders of the _Clavis Regni_, a noble palace on the
+northern bank of the Thames came to be regarded as the proper domicile
+for the Great Seal. York House, memorable as the birthplace of Francis
+Bacon, and the scene of his brightest social splendor, demands a brief
+notice. Wolsey's 'York House' or Whitehall having passed from the
+province of York to the crown, Nicholas Heath, Archbishop of York,
+established himself in another York House on a site lying between the
+Strand and the river. In this palace (formerly leased to the see of
+Norwich as a bishop's Inn, and subsequently conferred on Charles Brandon
+by Henry VIII.) Heath resided during his Chancellorship; and when, in
+consequence of his refusal to take the oath of supremacy, Elizabeth
+deprived him of his archbishopric, York House passed into the hands of
+her new Lord Keeper, Sir Nicholas Bacon. On succeeding to the honors of
+the Marble Chair, Hatton did not move from Holborn to the Strand; but
+otherwise all the holders of the Great Seal, from Heath to Francis Bacon
+inclusive, seem to have occupied York House; Heath, of course, using it
+by right as Archbishop of York, and the others holding it under leases
+granted by successive archbishops of the northern province. So little is
+known of Bromley, apart from the course which he took towards Mary of
+Scotland, that the memory of old York House gains nothing of interest
+from him. Indeed it has been questioned whether he was one of its
+tenants. Puckering, Egerton, and Francis Bacon certainly inhabited it in
+succession. On Bacon's fall it was granted to Buckingham, whose desire
+to possess the picturesque palace was one of the motives which impelled
+him to blacken the great lawyer's reputation. Seized by the Long
+Parliament, it was granted to Lord Fairfax. In the following generation
+it passed into the hands of the second Duke of Buckingham, who sold
+house and precinct for building-ground. The bad memory of the man who
+thus for gold surrendered a spot of earth sacred to every scholarly
+Englishman is preserved in the names of _George_ Street, _Duke_ Street,
+_Villiers_ Street, _Buckingham_ Street.
+
+The engravings commonly sold as pictures of the York House, in which
+Lord Bacon kept the seals, are likenesses of the building after it was
+pulled about, diminished, and modernized, and in no way whatever
+represent the architecture of the original edifice. Amongst the
+art-treasures of the University of Oxford, Mr. Hepworth Dixon
+fortunately found a rough sketch of the real house, from which sketch
+Mr. E.M. Ward drew the vignette that embellishes the title-page of 'The
+Story of Lord Bacon's Life.'
+
+After the expulsion of the Great Seal from old York House, it wandered
+from house to house, manifesting, however, in its selections of London
+quarters, a preference for the grand line of thoroughfare between
+Charing Cross and the foot of Ludgate Hill. Escaping from the
+Westminster Deanery, where Williams kept it in a box, the _Clavis Regni_
+inhabited Durham House, Strand, whilst under Lord Keeper Coventry's
+care. Lord Keeper Littleton, until he made his famous ride from London
+to York, lived in Exeter House. Clarendon resided in Dorset House,
+Salisbury Court, Fleet Street, and subsequently in Worcester House,
+Strand, before he removed to the magnificent palace which aroused the
+indignation of the public in St. James's Street. The greater and happier
+part of his official life was passed in Worcester House. There he held
+councils in his bedroom when he was laid up with gout; there King
+Charles visited him familiarly, even condescending to be present to the
+bedside councils; and there he was established when the Great Fire of
+London caused him, in a panic, to send his most valuable furniture to
+his Villa at Twickenham. Thanet House, Aldersgate Street, is the
+residence with which Shaftesbury, the politician, is most generally
+associated; but whilst he was Lord Chancellor he occupied Exeter House,
+Strand, formerly the abode of Keeper Littleton. Lord Nottingham slept
+with the seals under his pillow in Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn
+Fields, the same street in which his successor, Lord Guildford, had the
+establishment so racily described by his brother, Roger North. And Lord
+Jeffreys moving westward, gave noisy dinners in Duke Street,
+Westminster, where he opened a court-house that was afterwards
+consecrated as a place of worship, and is still known as the Duke Street
+Chapel. Says Pennant, describing the Chancellor's residence, "It is
+easily known by a large flight of stone steps, which his royal master
+permitted to be made into the park adjacent for the accommodation of his
+lordship. These steps terminate above in a small court, on three sides
+of which stands the house." The steps still remain, but their history is
+unknown to many of the habitual frequenters of the chapel. After
+Jefferys' fall the spacious and imposing mansion, where the
+_bon-vivants_ of the bar used to drink inordinately with the wits and
+buffoons of the London theatres, was occupied by Government; and there
+the Lords of the Admiralty had their offices until they moved to their
+quarters opposite Scotland Yard. Narcissus Luttrell's Diary contains the
+following entry:--"April 23, 1690. The late Lord Chancellor's house at
+Westminster is taken for the Lords of the Admiralty to keep the
+Admiralty Office at."
+
+William III., wishing to fix the holders of the Great Seal in a
+permanent official home, selected Powis House (more generally known by
+the name of Newcastle House), in Lincoln's Inn Fields, as a residence
+for Somers and future Chancellors. The Treasury minute books preserve an
+entry of September 11, 1696, directing a Privy Seal to "discharge the
+process for the apprised value of the house, and to declare the king's
+pleasure that the Lord Keeper or Lord Chancellor for the time being
+should have and enjoy it for the accommodation of their offices." Soon
+after his appointment to the seals, Somers took possession of this
+mansion at the north-west corner of the Fields; and after him Lord
+Keeper Sir Nathan Wright, Lord Chancellor Cowper, and Lord Chancellor
+Harcourt used it as an official residence. But the arrangement was not
+acceptable to the legal dignitaries. They preferred to dwell in their
+private houses, from which they were not liable to be driven by a change
+of ministry or a grist of popular disfavor. In the year 1711 the mansion
+was therefore sold to John Holles, Duke of Newcastle, to whom it is
+indebted for the name which it still bears. This large, unsightly
+mansion is known to every one who lives in London, and has any knowledge
+of the political and social life of the earlier Georgian courtiers and
+statesmen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS.
+
+
+The annals of the legal profession show that the neighborhood of
+Guildhall was a favorite place of residence with the ancient lawyers,
+who either held judicial offices within the circle of the Lord Mayor's
+jurisdiction, or whose practice lay chiefly in the civic courts. In the
+fifteenth and sixteenth centuries there was quite a colony of jurists
+hard by the temple of Gogmagog and Cosineus--or Gog and Magog, as the
+grotesque giants are designated by the unlearned, who know not the
+history of the two famous effigies, which originally figured in an
+Elizabethan pageant, stirring the wonder of the illiterate, and
+reminding scholars of two mythical heroes about whom the curious reader
+of this paragraph may learn further particulars by referring to Michael
+Drayton's 'Polyolbion.'
+
+In Milk Street, Cheapside, lived Sir John More, judge in the Court of
+King's Bench; and in Milk street, A.D. 1480, was born Sir John's famous
+son Thomas, the Chancellor, who was at the same time learned and simple,
+witty and pious, notable for gentle meekness and firm resolve, abounding
+with tenderness and hot with courage. Richard Rich--who beyond Scroggs
+or Jeffreys deserves to be remembered as the arch-scoundrel of the legal
+profession--was one of Thomas More's playmates and boon companions for
+several years of their boyhood and youth. Richard's father was an
+opulent mercer, and one of Sir John's near neighbors; so the youngsters
+were intimate until Master Dick, exhibiting at an early age his vicious
+propensities, came to be "esteemed very light of his tongue, a great
+dicer and gamester, and not of any commendable fame."
+
+On marrying his first wife Sir Thomas More settled in a house in
+Bucklersbury, the City being the proper quarter for his residence, as he
+was an under-sheriff of the city of London, in which character he both
+sat in the Court of the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs, and presided over a
+separate court on the Thursday of each week. Whilst living in
+Bucklersbury he had chambers in Lincoln's Inn. On leaving Bucklersbury
+he took a house in Crosby Place, from which he moved, in 1523, to
+Chelsea, in which parish he built the house that was eventually pulled
+down by Sir Hans Sloane in the year 1740.
+
+A generation later, Sir Nicholas Bacon was living in Noble Street,
+Foster Lane, where he had built the mansion known as Bacon House, in
+which he resided till, as Lord Keeper, he took possession of York House.
+Chief Justice Bramston lived, at different parts of his career, in
+Whitechapel; in Philip Lane, Aldermanbury; and (after his removal from
+Bosworth Court) in Warwick Lane, Sir John Bramston (the autobiographer)
+married into a house in Charterhouse Yard, where his father, the Chief
+Justice, resided with him for a short time.
+
+But from an early date, and especially during the seventeenth and
+eighteenth centuries, the more prosperous of the working lawyers either
+lived within the walls of the Inns, or in houses lying near the law
+colleges. Fleet Street, the Strand, Holborn, Chancery Lane, and the good
+streets leading into those thoroughfares, contained a numerous legal
+population in the times between Elizabeth's death and George III.'s
+first illness. Rich benchers and Judges wishing for more commodious
+quarters than they could obtain at any cost within college-walls,
+erected mansions in the immediate vicinity of their Inns; and their
+example was followed by less exalted and less opulent members of the bar
+and judicial bench. The great Lord Strafford first saw the light in
+Chancery Lane, in the house of his maternal grandfather, who was a
+bencher of Lincoln's Inn. Lincoln's Inn Fields was principally built for
+the accommodation of wealthy lawyers; and in Charles II.'s reign Queen
+Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields was in high repute with legal magnates. Sir
+Edward Coke lived alternately in chambers, and in Hatton House, Holborn,
+the palace that came to him by his second marriage. John Kelyng's house
+stood in Hatton Garden, and there he died in 1671. In his mansion in
+Lincoln's Inn Fields, Sir Harbottle Grimston, on June 25, 1660 (shortly
+before his appointment to the Mastership of the Rolls, for which place
+he is said to have given Clarendon L8000), entertained Charles II. and a
+grand gathering of noble company. After his marriage Francis North took
+his high-born bride into chambers, which they inhabited for a short time
+until a house in Chancery Lane, near Serjeants' Inn, was ready for
+their use. On Nov. 15, 1666,--the year of the fire of London, in which
+year Hyde had his town house in the Strand--Glyn died in his house, in
+Portugal Row, Lincoln's Inn Fields. On June 15, 1691, Henry Pollexfen,
+Chief Justice of Common Pleas, expired in his mansion in Lincoln's Inn
+Fields. These addresses--taken from a list of legal addresses lying
+before the writer--indicate with sufficient clearness the quarter of the
+town in which Charles II.'s lawyers mostly resided.
+
+Under Charles II. the population of the Inns was such that barristers
+wishing to marry could not easily obtain commodious quarters within
+College-walls. Dugdale observes "that all but the benchers go two to a
+chamber: a bencher hath only the privilege of a chamber to himself." He
+adds--"if there be any one chamber consisting of two parts, and the one
+part exceeds the other in value, and he who hath the best part sells the
+same, yet the purchaser shall enter into the worst part; for it is a
+certain rule that the auntient in the chamber--_viz._, he who was
+therein first admitted, without respect to their antiquity in the house,
+hath his choice of either part." This custom of sharing chambers gave
+rise to the word 'chumming,' an abbreviation of 'chambering.' Barristers
+in the present time often share a chamber--_i.e._, set of rooms. In the
+seventeenth century an utter-barrister found the half of a set of rooms
+inconveniently narrow quarters for himself and wife. By arranging
+privately with a non-resident brother of the long robe, he sometimes
+obtained an entire "chamber," and had the space allotted to a bencher.
+When he could not make such an arrangement, he usually moved to a house
+outside the gate, but in the immediate vicinity of his inn, as soon as
+his lady presented him with children, if not sooner.
+
+Of course working, as well as idle, members of the profession were found
+in other quarters. Some still lived in the City; others preferred more
+fashionable districts. Roger North, brother of the Lord Keeper and son
+of a peer, lived in the Piazza of Covent Garden, in the house formerly
+occupied Lely the painter. To this house Sir Dudley North moved from his
+costly and dark mansion in the City, and in it he shortly afterwards
+died, under the hands of Dr. Radcliffe and the prosperous apothecary,
+Mr. St. Amand. "He had removed," writes Roger, "from his great house in
+the City, and came to that in the Piazza which Sir Peter Lely formerly
+used, and I had lived in alone for divers years. We were so much
+together, and my incumbrances so small, that so large a house might hold
+us both." Roger was a practicing barrister and Recorder of Bristol.
+
+During his latter years Sir John Bramston (the autobiographer) kept
+house in Greek Street, Soho.
+
+In the time of Charles II. the wealthy lawyers often maintained suburban
+villas, where they enjoyed the air and pastimes of the country. When his
+wife's health failed, Francis North took a villa for her at Hammersmith,
+"for the advantage of better air, which he thought beneficial for her;"
+and whilst his household tarried there, he never slept at his chambers
+in town, "but always went home to his family, and was seldom an evening
+without company agreeable to him." In his latter years, Chief Justice
+Pemberton had a rural mansion in Highgate, where his death occurred on
+June 10, 1699, in the 74th year of his age. A pleasant chapter might be
+written on the suburban seats of our great lawyers from the Restoration
+down to the present time. Lord Mansfield's 'Kenwood' is dear to all who
+are curious in legal _ana_. Charles Yorke had a villa at Highgate, where
+he entertained his political and personal friends. Holland, the
+architect, built a villa at Dulwich for Lord Thurlow; and in consequence
+of a quarrel between the Chancellor and the builder, the former took
+such a dislike to the house, that after its completion he never slept a
+night in it, though he often passed his holidays in a small lodge
+standing in the grounds of the villa. "Lord Thurlow," asked a lady of
+him, as he was leaving the Queen's Drawing-room, "when are you going
+into your new house?" "Madam," answered the surly Chancellor, incensed
+by her curiosity, "the Queen has asked me that impudent question, and I
+would not answer her; I will not tell you." For years Loughborough and
+Erskine had houses in Hampstead. "In Lord Mansfield's time," Erskine
+once said to Lord Campbell, "although the King's Bench monopolized all
+the common-law business, the court often rose at one or two o'clock--the
+papers, special, crown, and peremptory, being cleared; and then I
+refreshed myself by a drive to my villa at Hampstead." It was on
+Hampstead Heath that Loughborough, meeting Erskine in the dusk, said,
+"Erskine, you must not take Paine's brief;" and received the prompt
+reply, "But I have been retained, and I will take it, by G-d!" Much of
+that which is most pleasant in Erskine's career occurred at his
+Hampstead villa. Of Lord Kenyon's weekly trips from his mansion in
+Lincoln's Inn Fields to his farm-house at Richmond notice has been taken
+in a previous chapter. The memory of Charles Abbott's Hendon villa is
+preserved in the name, style, and title of Lord Tenterden, of Hendon, in
+the county of Middlesex. Indeed, lawyers have for many generations
+manifested much fondness for fresh air; the impure atmosphere of their
+courts in past time apparently whetting their appetites for wholesome
+breezes.
+
+Throughout the eighteenth century Lincoln's Inn Fields, an open though
+disorderly spot, was a great place for the residence of legal magnates.
+Somers, Nathan Wright, Cowper, Harcourt, successively inhabited Powis
+House. Chief Justice Parker (subsequently Lord Chancellor Macclesfield)
+lived there when he engaged Philip Yorke (then an attorney's articled
+clerk, but afterwards Lord Chancellor of England) to be his son's law
+tutor. On the south side of the square, Lord Chancellor Henley kept high
+state in the family mansion that descended to him on the death of his
+elder brother, and subsequently passed into the hands of the Surgeons,
+whose modest but convenient college stands upon its site. Wedderburn and
+Erskine had their mansions in Lincoln's Inn Fields, as well as their
+suburban villas. And between the lawyers of the Restoration and the
+judges of George III.'s reign, a large proportion of our most eminent
+jurists and advocates lived in that square and the adjoining streets;
+such as Queen Street on the west, Serle Street, Carey Street, Portugal
+Street, Chancery Lane, on the south and south-east. The reader, let it
+be observed, may not infer that this quarter was confined to legal
+residents. The lawyers were the most conspicuous and influential
+occupants; but they had for neighbors people of higher quality, who,
+attracted to the square by its openness, or the convenience of its site,
+or the proximity of the law colleges, made it their place of abode in
+London. Such names as those of the Earl of Lindsey and the Earl of
+Sandwich in the seventeenth, and of the Duke of Ancaster and the Duke of
+Newcastle in the eighteenth century, establish the patrician character
+of the quarter for many years. Moreover, from the books of popular
+antiquaries, a long list might be made of wits, men of science, and
+minor celebrities, who, though in no way personally connected with the
+law, lived during the same period under the shadow of Lincoln's Inn.
+
+Whilst Lincoln's Inn Fields took rank amongst the most aristocratic
+quarters of the town, it was as disorderly a square as could be found in
+all London. Royal suggestions, the labors of a learned committee
+especially appointed by James I. to decide on a proper system of
+architecture, and Inigo Jones's magnificent but abortive scheme had but
+a poor result. In Queen Anne's reign, and for twenty years later, the
+open space of the fields was daily crowded with beggars, mountebanks,
+and noisy rabble; and it was the scene of constant uproar and frequent
+riots. As soon as a nobleman's coach drew up before one of the
+surrounding mansions, a mob of half-naked rascals swarmed about the
+equipage, asking for alms in alternate tones of entreaty and menace.
+Pugilistic encounters, and fights resembling the faction fights of an
+Irish row, were of daily occurrence there; and when the rabble decided
+on torturing a bull with dogs, the wretched beast was tied to a stake in
+the centre of the wide area, and there baited in the presence of a
+ferocious multitude, and to the diversion of fashionable ladies, who
+watched the scene from their drawing-room windows. The Sacheverell
+outrage was wildest in this chosen quarter of noblemen and blackguards;
+and in George II.'s reign, when Sir Joseph Jekyll, the Master of the
+Rolls, made himself odious to the lowest class by his Act for laying an
+excise upon gin, a mob assailed him in the middle of the fields, threw
+him to the ground, kicked him over and over, and savagely trampled upon
+him. It was a marvel that he escaped with his life; but with
+characteristic good humor, he soon made a joke of his ill-usage, saying
+that until the mob made him their football he had never been master of
+_all_ the _rolls_. Soon after this outbreak of popular violence, the
+inhabitants enclosed the middle of the area with palisades, and turned
+the enclosure into an ornamental garden. Describing the Fields in 1736,
+the year in which the obnoxious Act concerning gin became law, James
+Ralph says, "Several of the original houses still remain, to be a
+reproach to the rest; and I wish the disadvantageous comparison had
+been a warning to others to have avoided a like mistake.... But this is
+not the only quarrel I have to Lincoln's Inn Fields. The area is capable
+of the highest improvement, might be made a credit to the whole city,
+and do honor to those who live round it; whereas at present no place can
+be more contemptible or forbidding; in short, it serves only as a
+nursery for beggars and thieves, and is a daily reflection on those who
+suffer it to be in its abandoned condition."
+
+During the eighteenth century, a tendency to establish themselves in the
+western portion of the town was discernible amongst the great law lords.
+For instance, Lord Cowper, who during his tenure of the seals resided in
+Powis House, during his latter years occupied a mansion in Great George
+Street, Westminster--once a most fashionable locality, but now a street
+almost entirely given up to civil engineers, who have offices there, but
+usually live elsewhere. In like manner, Lord Harcourt, moving westwards
+from Lincoln's Inn Fields, established himself in Cavendish Square. Lord
+Henley, on retiring from the family mansion in Lincoln's Inn Fields,
+settled in Grosvenor Square. Lord Camden lived in Hill Street, Berkeley
+Square. On being entrusted with the sole custody of the seals, Lord
+Apsley (better known as Lord Chancellor Bathurst) made his first
+state-progress to Westminster Hall from his house in Dean Street, Soho;
+but afterwards moving farther west, he built Apsley House (familiar to
+every Englishman as the late Duke of Wellington's town mansion) upon the
+site of Squire Western's favorite inn--the 'Hercules' Pillars.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE OLD LAW QUARTER.
+
+
+Fifteen years since the writer of this page used to dine with a
+conveyancer--a lawyer of an old and almost obsolete school--who had a
+numerous household, and kept a hospitable table in Lincoln's Inn Fields;
+but the conveyancer was almost the last of his species. The householding
+legal _resident_ of the Fields, like the domestic resident of the
+Temple, has become a feature of the past. Among the ordinary nocturnal
+population of the square called Lincoln's Inn Fields, may be found a few
+solicitors who sleep by night where they work by day, and a sprinkling
+of young barristers and law students who have residential chambers in
+grand houses that less than a century since were tenanted by members of
+a proud and splendid aristocracy; but the gentle families have by this
+time altogether disappeared from the mansions.
+
+But long before this aristocratic secession, the lawyers took possession
+of a new quarter. The great charm of Lincoln's Inn Fields had been the
+freshness of the air which played over the open space. So also the
+recommendation of Great Queen Street had been the purity of its rural
+atmosphere. Built between 1630 and 1730, that thoroughfare--at present
+hemmed in by fetid courts and narrow passages--caught the keen breezes
+of Hampstead, and long maintained a character for salubrity as well as
+fashion. Of those fine squares and imposing streets which lie between
+High Holborn and Hampstead, not a stone had been laid when the ground
+covered by the present Freemason's Tavern was one of the most desirable
+sites of the metropolis. Indeed, the houses between Holborn and Great
+Queen Street were not erected till the mansions on the south side of
+the latter thoroughfare--built long before the northern side--had for
+years commanded an unbroken view of Holborn Fields. Notwithstanding many
+gloomy predictions of the evils that would necessarily follow from
+over-building, London steadily increased, and enterprising architects
+deprived Lincoln's Inn Fields and Great Queen Street of their rural
+qualities. Crossing Holborn, the lawyers settled on a virgin plain
+beyond the ugly houses which had sprung up on the north of Great Queen
+Street, and on the country side of Holborn. Speedily a new quarter
+arose, extending from Gray's Inn on the east to Southampton Row on the
+West, and lying between Holborn and the line of Ormond Street, Red Lion
+Street, Bedford Row, Great Ormond Street, Little Ormond Street, Great
+James Street, and Little James Street were amongst its best
+thoroughfares; in its centre was Red Lion Square, and in its
+northwestern corner lay Queen's Square. Steadily enlarging its
+boundaries, it comprised at later dates Guildford Street, John's Street,
+Doughty Street, Mecklenburgh Square, Brunswick Square, Bloomsbury
+Square, Russell Square, Bedford Square--indeed, all the region lying
+between Gray's Inn Lane (on the east), Tottenham Court Road (on the
+west), Holborn (on the south), and a line running along the north of the
+Foundling Hospital and 'the squares.' Of course this large residential
+district was more than the lawyers required for themselves. It became
+and long remained a favorite quarter with merchants, physicians,[2] and
+surgeons; and until a recent date it comprised the mansions of many
+leading members of the aristocracy. But from its first commencement it
+was so intimately associated with the legal profession that it was often
+called the 'law quarter;' and the writer of this page has often heard
+elderly ladies and gentlemen speak of it as the 'old law quarter.'
+
+Although lawyers were the earliest householders in this new quarter, its
+chief architect encountered at first strong opposition from a section of
+the legal profession. Anxious to preserve the rural character of their
+neighborhood, the gentlemen of Gray's Inn were greatly displeased with
+the proposal to lay out Holborn Fields in streets and squares. Under
+date June 10, 1684, Narcissus Luttrell wrote in his diary--"Dr.
+Barebone, the great builder, having some time since bought the Red Lyon
+Fields, near Graie's Inn walks, to build on, and having for that purpose
+employed severall workmen to goe on with the same, the gentlemen of
+Graie's Inn took notice of it, and, thinking it an injury to them, went
+with a considerable body of 100 persons; upon which the workmen
+assaulted the gentlemen, and flung bricks at them, and the gentlemen at
+them again. So a sharp engagement ensued, but the gentlemen routed them
+at last, and brought away one or two of the workmen to Graie's Inn; in
+this skirmish one or two of the gentlemen and servants of the house were
+hurt, and severall of the workmen."
+
+James Ralph's remarks on the principal localities of this district are
+interesting. "Bedford Row," he says, "is one of the most noble streets
+that London has to boast of, and yet there is not one house in it which
+deserves the least attention." He tells us that "Ormond Street is
+another place of pleasure, and that side of it next the Fields is,
+beyond question, one of the most charming situations about town." This
+'place of pleasure' is now given up for the most part to hospitals and
+other charitable institutions, and to lodging-houses of an inferior
+sort. Passing on to Bloomsbury Square, and speaking of the Duke of
+Bedford's residence, which stood on the North side of the square, he
+says, "Then behind it has the advantage of most agreeable gardens, and a
+view of the country, which would make a retreat from the town almost
+unnecessary, besides the opportunity of exhibiting another prospect of
+the building, which would enrich the landscape and challenge new
+approbation." This was written in 1736. At that time the years of two
+generations were appointed to pass away ere the removal of Bedford House
+should make way for Lower Bedford Place, leading into Russell Square.
+
+So late as the opening years of George III.'s reign, Queen's Square
+enjoyed an unbroken prospect in the direction of Highgate and Hampstead.
+'The Foreigner's Guide: or a Necessary and Instructive Companion both to
+the Foreigner and Native, in their Tours through the Cities of London
+and Westminster' (1763), contains the following passage:--"Queen's
+Square, which is pleasantly situated at the extreme part of the town,
+has a fine open view of the country, and is handsomely built, as are
+likewise the neighboring streets--viz., Southampton Row, Ormond Street,
+&c. In this last is Powis House, so named from the Marquis of Powis, who
+built the present stately structure in the year 1713. It is now the town
+residence of the Earl of Hardwicke, late Lord Chancellor. The
+apartments are noble, and the whole edifice is commendable for its
+situation, and the fine prospect of the country. Not far from thence is
+Bloomsbury Square. This square is commendable for its situation and
+largeness. On the North side is the house of the Duke of Bedford. This
+building was erected from a design of Inigo Jones, and is very elegant
+and spacious." From the duke's house in Bloomsbury Square and his
+surrounding property, the political party, of which he was the Chief,
+obtained the nickname of the Bloomsbury Gang.
+
+Chief Justice Holt died March 5, 1710, at his house[3] in Bedford Row.
+In Red Lion Square Chief Justice Raymond had the town mansion wherein he
+died on April 15, 1733; twelve years after Sir John Pratt, Lord Camden's
+father, died at his house in Ormond Street. On December 15, 1761, Chief
+Justice Willes died at his house in Bloomsbury Square. Chagrin at
+missing the seals through his own arrogance, when they had been actually
+offered to him, was supposed to be a principal cause of the Chief
+Justice's death. His friends represented that he died of a broken heart;
+to which assertion flippant enemies responded that no man ever had a
+heart after living seventy-four years. Murray for many years inhabited a
+handsome house in Lincoln's Inn Fields; but his name is more generally
+associated with Bloomsbury Square, where stood the house which was
+sacked and burnt by the Gordon rioters. In Bloomsbury Square our
+grandfathers used to lounge, watching the house of Edward Law,
+subsequently Lord Ellenborough, in the hope of seeing Mrs. Law, as she
+watered the flowers of her balcony. Mrs. Law's maiden name was Towry,
+and, as a beauty, she remained for years the rage of London. Even at
+this date there remain a few aged gentlemen whose eyes sparkle and whose
+checks flush when they recall the charms of the lovely creature who
+became the wife of ungainly Edward Law, after refusing him on three
+separate occasions.
+
+On becoming Lord Ellenborough and Chief Justice, Edward Law moved to a
+great mansion in St. James's Square, the size of which he described to a
+friend by saying: "Sir, if you let off a piece of ordnance in the hall,
+the report is not heard in the bedrooms." In this house the Chief
+Justice expired, on December 13, 1818. Speaking of Lord Ellenborough's
+residence in St. James's Square, Lord Campbell says: "This was the first
+instance of a common law judge moving to the 'West End.' Hitherto all
+the common law judges had lived within a radius of half a mile from
+Lincoln's Inn; but they are now spread over the Regent's Park, Hyde Park
+Gardens, and Kensington Gore."
+
+Lord Harwicke and Lord Thurlow have been more than once mentioned as
+inhabitants of Ormond Street.
+
+Eldon's residences may be noticed with advantage in this place. On
+leaving Oxford and settling in London, he took a small house for himself
+and Mrs. Scott in Cursitor Street, Chancery Lane. About this dwelling he
+wrote to his brother Henry:--"I have got a house barely sufficient to
+hold my small family, which (so great is the demand for them here) will,
+in rent and taxes, cost me annually six pounds." To this house he used
+to point in the days of his prosperity, and, in allusion to the poverty
+which he never experienced, he would add, "There was my first perch.
+Many a time have I run down from Cursitor Street to Fleet Market and
+bought sixpenn'orth of sprats for our supper." After leaving Cursitor
+Street, he lived in Carey Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, where also, in
+his later years, he believed himself to have endured such want of money
+that he and his wife were glad to fill themselves with sprats. When he
+fixed this anecdote upon Carey Street, the old Chancellor used to
+represent himself as buying the sprats in Clare Market instead of Fleet
+Market. After some successful years he moved his household from the
+vicinity of Lincoln's Inn, and took a house in the law quarter,
+selecting one of the roomy houses (No. 42) of Gower Street, where he
+lived when as Attorney General he conducted the futile prosecutions of
+Hardy, Horne Tooke, and Thelwall, in 1794.
+
+On quitting Gower Street, Eldon took the house in Bedford Square, which
+witnessed so many strange scenes during his tenure of the seals, and
+also during his brief exclusion from office. In Bedford Square he played
+the part of chivalric protector to the Princess of Wales, and chuckled
+over the proof-sheets of that mysterious 'book' by the publication of
+which the injured wife and the lawyer hoped to take vengeance on their
+common enemy. There the Chancellor, feeling it well to protract his
+flirtation with the Princess of Wales, entertained her in the June of
+1808, with a grand banquet, from which Lady Eldon was compelled by
+indisposition to be absent. And there, four years later, when he was
+satisfied that her Royal Highness's good opinion could be of no service
+to him, the crafty, self-seeking minister gave a still more splendid
+dinner to the husband whose vices he had professed to abhor, whose
+meanness of spirit he had declared the object of his contempt.
+"However," writes Lord Campbell, with much satiric humor, describing
+this alliance between the selfish voluptuary and the equally selfish
+lawyer, "he was much comforted by having the honor, at the prorogation,
+of entertaining at dinner his Royal Highness the Regent, with whom he
+was now a special favorite, and who, enjoying the splendid hospitality
+of Bedford Square, forgot that the Princess of Wales had sat in the same
+room; at the same table; on the same chair; had drunk of the same wine;
+out of the same cup; while the conversation had turned on her barbarous
+usage, and the best means of publishing to the world _her_ wrongs and
+_his_ misconduct."
+
+Another of the Prince Regent's visits to Bedford Square is surrounded
+with comic circumstances and associations. In the April of 1815, a
+mastership of chancery became vacant by the death of Mr. Morris; and
+forthwith the Chancellor was assailed with entreaties from every
+direction for the vacant post. For two months Eldon, pursuing that
+policy of which he was a consummate master, delayed to appoint; but
+on June 23, he disgusted the bar and shocked the more intelligent
+section of London society, by conferring the post on Jekyll, the
+courtly _bon vivant_ and witty descendant of Sir Joseph Jekyll, Master
+of the Rolls. Amiable, popular, and brilliant, Jekyll received the
+congratulations of his numerous personal friends; but beyond the
+circle of his private acquaintance the appointment created lively
+dissatisfaction--dissatisfaction which was heightened rather than
+diminished by the knowledge that the placeman's good fortune was
+entirely due to the personal importunity of the Prince Regent, who
+called at the Chancellor's house, and having forced his way into the
+bedroom, to which Eldon was confined by an attack of gout, refused
+to take his departure without a promise that his friend should have
+the vacant place. How this royal influence was applied to the
+Chancellor, is told in the 'Anecdote Book.'
+
+Fortunately Jekyll was less incompetent for the post than his enemies
+had declared, and his friends admitted. He proved a respectable master,
+and held his post until age and sickness compelled him to resign it;
+and then, sustained in spirits by the usual retiring pension, he
+sauntered on right mirthfully into the valley of the shadow of death. On
+the day after his retirement, the jocose veteran, meeting Eldon in the
+street, observed:--"Yesterday, Lord Chancellor, I was your master;
+to-day I am my own."
+
+From Bedford Square, Lord Eldon, for once following the fashion, moved
+to Hamilton Place, Piccadilly. With the purpose of annoying him the
+'Queen's friends,' during the height of the 'Queen Caroline agitation,'
+proposed to buy the house adjoining the Chancellor's residence in
+Hamilton Place, and to fit it up for the habitation of that not
+altogether meritorious lady. Such an arrangement would have been an
+humiliating as well as exasperating insult to a lawyer who, as long as
+the excitement about the poor woman lasted, would have been liable to
+affront whenever he left his house or looked through the windows facing
+Hamilton Place. The same mob that delighted in hallooing round whatever
+house the Queen honored with her presence, would have varied their
+'hurrahs' for the lady with groans for the lawyer who, after making her
+wrongs the stalking-horse of his ambition, had become one of her chief
+oppressors. Eldon determined to leave Hamilton Place on the day which
+should see the Queen enter it; and hearing that the Lords of the
+Treasury were about to assist her with money for the purchase of the
+house, he wrote to Lord Liverpool, protesting against an arrangement
+which would subject him to annoyance at home and to ridicule out of
+doors. "I should," he wrote, "be very unwilling to state anything
+offensively, but I cannot but express my confidence that Government will
+not aid a project which must remove the Chancellor from his house the
+next hour that it takes effect, and from his office at the same time."
+This decided attitude caused the Government to withdraw their
+countenance from the project; whereupon a public subscription was opened
+for its accomplishment. Sufficient funds were immediately proffered; and
+the owner of the mansion had verbally made terms with the patriots, when
+the Chancellor, outbidding them, bought the house himself. "I had no
+other means," he wrote to his daughter, "of preventing the destruction
+of my present house as a place in which I could live, or which anybody
+else would take. The purchase-money is large, but I have already had
+such offers, that I shall not, I think, lose by it."
+
+Russell Square--where Lord Loughborough (who knows aught of the Earl of
+Rosslyn?) had his town house, after leaving Lincoln's Inn Fields, and
+where Charles Abbott (Lord Tenterden) established himself on leaving the
+house in Queen Square, into which he married during the summer of
+1795--maintained a quasi-fashionable repute much later than the older
+and therefore more interesting parts of the 'old law quarter.' Theodore
+Hook's disdain for Bloomsbury is not rightly appreciated by those who
+fail to bear in mind that the Russell Square of Hook's time was tenanted
+by people who--though they were unknown to 'fashion,' in the sense given
+to the word by men of Brummel's habit and tone--had undeniable status
+amongst the aristocracy and gentry of England. With some justice the
+witty writer has been charged with snobbish vulgarity because he
+ridiculed humble Bloomsbury for being humble. His best defence is found
+in the fact that his extravagant scorn was not directed at helpless and
+altogether obscure persons so much as at an educated and well-born class
+who laughed at his caricatures, and gave dinners at which he was proud
+to be present. Though it fails to clear the novelist of the special
+charge, this apology has a certain amount of truth; and in so far as it
+palliates some of his offences against good taste and gentle feeling, by
+all means let him have the full benefit of it. Criticism can afford to
+be charitable to the clever, worthless man, now that no one admires or
+tries to respect him. Again, it may be advanced, in Hook's behalf, that
+political animosity--a less despicable, though not less hurtful passion
+than love of gentility--contributed to Hook's dislike of the quarter on
+the north side of Holborn. As a humorist he ridiculed, as a panderer to
+fashionable prejudices he sneered at, Bloomsbury; but as a tory he
+cherished a genuine antagonism to the district of town that was
+associated in the public mind with the wealth and ascendency of the
+house of Bedford. Anyhow, the Russell Square neighborhood--although it
+was no longer fashionable, as Belgravia and Mayfair are fashionable at
+the present day--remained the locality of many important families, at
+the time when Mr. Theodore Hook was pleased to assume that no one above
+the condition of a rich tradesman or second-rate attorney lived in it.
+Of the lawyers whose names are mournfully associated with the square
+itself are Sir Samuel Romilly and Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd. In 1818, the
+year of his destruction by his own hand, Sir Samuel Romilly lived there;
+and Talfourd had a house on the east side of the square up to the time
+of his lamented death in 1854.
+
+That Theodore Hook's ridicule of Bloomsbury greatly lessened for a time
+the value of its houses there is abundant evidence. When he deluged the
+district with scornful satire, his voice was a social power, to which a
+considerable number of honest people paid servile respect. His clever
+words were repeated; and Bloomsbury having become a popular by-word for
+contempt, aristocratic families ceased to live, and were reluctant to
+invest money, in its well-built mansions. But Hook only accelerated a
+movement which had for years been steadily though silently making
+progress. Erskine knew Red Lion Square when every house was occupied by
+a lawyer of wealth and eminence, if not of titular rank; but before he
+quitted the stage, barristers had relinquished the ground in favor of
+opulent shopkeepers. When an ironmonger became the occupant of a house
+in Red Lion Square on the removal of a distinguished counsel, Erskine
+wrote the epigram--
+
+   "This house, where once a lawyer dwelt,
+     Is now a smith's,--alas!
+   How rapidly the iron age
+     Succeeds the age of brass."
+
+These lines point to a minor change in the social arrangements of
+London, which began with the century, and was still in progress when
+Erskine had for years been mouldering in his grave. In 1823, the year of
+Erskine's death, Chief Baron Richards expired in his town house, in
+Great Ormond Street. In the July of the following year Baron
+Wood--_i.e._, George Wood, the famous special pleader--died at his house
+in Bedford Square, about seventeen months after his resignation of his
+seat in the Court of Exchequer to John Hullock.
+
+At the present time the legal fraternity has deserted Bloomsbury. The
+last of the Judges to depart was Chief Baron Pollock, who sold his great
+house in Queen Square at a quite recent date. With the disappearance of
+this venerable and universally respected judge, the legal history of the
+neighborhood may be said to have closed. Some wealthy solicitors still
+live in Russell Square and the adjoining streets; a few old-fashioned
+barristers still linger in Upper Bedford Place and Lower Bedford Place.
+Guilford Street and Doughty Street, and the adjacent thoroughfares of
+the same class, still number a sprinkling of rising juniors, literary
+barristers, and fairly prosperous attorneys. Perhaps the ancient aroma
+of the 'old law quarter'--Mesopotamia, us it is now disrespectfully
+termed--is still strong and pleasant enough to attract a few lawyers who
+cherish a sentimental fondness for the past. A survey of the Post Office
+Directory creates an impression that, compared with other neighborhoods,
+the district north and northeast of Bloomsbury Square still possesses
+more than an average number of legal residents; but it no longer remains
+the quarter of the lawyers.
+
+There still resides in Mecklenburgh Square a learned Queen's Counsel,
+for whose preservation the prayers of the neighborhood constantly
+ascend. To his more scholarly and polite neighbors this gentleman is an
+object of intellectual interest and anxious affection. As the last of an
+extinct species, as a still animate Dodo, as a lordly Mohican who has
+outlived his tribe, this isolated counselor of her Gracious Majesty is
+watched by heedful eyes whenever he crosses his threshold. In the
+morning, as he paces from his dwelling to chambers, his way down Doughty
+Street and John Street, and through Gray's Inn Gardens, is guarded by
+men anxious for his safety. Shreds of orange-peel are whisked from the
+pavement on which he is about to tread; and when he crosses Holborn he
+walks between those who would imperil their lives to rescue him from
+danger. The gatekeeper in Doughty Street daily makes him low obeisance,
+knowing the historic value and interest of his courtly presence.
+Occasionally the inhabitants of Mecklenburgh Square whisper a fear that
+some sad morning their Q.C. may flit away without giving them a warning.
+Long may it be before the residents of the 'Old Law Quarter' shall wail
+over the fulfillment of this dismal anticipation!
+
+[2] Dr. Clench lived in Brownlow Street, Holborn; and until his death,
+in 1831, John Abernethy occupied in Bedford Row the house which is still
+inhabited by an eminent surgeon, who was Abernethy's favorite pupil. Of
+Dr. Clench's death in January, 1691-2, Narcissus Luttrell gives the
+following account: "The 5th, last night, Dr. Clench, the physician, was
+strangled in a coach; two persons came to his house in Brownlow Street,
+Holborn, in a coach, and pretended to carry him to a patient's in the
+City; they drove backward and forward, and after some time stopt by
+Leadenhall, and sent the coachman to buy a couple of fowls for supper,
+who went accordingly; and in the meantime they slipt away, and the
+coachman when he returned found Dr. Clench with a handkerchief tyed
+about his neck, with a hard sea-coal twisted in it, and clapt against
+his windpipe; he had spirits applied to him and other means, but too
+late, he having been dead some time." Dr. Clench's murderer, one Mr.
+Harrison, a man of gentle condition, was apprehended, tried, found
+guilty, and hung in chains.
+
+[3] Holt's country seat was Redgrave Hall, formerly the home of the
+Bacons. It was on his manor of Redgrave, that Sir Nicholas Bacon
+entertained Queen Elizabeth, when she remarked that her Lord Keeper's
+house was too small for him, and he answered--"Your Majesty has made me
+too great for my house."
+
+
+
+
+PART II.
+
+LOVES OF THE LAWYERS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+A LOTTERY.
+
+
+"I would compare the multitude of women which are to be chosen for wives
+unto a bag full of snakes, having among them a single eel; now if a man
+should put his hand into this bag, he may chance to light on the eel;
+but it is an hundred to one he shall be stung by a snake."
+
+These words were often heard from the lips of that honest judge, Sir
+John More, whose son Thomas stirred from brain to foot by the bright
+eyes, and snowy neck, and flowing locks of _cara Elizabetha_ (the _cara
+Elizabetha_ of a more recent Tom More was 'Bessie, my darling')--penned
+those warm and sweetly-flowing verses which delight scholars of the
+present generation, and of which the following lines are neither the
+least musical nor the least characteristic:--
+
+   "Jam subit illa dies quae ludentem obtulit olim
+     Inter virgineos te mibi prima choros.
+   Lactea cum flavi decuerunt colla capilli,
+     Cum gena par nivibus visa, labella rosis:
+   Cum tua perstringunt oculos duo sydera nostros
+     Perque oculos intrant in mea corda meos."
+
+The goddess of love played the poet more than one droll trick. Having
+approached her with musical flattery, he fled from her with fear and
+abhorrence. For a time the highest and holiest of human affections was
+to his darkened mind no more than a carnal appetite; and he strove to
+conquer the emotions which he feared would rouse within him a riot of
+impious passions. With fasting and cruel discipline he would fain have
+killed the devil that agitated him, whenever he passed a pretty girl in
+the street. As a lay Carthusian he wore a hair-shirt next his skin,
+disciplined his bare back with scourges, slept on the cold ground or a
+hard bench, and by a score other strong measures sought to preserve his
+spiritual by ruining his bodily health. But nature was too powerful for
+unwholesome doctrine and usage, and before he rashly took a celibatic
+vow, he knelt to fair Jane Colt--and rising, kissed her on the lips.
+
+When spiritual counsel had removed his conscientious objections to
+matrimony, he could not condescend to marry for love, but must,
+forsooth, choose his wife in obedience to considerations of compassion
+and mercy. Loving her younger sister, he paid his addresses to Jane,
+because he shrunk from the injustice of putting the junior above the
+older of the two girls. "Sir Thomas having determined, by the advice and
+direction of his ghostly father, to be a married man, there was at that
+time a pleasant conceited gentleman of an ancient family in Essex, one
+Mr. John Colt, of New Hall, that invited him into his house, being much
+delighted in his company, proffering unto him the choice of any of his
+daughters, who were young gentlewomen of very good carriage, good
+complexions, and very religiously inclined; whose honest and sweet
+conversation and virtuous education enticed Sir Thomas not a little; and
+although his affection most served him to the second, for that he
+thought her the fairest and best favored, yet when he thought within
+himself that it would be a grief and some blemish to the eldest to have
+the younger sister preferred before her, he, out of a kind of
+compassion, settled his fancy upon the eldest, and soon after married
+her with all his friends' good liking."
+
+The marriage was a fair happy union, but its duration was short. After
+giving birth to four children Jane died, leaving the young husband, who
+had instructed her sedulously, to mourn her sincerely. That his sorrow
+was poignant may be easily believed; for her death deprived him of a
+docile pupil, as well as a dutiful wife.
+
+"Virginem duxit admodum puellam," Erasmus says of his friend, "claro
+genere natam, rudem adhuc utpote ruri inter parentes ac sorores semper
+habitam, quo magis illi liceret illam ad suos mores fingere. Hanc et
+literis instruendam curavit, et omni musices genere doctam reddidit."
+Here is another insight into the considerations which brought about the
+marriage. When he set out in search of a wife, he wished to capture a
+simple, unsophisticated, untaught country girl, whose ignorance of the
+world should incline her to rely on his superior knowledge, and the
+deficiencies of whose intellectual training should leave him an ample
+field for educational experiments. Seeking this he naturally turned his
+steps toward the eastern countries; and in Essex he found the young
+lady, who to the last learnt with intelligence and zeal the lessons
+which he set her.
+
+More's second choice of a wife was less fortunate than his first.
+Wanting a woman to take care of his children and preside over his rather
+numerous establishment, he made an offer to a widow, named Alice
+Middleton. Plain and homely in appearance and taste, Mistress Alice
+would have been invaluable to Sir Thomas as a superior domestic servant,
+but his good judgment and taste deserted him when he decided to make
+her a closer companion. Bustling, keen, loquacious, tart, the good dame
+scolded servants and petty tradesmen with admirable effect; but even at
+this distance of time the sensitive ear is pained by her sharp,
+garrulous tongue, when its acerbity and virulence are turned against her
+pacific and scholarly husband. A smile follows the recollection that he
+endeavored to soften her manners and elevate her nature by a system of
+culture similar to that by which Jane Colt, 'admodum puella,' had been
+formed and raised into a polished gentlewoman. Past forty years of age,
+Mistress Alice was required to educate herself anew. Erasmus assures his
+readers that "though verging on old age, and not of a yielding temper,"
+she was prevailed upon "to take lessons on the lute, the cithara, the
+viol, the monochord, and the flute, which she daily practised to him."
+
+It has been the fashion with biographers to speak bitterly of this poor
+woman, and to pity More for his cruel fate in being united to a
+termagant. No one has any compassion for her. Sir Thomas is the victim;
+Mistress Alice the shrill virago. In those days, when every historic
+reprobate finds an apologist, is there no one to say a word in behalf of
+the Widow Middleton, whose lot in life and death seems to this writer
+very pitiable? She was quick in temper, slow in brain, domineering,
+awkward. To rouse sympathy for such a woman is no easy task; but if
+wretchedness is a title to compassion, Mistress Alice has a right to
+charity and gentle usage. It _was not_ her fault that she could not
+sympathize with her grand husband, in his studies and tastes, his lofty
+life and voluntary death; it _was_ her misfortune that his steps
+traversed plains high above her own moral and intellectual level. By
+social theory they were intimate companions; in reality, no man and
+woman in all England were wider apart. From his elevation he looked
+down on her with commiseration that was heightened by curiosity and
+amazement; and she daily writhed under his gracious condescension and
+passionless urbanity; under her own consciousness of inferiority and
+consequent self-scorn. He could no more sympathize with her petty aims,
+than she with the high views and ambitions; and conjugal sympathy was
+far more necessary to her than to him. His studious friends and clever
+children afforded him an abundance of human fellowship; his public cares
+and intellectual pursuits gave him constant diversion. He stood in such
+small need of her, that if some benevolent fairy had suddenly endowed
+her with grace, wisdom, and understanding, the sum of his satisfaction
+would not have been perceptibly altered. But apart from him she had no
+sufficient enjoyments. His genuine companionship was requisite for her
+happiness; but for this society nature had endowed her with no fitness.
+In the case of an unhappy marriage, where the unhappiness is not caused
+by actual misconduct, but is solely due to incongruity of tastes and
+capacities, it is cruel to assume that the superior person of the
+ill-assorted couple has the stronger claim to sympathy.
+
+Finding his wife less tractable than he wished, More withheld his
+confidence from her, taking the most important steps of his life,
+without either asking for her advice, or even announcing the course
+which he was about to take. His resignation of the seals was announced
+to her on the day _after_ his retirement from office, and in a manner
+which, notwithstanding its drollery, would greatly pain any woman of
+ordinary sensibility. The day following the date of his resignation was
+a holiday; and in accordance with his usage the ex-Chancellor, together
+with his household, attended service in Chelsea Church. On her way to
+church, Lady More returned the greetings of her friends with a
+stateliness not unseemly at that ceremonious time in one who was the
+lady of the Lord High Chancellor. At the conclusion of service, ere she
+left her pew, the intelligence was broken to her in a jest that she had
+lost her cherished dignity. "And whereas upon the holidays during his
+High Chancellorship one of his gentlemen, when the service of the church
+was done, ordinarily used to come to my lady his wife's pew-door, and
+say unto her '_Madam, my lord is gone_,' he came into my lady his wife's
+pew himself, and making a low courtesy, said unto her, 'Madam, my lord
+is gone,' which she, imagining to be but one of his jests, as he used
+many unto her, he sadly affirmed unto her that it was true. This was the
+way he thought fittest to break the matter unto his wife, who was full
+of sorrow to hear it."
+
+Equally humorous and pathetic was that memorable interview between More
+and his wife in the Tower, when she, regarding his position by the
+lights with which nature had endowed her, counseled him to yield even at
+that late moment to the king. "What the goodyear, Mr. More!" she cried,
+bustling up to the tranquil and courageous man. "I marvel that you, who
+have been hitherto always taken for a wise man, will now so play the
+fool as to lie here in this close, filthy prison, and be content to be
+shut up thus with mice and rats, when you might be abroad at your
+liberty, with the favor and good-will both of the king and his council,
+if you would but do as the bishops and best learned of his realm have
+done; and, seeing you have at Chelsea a right fair house, your library,
+your books, your gallery, and all other necessaries so handsome about
+you, where you might, in company with me, your wife, your children, and
+household, be merry, I muse what, in God's name, you mean, here thus
+fondly to tarry." Having heard her out--preserving his good-humor, he
+said to her, with a cheerful countenance, "I pray thee, good Mrs.
+Alice, tell me one thing!" "What is it?" saith she, "Is not this house
+as near heaven as my own?"
+
+Sir Thomas More was looking towards heaven.
+
+Mistress Alice had her eye upon the 'right fair house' at Chelsea.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+GOOD QUEEN BESS.
+
+
+Amongst the eminent men who are frequently mentioned as notorious
+suitors for the personal affection of Queen Elizabeth, a conspicuous
+place is awarded to Hatton, by the scandalous memoirs of his time and
+the romantic traditions of later ages. Historians of the present
+generation have accepted without suspicion the story that Hatton was
+Elizabeth's amorous courtier, that the fanciful letters of 'Lydds' were
+fervent solicitations for response to his passion; that he won her favor
+and his successive promotions by timely exhibition of personal grace and
+steady perseverance in flattery. Campbell speaks of the queen and her
+chancellor as 'lovers;' and the view of the historian has been upheld by
+novelists and dramatic writers.
+
+The writer of this page ventures to reject a story which is not
+consistent with truth, and casts a dark suspicion on her who was not
+more powerful as a queen than virtuous as a woman.
+
+For illustrations of lovers' pranks amongst the Elizabethan lawyers, the
+reader must pass to two great judges, the inferior of whom was a far
+greater man than Christopher Hatton. Rivals in law and politics, Bacon
+and Coke were also rivals in love. Having wooed the same proud, lovely,
+capricious, violent woman, the one was blessed with failure, and the
+other was cursed with success.
+
+Until a revolution in the popular estimate of Bacon was effected by Mr.
+Hepworth Dixon's vindication of that great man, it was generally
+believed that love was no appreciable element in his nature. Delight in
+vain display occupied in his affections the place which should have been
+held by devotion to womanly beauty and goodness; he had sneered at love
+in an essay, and his cold heart never rebelled against the doctrine of
+his clever brain; he wooed his notorious cousin for the sake of power,
+and then married Alice Barnham for money. Such was the theory, the most
+solid foundation of which was a humorous treatise,[4] misread and
+misapplied.
+
+The lady's wealth, rank, and personal attractions were in truth the only
+facts countenancing the suggestion that Francis Bacon proffered suit to
+his fair cousin from interested motives. Notwithstanding her defects of
+temper, no one denies that she was a woman qualified by nature to rouse
+the passion of man. A wit and beauty, she was mistress of the arts which
+heighten the powers of feminine tact and loveliness. The daughter of Sir
+Thomas Cecil, the grandchild of Lord Burleigh, she was Francis Bacon's
+near relation; and though the Cecils were not inclined to help him to
+fortune, he was nevertheless one of their connection, and consequently
+often found himself in familiar conversation with the bright and
+fascinating woman. Doubtless she played with him, persuading herself
+that she merely treated him with cousinly cordiality, when she was
+designedly making him her lover. The marvel was that she did not give
+him her hand; that he sought it is no occasion for surprise--or for
+insinuations that he coveted her wealth. Biography is by turns
+mischievously communicative and vexatiously silent. That Bacon loved Sir
+William Hatton's widow, and induced Essex to support his suit, and that
+rejecting him she gave herself to his enemy, we know; but history tells
+us nothing of the secret struggle which preceded the lady's resolution
+to become the wife of an unalluring, ungracious, peevish, middle-aged
+widower. She must have felt some tenderness for her cousin, whose
+comeliness spoke to every eye, whose wit was extolled by every lip.
+Perhaps she, like many others, had misread the essay 'Of Love,' and felt
+herself bound in honor to bring the philosopher to his knees at her
+feet. It is credible that from the outset of their sentimental
+intercourse, she intended to win and then to flout him. But coquetry
+cannot conquer the first laws of human feeling. To be a good flirt, a
+woman must have nerve and a sympathetic nature; and doubtless the flirt
+in this instance paid for her triumph with the smart of a lasting wound.
+Is it fanciful to argue that her subsequent violence and misconduct, her
+impatience of control and scandalous disrespect for her aged husband,
+may have been in some part due to the sacrifice of personal inclination
+which she made in accepting Coke at the entreaty of prudent and selfish
+relations--and to the contrast, perpetually haunting her, between what
+she was as Sir Edward's termagant partner, and what she might have been
+as Francis Bacon's wife?
+
+She consented to a marriage with Edward Coke, but was so ashamed of her
+choice, that she insisted on a private celebration of their union,
+although Archbishop Whitgift had recently raised his voice against the
+scandal of clandestine weddings, and had actually forbidden them. In the
+face of the primate's edict the ill-assorted couple were united in
+wedlock, without license or publication of banns, by a country parson,
+who braved the displeasure of Whitgift, in order that he might secure
+the favor of a secular patron. The wedding-day was November 24, 1598,
+the bridegroom's first wife having been buried on the 24th of the
+previous July.[5] On learning the violation of his orders, the
+archbishop was so incensed that he resolved to excommunicate the
+offenders, and actually instituted for that purpose legal proceedings,
+which were not dropped until bride and bridegroom humbly sued for
+pardon, pleading ignorance of law in excuse of their misbehavior.
+
+The scandalous consequences of that marriage are known to every reader
+who has laughed over the more pungent and comic scenes of English
+history. Whilst Lady Hatton gave masques and balls in the superb palace
+which came into her possession through marriage with Sir Christopher
+Hatton's nephew, Coke lived in his chambers, working at cases and
+writing the books which are still carefully studied by every young man
+who wishes to make himself a master of our law. In private they had
+perpetual squabbles, and they quarrelled with equal virulence and
+indecency before the world. The matrimonial settlement of their only and
+ill-starred daughter was the occasion of an outbreak on the part of
+husband and wife, that not only furnished diversion for courtiers but
+agitated the council table. Of all the comic scenes connected with that
+unseemly _fracas_, not the least laughable and characteristic was the
+grand festival of reconciliation at Hatton House, when Lady Hatton
+received the king and queen in Holborn, and expressly forbade her
+husband to presume to show himself among her guests. "The expectancy of
+Sir Edward's rising," says a writer of the period,[6] "is much abated by
+reason of his lady's liberty,[7] who was brought in great honor to
+Exeter House by my Lord of Buckingham from Sir William Craven's, whither
+she had been remanded, presented by his lordship to the king, received
+gracious usage, reconciled to her daughter by his Majesty, and her house
+in Holborn enlightened by his presence at a dinner, where there was a
+royal feast; and to make it more absolutely her own, express
+commandment given by her ladyship, that neither Sir Edward Coke nor any
+of his servants should be admitted."
+
+If tradition may be credited, the law is greatly indebted to the class
+of women whom it was our forefathers' barbarous wont to punish with the
+ducking-stool. Had Coke been happy in his second marriage, it is assumed
+that he would have spent more time in pleasure and fewer hours at his
+desk, that the suitors in his court would have had less careful
+decisions, and that posterity would have been favored with fewer
+reports. If the inference is just, society may point to the commentary
+on Littleton, and be thankful for the lady's unhappy temper and sharp
+tongue. In like manner the wits of the following century maintained that
+Holt's steady application to business was a consequence of domestic
+misery. The lady who ruled his house in Bedford Row, is said to have
+been such a virago, that the Chief Justice frequently retired to his
+chambers, in order that he might place himself beyond reach of her
+voice. Amongst the good stories told of Radcliffe, the Tory physician,
+is the tradition of his boast, that he kept Lady Holt alive out of pure
+political animosity to the Whig Chief Justice. Another eminent lawyer,
+over whose troubles people have made merry in the same fashion, was
+Jeffrey Gilbert, Baron of the Exchequer. At his death, October 14, 1726,
+this learned judge left behind him that mass of reports, histories, and
+treatises by which he is known as one of the most luminous, as well as
+voluminous of legal writers. None of his works passed through the press
+during his life, and when their number and value were discovered after
+his departure to another world, it was whispered that they had been
+composed in hours of banishment from a hearth where a _scolding wife_
+made misery for all who came within the range of her querulous notes.
+
+Disappointed in his suit to his beautiful and domineering cousin, Bacon
+let some five or six years pass before he allowed his thoughts again to
+turn to love, and then he wooed and waited for nearly three years more,
+ere, on a bright May day, he met Alice Barnham in Marylebone Chapel, and
+made her his wife in the presence of a courtly company. In the July of
+1603, he wrote to Cecil:--"For this divulged and almost prostituted
+title of knighthood, I could, without charge by your honor's mean, be
+content to have it, both because of this late disgrace, and because I
+have three new knights in my mess in Gray's Inn Commons, and because I
+have found out an alderman's daughter, a handsome maiden, to my liking.
+So as if your honor will find the time, I will come to the court from
+Gorhambury upon any warning." This expression, 'an alderman's daughter,'
+contributed greatly, if it did not give rise to, the misapprehension
+that Bacon's marriage was a mercenary arrangement. In these later times
+the social status of an alderman is so much beneath the rank of a
+distinguished member of the bar, that a successful queen's counsel, who
+should make an offer to the daughter of a City magistrate, would be
+regarded as bent upon a decidedly unambitious match; and if in a
+significant tone he spoke of the lady as 'an alderman's daughter' his
+words might be reasonably construed as a hint that her fortune atoned
+for her want of rank. But it never occurred to Bacon's contemporaries to
+put such a construction on the announcement. Far from using the words in
+an apologetic manner, the lover meant them to express concisely that
+Alice Barnham was a lady of suitable condition to bear a title as well
+as to become his bride. Cecil regarded them merely as an assurance that
+his relative meditated a suitable and even advantageous alliance, just
+as any statesman of the present day would read an announcement that a
+kinsman, making his way in the law-courts, intended to marry 'an
+admiral's daughter' or a 'bishop's daughter.' That it was the reverse of
+a mercenary marriage, Mr. Hepworth Dixon has indisputably proved in his
+eighth chapter of 'The Story of Lord Bacon's Life,' where he contrasts
+Lady Bacon's modest fortune with her husband's personal acquisitions and
+prospects.
+
+[4] To readers who have no sense of humor and irony, the essay 'Of Love'
+unquestionably gives countenance to the theory that Francis Bacon was
+cold and passionless in all that concerned woman. Of the many strange
+constructions put upon this essay, not the least amusing and perverse is
+that which would make it a piece of adroit flattery to Elizabeth, who
+never permitted love "to check with business," though she is represented
+to have used it as a diversion in idle moments. If Sir Thomas More's
+'Utopia' had been published a quarter of a century after 1518 (the date
+of its appearance), a similar construction would have been put on the
+passage, which urges that lovers should not be bound by an indissoluble
+tie of wedlock, until mutual inspection has satisfied each of the
+contracting parties that the other does not labor under any grave
+personal defect. If it were possible to regard the passage containing
+this proposal as an interpolation in the original romance, it might then
+be regarded as an attempt to palliate Henry VIII.'s conduct to Anne of
+Cleves.
+
+[5] When due allowance has been made for the difference between the
+usages of the sixteenth century and the present time, decency was
+signally violated by this marriage, which followed so soon upon Mrs.
+Coke's death, and still sooner upon the death of Lady Hatton's famous
+grandfather, at whose funeral the lawyer made the first overtures for
+her hand. Mrs. Coke died June 27, 1598, and was buried at Huntingfield,
+co. Suffolk, July 24, 1598. Lord Burleigh expired on August 4, of the
+same year. Coke's first marriage was not unhappy; and on the death of
+his wife by that union, he wrote in his note-book:--"Most beloved and
+most excellent wife, she well and happily lived, and, as a true handmaid
+of the Lord, fell asleep in the Lord, and now lives and reigns in
+heaven." In after years he often wished most cordially that he could say
+_as much_ for his second wife.
+
+[6] Strafford's Letters and Despatches, I. 5.
+
+[7] Lady Hatton never used her second husband's name either before or
+after his knighthood. A good case, touching the customary right of a
+married lady to bear the name, and take her title from the rank of a
+former husband, is that of Sir Dudley North, Charles II.'s notorious
+sheriff of London. The son of an English peer, he married Lady Gunning,
+the widow of a wealthy civic knight, and daughter of Sir Robert Cann, "a
+morose old merchant of Bristol"--the same magistrate whom Judge
+Jeffreys, in terms not less just than emphatic, upbraided for his
+connection with, or to speak moderately, his connivance at, the Bristol
+kidnappers. It might be thought that the merchant's daughter, on her
+marriage with a peer's son, would be well content to relinquish the
+title of Lady Gunning; but Roger North tells us that his brother Dudley
+accepted knighthood, in order that he might avoid giving offence to the
+city, and also, in order that his wife might be called Lady North, and
+not Lady Gunning.--_Vide Life of the Hon. Sir Dudley North._ After Sir
+Thomas Wilde (subsequently Lord Truro), married Augusta Emma d'Este, the
+daughter of the duke of Sussex and Lady Augusta Murray, that lady, of
+whose legitimacy Sir Thomas had vainly endeavored to convince the House
+of Lords, retained her maiden surname. In society she was generally
+known as the Princess d'Este, and the bilious satirists of the Inns of
+Court used to speak of Sir Thomas as 'the Prince.' It was said that one
+of Wilde's familiar associates, soon after the lawyer's marriage, called
+at his house and asked if the Princess d'Este was at home. "No, sir,"
+replied the servant, "the Princess d'Este is not at home, but the Prince
+is!" That this malicious story obtained a wide currency is not
+wonderful; that it is a truthful anecdote the writer of this book would
+not like to pledge his credit. The case of Sir John Campbell and Lady
+Strathedon, was a notable instance of a lawyer and his wife bearing
+different names. Raised to the peerage, with the title of Baroness
+Stratheden, the first Lord Abinger's eldest daughter was indebted to her
+husband for an honor that made him her social inferior. Many readers
+will remember a droll story of a misapprehension caused by her
+ladyship's title. During an official journey, Sir John Campbell and
+Baroness Stratheden slept at lodgings which he had frequently occupied
+as a circuiteer. On the morning after his arrival, the landlady obtained
+a special interview with Campbell, and in the baroness's absence thus
+addressed him, with mingled indignation and respectfulness:--"Sir John
+Campbell, I am a lone widow, and live by my good name. It is not in my
+humble place to be too curious about the ladies brought to my lodgings
+by counsellors and judges. It is not in me to make remarks if a
+counsellor's lady changes the color of her eyes, and her complexion
+every assizes. But, Sir John, a gentleman ought not to bring a lady to a
+lone widow's lodgings, unless so long as he 'okkipies' the apartments he
+makes all honorable professions that the lady is his wife, and as such
+gives her the use of his name."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+REJECTED ADDRESSES.
+
+
+No lawyer of the Second Charles's time surpassed Francis North in love
+of money, or was more firmly resolved not to marry, without due and
+substantial consideration.
+
+His first proposal was for the daughter of a Gray's Inn money-lender.
+Usury was not a less contemptible vocation in the seventeenth century
+than it is at the present time; and most young barristers of gentle
+descent and fair prospects would have preferred any lot to the
+degradation of marriage with the child of the most fortunate usurer in
+Charles II.'s London. But the Hon. Francis North was placed comfortably
+_beneath_ the prejudices of his order and time of life. He was of noble
+birth, but quite ready to marry into a plebeian family; he was young,
+but loved money more than aught else. So his hearing was quickened and
+his blood beat merrily when, one fine morning, "there came to him a
+recommendation of a lady, who was an only daughter of an old usurer in
+Gray's Inn, supposed to be a good fortune in present, for her father was
+rich; but, after his death, to become worth, nobody could tell what."
+One would like to know how that 'recommendation of a lady' reached the
+lawyer's chambers; above all, who sent it?
+
+"His lordship," continues Roger North, "got a sight of the lady, and did
+not dislike her; thereupon he made the old man a visit, and a proposal
+of himself to marry his daughter." By all means let this ingenuous,
+high-spirited Templar have a fair judgment. He would not have sold
+himself to just any woman. He required a _maximum_ of wealth with a
+_minimum_ of personal repulsiveness. He therefore 'took a sight of the
+lady' (it does not appear that he talked with her) before he committed
+himself irrevocably by a proposal. The _sight_ having been taken, as he
+did not dislike her (mind, he did not positively like her) he made the
+old man a visit. Loving money, and believing in it, this 'old man'
+wished to secure as much of it as possible for his only child; and
+therefore looking keenly at the youthful admirer of a usurer's heiress,
+"asked him what estate his father intended to settle upon him for
+present maintenance, jointure, and provision for children." Mildly and
+not unjustly Roger calls this "an inauspicious question." It was so
+inauspicious that Mr. Francis North abruptly terminated the discussion
+by wishing the usurer good-morning. So ended Love Affair No. 1.
+
+Having lost his dear companion, Mr. Edward Palmer, son of the powerful
+Sir Geoffry Palmer, Mr. Francis North soon regarded his friend's wife
+with tender longing. It was only natural that he should desire to
+mitigate his sorrow for the dead by possession of the woman who was
+"left a flourishing widow, and very rich." But the lady knew her worth,
+as well she might, for "never was lady more closely besieged with
+wooers: she had no less than five younger sons sat down before her at
+one time, and she kept them well in hand, as they say, giving no
+definite answers to any of one of them." Small respect did Mistress
+Edward Palmer show her late husband's most intimate friend. For weeks
+she tortured the wretched, knavish fellow with coquettish tricks, and
+having rendered him miserable in many ways, made him ludicrous by
+jilting him. "He was held at the long saw above a month, doing his duty
+as well as he might, and that was but clumsily; for he neither dressed
+nor danced, when his rivals were adroit at both, and the lady used to
+shuffle her favors amongst them affectedly, and on purpose to mortify
+his lordship, and at the same time be as civil to him, with like purpose
+to mortify them." Poor Mr. Francis! Well may his brother write
+indignantly, "It was very grievous to him--that had his thoughts upon
+his clients' concerns, which came in thick upon him--to be held in a
+course of bo-peep play with a crafty widow." At length, "after a
+clancular proceeding," this crafty widow, by marrying "a jolly knight of
+a good estate," set her victims free; and Mr. Francis was at liberty to
+look elsewhere for a lapful of money.
+
+Roger North tells the story of the third affair so concisely and pithily
+that his exact words must be put before the reader:--"Another
+proposition came to his lordship," writes the fraternal biographer,
+giving Francis North credit for the title he subsequently won, although
+at the time under consideration he was plain _Mister_ North, on the keen
+look-out for the place of Solicitor General, "by a city broker, from Sir
+John Lawrence, who had many daughters, and those reputed beauties; and
+the fortune was to be L6000. His lordship went and dined with the
+alderman, and liked the lady, who (as the way is) was dressed out for a
+muster. And coming to treat, the portion shrank to L5000, and upon that
+his lordship parted, and was not gone far before Mr. Broker (following)
+came to him, and said Sir John would give L500 more at the birth of the
+first child; but that would not do, for his lordship hated such
+screwing. Not long after this dispute, his lordship was made the King's
+Solicitor General, and then the broker came again, with news that Sir
+John would give L10,000. 'No,' his lordship said, 'after such usage he
+would not proceed if he might have L20,000.'" The intervention of the
+broker in this negotiation is delightfully suggestive. More should have
+been said about him--his name, address, and terms for doing business.
+Was he paid for his services on all that he could save from a certain
+sum beyond which his employer would not advance a single gold-piece for
+the disposal of his child? Were there, in olden time, men who avowed
+themselves 'Heart and Jointure Brokers, Agents for Lovers of both Sexes,
+Contractors of Mutual Attachments, Wholesale and Retail Dealers in
+Reciprocal Affection, and General Referees, Respondents, and Insurers in
+all Sentimental Affairs, Clandestine or otherwise?'
+
+After these mischances Francis North made an eligible match under
+somewhat singular circumstances. As co-heiresses of Thomas, Earl of
+Down, three sisters, the Ladies Pope, claimed under certain settlements
+large estates of inheritance, to which Lady Elizabeth Lee set up a
+counter claim. North, acting as Lady Elizabeth Lee's counsel, effected a
+compromise which secured half the property in dispute to his client, and
+diminished by one-half the fortunes to which each of the three suitors
+on the other side had maintained their right. Having thus reduced the
+estate of Lady Frances Pope to a fortune estimated at about L14,000, the
+lawyer proposed for her hand, and was accepted. After his marriage,
+alluding to his exertions in behalf of Lady Elizabeth Lee's very
+disputable claim, he used to say that "he had been counsel against
+himself;" but Roger North frankly admits that "if this question had not
+come to such a composition, which diminished the ladies' fortunes, his
+brother had never compassed his match."
+
+It was not without reluctance that the Countess of Downs consented to
+the union of her daughter with the lawyer who had half ruined her, and
+who (though he was Solicitor General and in fine practice) could settle
+only L5000 upon the lady. "I well remember," observes Roger, "the good
+countess had some qualms, and complained that she knew not how she could
+justify what she had done (meaning the marrying her daughters with no
+better settlement)." To these qualms Francis North, with lawyer-like
+coolness, answered--"Madam, if you meet with any question about that,
+_say_ that your daughter has L1000 per annum jointure."
+
+The marriage was celebrated in Wroxton Church; and after bountiful
+rejoicings with certain loyalist families of Oxfordshire, the happy
+couple went up to London and lived in chambers until they moved into a
+house in Chancery Lane.
+
+It may surprise some readers of this book to learn that George Jeffreys,
+the odious judge of the Bloody Circuit, was a successful gallant. Tall,
+well-shaped, and endowed by nature with a pleasant countenance and
+agreeable features, Jeffreys was one of the most fascinating men of his
+time. A wit and a _bon-vivant_, he could hit the humor of the roystering
+cavaliers who surrounded the 'merry monarch;' a man of gallantry and
+polite accomplishments, he was acceptable to women of society. The same
+tongue that bullied from the bench, when witnesses were perverse or
+counsel unruly, could flatter with such melodious affectation of
+sincerity, that he was known as a most delightful companion. As a
+musical connoisseur he spoke with authority; as a teller of good stories
+he had no equal in town. Even those who detested him did not venture to
+deny that in the discharge of his judicial offices he could at his
+pleasure assume a dignity and urbane composure that well became the seat
+of justice. In short, his talents and graces were so various and
+effective, that he would have risen to the bench, even if he had labored
+under the disadvantages of pure morality and amiable temper.
+
+Women declared him irresistible. At court he had the ear of Nell Gwyn
+and the Duchess of Portsmouth--the Protestant favorite and the Catholic
+mistress; and before he attained the privilege of entering Whitehall--at
+a time when his creditors were urgent, and his best clients were the
+inferior attorneys of the city courts--he was loved by virtuous girls.
+He was still poor, unknown, and struggling with difficulties, when he
+induced an heiress to accept his suit,--the daughter of a rural squire
+whose wine the barrister had drunk upon circuit. This young lady was
+wooed under circumstances of peculiar difficulty; and she promised to
+elope with him if her father refused to receive him as a son-in-law.
+Ill-luck befell the scheme; and whilst young Jeffreys was waiting in
+the Temple for the letter which should decide his movements, an
+intimation reached him that elopement was impossible and union
+forbidden. The bearer of this bad news was a young lady--the child of a
+poor clergyman--who had been the confidential friend and paid companion
+of the squire's daughter.
+
+The case was hard for Jeffreys, cruel for the fair messenger. He had
+lost an advantageous match, she had lost her daily bread. Furious with
+her for having acted as the _confidante_ of the clandestine lovers, the
+squire had turned this poor girl out of his house; and she had come to
+London to seek for employment as well as to report the disaster.
+
+Jeffreys saw her overpowered with trouble and shame--penniless in the
+great city, and disgraced by expulsion from her patron's roof. Seeing
+that her abject plight was the consequence of amiable readiness to serve
+him, Jeffreys pitied and consoled her. Most young men would have soothed
+their consciences and dried the running tears with a gift of money or a
+letter recommending the outcast to a new employer. As she was pretty, a
+libertine would have tried to seduce her. In Jeffreys, compassion roused
+a still finer sentiment: he loved the poor girl and married her. On May
+23, 1667, Sarah Neesham was married to George Jeffreys of the Inner
+Temple; and her father, in proof of his complete forgiveness of her
+_escapade_, gave her a fortune of L300--a sum which the poor clergyman
+could not well afford to bestow on the newly married couple.
+
+Having outlived Sarah Neesham, Jeffreys married again--taking for his
+second wife a widow whose father was Sir Thomas Bludworth, ex-Lord Mayor
+of London. Whether rumor treated her unjustly it is impossible to say at
+this distance of time; but if reliance may be put on many broad stories
+current about the lady, her conduct was by no means free from fault. She
+was reputed to entertain many lovers. Jeffreys would have created less
+scandal if, instead of taking her to his home, he had imitated the pious
+Sir Matthew Hale, who married his maid-servant, and on being twitted by
+the world with the lowliness of his choice, silenced his censors with a
+jest.
+
+Amongst the love affairs of seventeenth-century lawyers place must be
+made for mention of the second wife whom Chief Justice Bramston brought
+home from Ireland, where she had outlived two husbands (the Bishop of
+Clogher and Sir John Brereton), before she gave her hand to the judge
+who had loved her in his boyhood. "When I see her," says the Chief
+Justice's son, who describes the expedition to Dublin, and the return to
+London, "I confess I wondered at my father's love. She was low, fatt,
+red-faced; her dress, too, was a hat and ruff, which tho' she never
+changed to death. But my father, I believe, seeing me change
+countenance, told me it was not beautie, but virtue, he courted. I
+believe she had been handsome in her youth; she had a delicate, fine
+hand, white and plump, and indeed proved a good wife and mother-in-law,
+too." On her journey to Charles I.'s London, this elderly bride, in her
+antiquated attire, rode from Holyhead to Beaumaris on a pillion behind
+her step-son. "As she rode over the sandes," records her step-son,
+"behind mee, and pulling off her gloves, her wedding ringe fell off, and
+sunk instantly. She caused her man to alight; she sate still behind me,
+and kept her eye on the place, and directed her man, but he not guessing
+well, she leaped off, saying she would not stir without her ringe, it
+being the most unfortunate thinge that could befall any one to lose the
+wedding-ringe--made the man thrust his hand into the sands (the nature
+of which is not to bear any weight but passing), he pulled up sand, but
+not the ringe. She made him strip his arme and put it deeper into the
+sand, and pulled up the ringe; and this done, he and shee, and all that
+stood still, were sunk almost to the knees, but we were all pleased that
+the ringe was found."
+
+In the legal circle of Charles the Second's London, Lady King was
+notable as a virago whose shrill tongue disturbed her husband's peace of
+mind by day, and broke his rest at night. Earning a larger income than
+any other barrister of his time, he had little leisure for domestic
+society; but the few hours which he could have spent with his wife and
+children, he usually preferred to spend in a tavern, beyond the reach of
+his lady's sharp querulousness. "All his misfortune," says Roger North,
+"lay at home, in perverse consort, who always, after his day-labor done,
+entertained him with all the chagrin and peevishness imaginable; so that
+he went home as to his prison, or worse; and when the time came, rather
+than go home, he chose commonly to get a friend to go and sit in a free
+chat at the tavern, over a single bottle, till twelve or one at night,
+and then to work again at five in the morning. His fatigue in business,
+which, as I said, was more than ordinary to him, and his no comfort, or
+rather, discomfort at home, and taking his refreshment by excising his
+sleep, soon pulled him down; so that, after a short illness, he died."
+On his death-bed, however, he forgave the weeping woman, who, more
+through physical irritability than wicked design, had caused him so much
+undeserved discomfort; and by his last will and testament he made
+liberal provision for her wants. Having made his will, "he said, I am
+glad it is done," runs the memoir of Sir John King, written by his
+father, "and after took leave of his wife, who was full of tears; seeing
+it is the will of God, let us part quietly in friendship, with
+submissiveness to his will, as we came together in friendship by His
+will."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+"CICERO" UPON HIS TRIAL.
+
+
+A complete history of the loves of lawyers would notice many scandalous
+intrigues and disreputable alliances, and would comprise a good deal of
+literature for which the student would vainly look in the works of our
+best authors. From the days of Wolsey, whose amours were notorious, and
+whose illegitimate son became Dean of Wells, down to the present time of
+brighter though not unimpeachable morality, the domestic lives of our
+eminent judges and advocates have too frequently invited satire and
+justified regret. In the eighteenth century judges, without any loss of
+_caste_ or popular regard, openly maintained establishments that in
+these more decorous and actually better days would cover their keepers
+with obloquy. Attention could be directed to more than one legal family
+in which the descent must be traced through a succession of illegitimate
+births. Not only did eminent lawyers live openly with women who were not
+their wives, and with children whom the law declined to recognize as
+their offspring; but these women and children moved in good society,
+apparently indifferent to shame that brought upon them but few
+inconveniences. In Great Ormond Street, where a mistress and several
+illegitimate children formed his family circle, Lord Thurlow was visited
+by bishops and deans; and it is said that in 1806, when Sir James
+Mansfield, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, was invited to the
+woolsack and the peerage, he was induced to decline the offer more by
+consideration for his illegitimate children than by fears for the
+stability of the new administration.
+
+Speaking of Lord Thurlow's undisguised intercourse with Mrs. Hervey,
+Lord Campbell says, "When I first knew the profession, it would not
+have been endured that any one in a judicial situation should have had
+such a domestic establishment as Thurlow's; but a majority of judges had
+married their mistresses. The understanding then was that a man elevated
+to the bench, if he had a mistress, must either marry her or put her
+away. For many years there has been no necessity for such an
+alternative." Either Lord Campbell had not the keen appetite for
+professional gossip, with which he is ordinarily credited, or his
+conscience must have pricked him when he wrote, "For many years there
+has been no necessity for such an alternative." To show how far his
+lordship erred through want of information or defect of candor is not
+the duty of this page; but without making any statement that can wound
+private feeling, the present writer may observe that 'the
+understanding,' to which Lord Campbell draws attention, has affected the
+fortune of ladies within the present generation.
+
+That the bright and high-minded Somers was the debauchee that Mrs.
+Manley and Mr. Cooksey would have us believe him is incredible. It is
+doubtful if Mackey in his 'Sketch of Leading Characters at the English
+Court' had sufficient reasons for clouding his sunny picture of the
+statesman with the assertion that he was "something of a libertine." But
+there are occasions when prudence counsels us to pay attention to
+slander.
+
+Having raised himself to the office of Solicitor General, Somers, like
+Francis Bacon, found an alderman's daughter to his liking; and having
+formed a sincere attachment for her, he made his wishes known to her
+father. Miss Anne Bawdon's father was a wealthy merchant, styled Sir
+John Bawdon--a man proud of his civic station and riches, and thinking
+lightly of lawyers and law. When Somers stated his property and
+projects, the rental of his small landed estate and the buoyancy of his
+professional income, the opulent knight by no means approved the
+prospect offered to his child. The lawyer might die in the course of
+twelve months; in which case the Worcestershire estate would be still a
+small estate, and the professional income would cease. In twelve mouths
+Mr. Solicitor might be proved a scoundrel, for at heart all lawyers were
+arrant rogues; in which case matters would be still worse. Having
+regarded the question from these two points of view, Sir John Bawdon
+gave Somers his dismissal and married Miss Anne to a rich Turkey
+merchant. Three years later, when Somers had risen to the woolsack, and
+it was clear that the rich Turkey merchant would never be anything
+grander than a rich Turkey merchant, Sir John saw that he had made a
+serious blunder, for which his child certainly could not thank him. A
+goodly list might be made of cases where papas have erred and repented
+in Sir John Bawdon's fashion. Sir John Lawrence would have made his
+daughter a Lord Keeper's lady and a peeress, if he and his broker had
+dealt more liberally with Francis North. Had it not been for Sir Joseph
+Jekyll's counsel, Mr. Cocks, the Worcestershire squire, would have
+rejected Philip Yorke as an ineligible suitor, in which case _plain_
+Mrs. Lygon would never have been Lady Hardwicke, and worked her
+husband's twenty purses of state upon curtains and hangings of crimson
+velvet. And, if he were so inclined, this writer could point to a
+learned judge, who in his days of 'stuff' and 'guinea fees' was deemed
+an ineligible match for a country apothecary's pretty daughter. The
+country doctor being able to give his daughter L20,000, turned away
+disdainfully from the unknown 'junior,' who five years later was leading
+his circuit, and quickly rose to the high office which he still fills to
+the satisfaction of his country.
+
+Disappointed in his pursuit of Anne Bawdon, Somers never again made any
+woman an offer of marriage; but scandalous gossip accused him of immoral
+intercourse with his housekeeper. This woman's name was Blount; and
+while she resided with the Chancellor, fame whispered that her husband
+was still living. Not only was Somers charged with open adultery, but it
+was averred that for the sake of peace he had imprisoned in a madhouse
+his mistress's lawful husband, who was originally a Worcester tradesman.
+The chief authority for this startling imputation is Mrs. Manley, who
+was encouraged, if not actually paid, by Swift to lampoon his political
+adversaries. In her 'New Atalantis'--the 'Cicero' of which scandalous
+work was understood by its readers to signify 'Lord Somers,'--this
+shameless woman entertained quid-nuncs and women of fashion by putting
+this abominable story in written words, the coarseness of which accorded
+with the repulsiveness of the accusation.
+
+At a time when honest writers on current politics were punished with
+fine and imprisonment, the pillory and the whip, statesmen and
+ecclesiastics were not ashamed to keep such libellers as Mrs. Manley in
+their pay. That the reader may fully appreciate the change which time
+has wrought in the tone of political literature, let him contrast the
+virulence and malignity of this unpleasant passage from the New
+Atalantis, with the tone which recently characterized the public
+discussion of the case which is generally known by the name of 'The
+Edmunds Scandal.'
+
+Notwithstanding her notorious disregard of truth, it is scarcely
+credible that Mrs. Manley's scurrilous charge was in no way countenanced
+by facts. At the close of the seventeenth century to keep a mistress was
+scarcely regarded as an offence against good morals; and living in
+accordance with the fashion of the time, it is probable that Somers did
+that which Lord Thurlow, after an interval of a century, was able to do
+without rousing public disapproval. Had his private life been spotless,
+he would doubtless have taken legal steps to silence his traducer; and
+unsustained by a knowledge that he dared not court inquiry into his
+domestic arrangements, Mrs. Manley would have used her pen with greater
+caution. But all persons competent to form an opinion on the case have
+agreed that the more revolting charges of the indictment were the
+baseless fictions of a malicious and unclean mind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+BROTHERS IN TROUBLE.
+
+
+In the 'Philosophical Dictionary,' Voltaire, laboring under
+misapprehension or carried away by perverse humor, made the following
+strange announcement:--"Il est public en Angleterre, et on voudroit le
+nier en vain, que le Chancelier Cowper epousa deux femmes, qui vecurent
+ensemble dans sa maison avec une concorde singuliere qui fit honneur a
+tous trois. Plusieurs curieux ont encore le petit livre que ce
+Chancelier composa en faveur de la Polygamie." Tickled by the
+extravagant credulity or grotesque malice of this declaration, an
+English wit, improving upon the published words, represented the
+Frenchman as maintaining that the custodian of the Great Seal of England
+was called the _Lord Keeper_, because, by English law, he was permitted
+to keep as many wives as he pleased.
+
+The reader's amusement will not be diminished by a brief statement of
+the facts to which we are indebted for Voltaire's assertions.
+
+William Cowper, the first earl of his line, began life with a reputation
+for dissipated tastes and habits, and by unpleasant experience he
+learned how difficult it is to get rid of a bad name. The son of a
+Hertfordshire baronet, he was still a law student when he formed a
+reprehensible connexion with an unmarried lady of that county--Miss (or,
+as she was called by the fashion of the day Mistress) Elizabeth Culling,
+of Hertingfordbury Park. But little is known of this woman. Her age is
+an affair of uncertainty, and all the minor circumstances of her
+intrigue with young William Cowper are open to doubt and conjecture; but
+the few known facts justify the inference that she neither merited nor
+found much pity in her disgrace, and that William erred through boyish
+indiscretion rather than from vicious propensity. She bore him two
+children, and he neither married her nor was required by public opinion
+to marry her. The respectability of their connexions gave the affair a
+peculiar interest, and afforded countenance to many groundless reports.
+By her friends it was intimated that the boy had not triumphed over the
+lady's virtue until he had made her a promise of marriage; and some
+persons even went so far as to assert that they were privately married.
+It is not unlikely that at one time the boy intended to make her his
+wife as soon as he should be independent of his father, and free to
+please himself. Beyond question, however, is it that they were never
+united in wedlock, and that Will Cowper joined the Home Circuit with the
+tenacious fame of a scapegrace and _roue_.
+
+That he was for any long period a man of dissolute morals is improbable;
+for he was only twenty-four years of age when he was called to the bar,
+and before his call he had married (after a year's wooing) a virtuous
+and exemplary young lady, with whom he lived happily for more than
+twenty years. A merchant's child, whose face was her fortune--Judith,
+the daughter of Sir Robert Booth, is extolled by biographers for
+reclaiming her young husband from a life of levity and culpable
+pleasure. That he loved her sincerely from the date of their imprudent
+marriage till the date of her death, which occurred just about six
+months before his elevation to the woolsack, there is abundant evidence.
+
+Judith died April 2, 1705, and in the September of the following year
+the Lord Keeper married Mary Clavering, the beautiful and virtuous lady
+of the bedchamber to Caroline Wilhelmina Dorothea, Princess of Wales.
+This lady was the Countess Cowper whose diary was published by Mr.
+Murray in the spring of 1864; and in every relation of life she was as
+good and noble a creature as her predecessor in William Cowper's
+affection. Of the loving terms on which she lived with her lord,
+conclusive testimony is found in their published letters and her diary.
+Frequently separated by his professional avocations and her duties of
+attendance upon the Princess of Wales, they maintained, during the
+periods of personal severance, a close and tender intercourse by written
+words; and at all other times, in sickness not less than in health, they
+were a fondly united couple. One pathetic entry in the countess's diary
+speaks eloquently of their nuptial tenderness and devotion:--"April 7th,
+1716. After dinner we went to Sir Godfrey Kneller's to see a picture of
+my lord, which he is drawing, and is the best that was ever done for
+him; it is for my drawing-room, and in the same posture that he watched
+me so many weeks in my great illness."
+
+Lord Cowper's second marriage was solemnized with a secrecy for which
+his biographers are unable to account. The event took place September,
+1706, about two months before his father's death, but it was not
+announced till the end of February, 1707, at which time Luttrell entered
+in his diary, "The Lord Keeper, who not long since was privately married
+to Mrs. Clavering of the bishoprick of Durham, brought her home this
+day." Mr. Foss, in his 'Judges of England,' suggests that the
+concealment of the union "may not improbably be explained by the Lord
+Keeper's desire not to disturb the last days of his father, who might
+perhaps have been disappointed that the selection had not fallen on some
+other lady to whom he had wished his son to be united." But this
+conjecture, notwithstanding its probability, is only a conjecture.
+Unless they had grave reasons for their conduct, the Lord Keeper and his
+lady had better have joined hands in the presence of the world, for the
+mystery of their private wedding nettled public curiosity, and gave new
+life to an old slander.
+
+Cowper's boyish _escapade_ was not forgotten by the malicious. No sooner
+had he become conspicuous in his profession and in politics, than the
+story of his intercourse with Miss Culling was told in coffee-rooms with
+all the exaggerations that prurient fancy could devise or enmity
+dictate. The old tale of a secret marriage--or, still worse, of a mock
+marriage--was caught from the lips of some Hertford scandal-monger, and
+conveyed to the taverns and drawing-rooms of London. In taking Sir
+Robert Booth's daughter to Church, he was said to have committed bigamy.
+Even while he was in the House of Commons he was known by the name of
+'Will Bigamy;' and that _sobriquet_ clung to him ever afterwards. Twenty
+years of wholesome domestic intercourse with his first wife did not free
+him from the abominable imputation, and his marriage with Miss Clavering
+revived the calumny in a new form. Fools were found to believe that he
+had married her during Judith Booth's life and that their union had been
+concealed for several years instead of a few months. The affair with
+Miss Culling was for a time forgotten, and the charge preferred against
+the keeper of the queen's conscience was bigamy of a much more recent
+date.
+
+In various forms this ridiculous accusation enlivens the squibs of the
+pamphleteers of Queen Anne's reign. In the 'New Atalantis' Mrs. Manley
+certified that the fair victim was first persuaded by his lordship's
+sophistries to regard polygamy as accordant with moral law. Having thus
+poisoned her understanding, he gratified her with a form of marriage, in
+which his brother Spencer, in clerical disguise, acted the part of a
+priest. It was even suggested that the bride in this mock marriage was
+the lawyer's ward. Never squeamish about the truth, when he could gain a
+point by falsehood, Swift endorsed the spiteful fabrication, and in the
+_Examiner_, pointing at Lord Cowper, wrote--"This gentleman, knowing
+that marriage fees were a considerable perquisite to the clergy, found
+out a way of improving them cent. per cent. for the benefit of the
+Church. His invention was to marry a second wife while the first was
+alive; convincing her of the lawfulness by such arguments as he did not
+doubt would make others follow the same example. _These he had drawn up
+in writing with intention to publish for the general good, and it is
+hoped he may now have leisure to finish them._" It is possible that the
+words in italics were the cause of Voltaire's astounding statement:
+"Plusieurs curieux ont encore le petit livre que ce Chancelier composa
+en faveur de la Polygamie." On this point Lord Campbell, confidently
+advancing an opinion which can scarcely command unanimous assent, says,
+"The fable of the '_Treatise_' is evidently taken from the panegyric on
+'a plurality of wives,' which Mrs. Manley puts into the mouth of Lord
+Cowper, in a speech supposed to be addressed by Hernando to Lousia." But
+whether Voltaire accepted the 'New Atalantis,' or the _Examiner_, as an
+authority for the statements of his very laughable passage, it is
+scarcely credible that he believed himself to be penning the truth. The
+most reasonable explanation of the matter appears to be, that tickled
+by Swift's venomous lines, the sarcastic Frenchman in malice and gaiety
+adopted them, and added to their piquancy by the assurance that the
+Chancellor's book was not only published, but was preserved by
+connoisseurs as a literary curiosity.
+
+Like his elder brother, the Chancellor, Spencer Cowper married at an
+early age, lived to wed a second wife, and was accused of immorality
+that was foreign to his nature. The offence with which the younger
+Cowper was charged, created so wide and profound a sensation, and gave
+rise to such a memorable trial, that the reader will like to glance at
+the facts of the case.
+
+Born in 1669, Spencer Cowper was scarcely of age when he was called to
+the bar, and made Comptroller of the Bridge House Estate. The office,
+which was in the gift of the corporation of London, provided him with a
+good income, together with a residence in the Bridge House, St. Olave's,
+Southwark, and brought him in contact with men who were able to bring
+him briefs or recommend him to attorneys. For several years the
+boy-barrister was thought a singularly lucky fellow. His hospitable
+house was brightened by a young and lovely wife (Pennington, the
+daughter of John Goodeve), and he was so much respected in his locality
+that he was made a justice of the peace. In his profession he was
+equally fortunate: his voice was often heard at Westminster and on the
+Home Circuit, the same circuit where his brother William practised and
+his family interest lay. He found many clients.
+
+Envy is the shadow of success; and the Cowpers were watched by men who
+longed to ruin them. From the day when they armed and rode forth to
+welcome the Prince of Orange, the lads had been notably fortunate.
+Notwithstanding his reputation for immorality William Cowper had sprung
+into lucrative practice, and in 1695 was returned to Parliament as
+representative for Hartford, the other seat for the borough being filled
+by his father, Sir William Cowper.
+
+In spite of their comeliness and complaisant manners, the lightness of
+their wit and the _prestige_ of their success, Hertford heard murmurs
+that the young Cowpers were _too_ lucky by half, and that the Cowper
+interest was dangerously powerful in the borough. It was averred that
+the Cowpers were making unfair capital out of liberal professions: and
+when the Hertford Whigs sent the father and son to the House of Commons,
+the vanquished party cursed in a breath the Dutch usurper and his
+obsequious followers.
+
+It was resolved to damage the Cowpers:--by fair means or foul, to render
+them odious in their native town.
+
+Ere long the malcontents found a good cry.
+
+Scarcely less odious to the Hertford Tories than the Cowpers themselves
+was an influential Quaker of the town, named Stout, who actively
+supported the Cowper interest. A man of wealth and good repute, this
+follower of George Fox exerted himself enthusiastically in the election
+contest of 1695: and in acknowledgment of his services the Cowpers
+honored him with their personal friendship. Sir William Cowper asked him
+to dine at Hertford Castle--the baronet's country residence; Sir
+William's sons made calls on his wife and daughter. Of course these
+attentions from Cowpers to 'the Shaker' were offensive to the Tory
+magnates of the place: and they vented their indignation in whispers,
+that the young men never entered Stout's house without kissing his
+pretty daughter.
+
+While these rumors were still young, Mr. Stout died leaving considerable
+property to his widow, and to his only child--the beauteous Sarah; and
+after his death the intercourse between the two families became yet more
+close and cordial. The lawyers advised the two ladies about the
+management of their property: and the baronet gave them invitations to
+his London House in Hatton Garden, as well as to Hertford Castle. The
+friendship had disastrous consequences. Both the brothers were very
+fascinating men--men, moreover, who not only excelled in the art of
+pleasing, but who also habitually exercised it. From custom,
+inclination, policy, they were very kind to the mother and daughter;
+probably paying the latter many compliments which they would never have
+uttered had they been single men. Coming from an unmarried man the
+speech is often significant of love, which on the lips of a husband is
+but the language of courtesy. But, unfortunately, Miss ('Mistress' is
+her style in the report of a famous trial) Sarah Stout fell madly in
+love with Spencer Cowper notwithstanding the impossibility of marriage.
+
+Not only did she conceive a dangerous fondness for him, but she openly
+expressed it--by speech and letters. She visited him in the Temple, and
+persecuted him with her embarrassing devotion whenever he came to
+Hertford. It was a trying position for a young man not thirty years of
+age, with a wife to whom he was devotedly attached, and a family whose
+political influence in his native town might be hurt by publication of
+the girl's folly. Taking his elder brother into his confidence, he asked
+what course he ought to pursue. To withdraw totally and abruptly from
+the two ladies, would be cruel to the daughter, insulting to the mother;
+moreover, it would give rise to unpleasant suspicions and prejudicial
+gossip in the borough. It was decided that Spencer must repress the
+girl's advances--must see her loss frequently--and, by a reserved and
+frigid manner, must compel her to assume an appearance of womanly
+discretion. But the plan failed.
+
+At the opening of the year 1699 she invited him to take up his quarters
+in her mother's house, when he came to Hertford at the next Spring
+Assizes. This invitation he declined, saying that he had arranged to
+take his brother's customary lodgings in the house of Mr. Barefoot, in
+the Market Place, but with manly consideration he promised to call upon
+her. "I am glad," Sarah wrote to him on March 5, 1699, "you have not
+quite forgot there is such a person as I in being: but I am willing to
+shut my eyes and not see anything that looks like unkindness in you, and
+rather content myself with what excuses you are pleased to make, than be
+inquisitive into what I must not know: I am sure the winter has been too
+unpleasant for me to desire the continuance of it: and I wish you were
+to endure the sharpness of it but for one short hour, as I have done for
+many long nights and days, and then I believe it would move that rocky
+heart of yours that can be so thoughtless of me as you are."
+
+On Monday, March 13, following the date of the words just quoted,
+Spencer Cowper rode into Hertford, alighted at Mrs. Stout's house, and
+dined with the ladies. Having left the house after dinner, in order that
+he might attend to some business, he returned in the evening and supped
+with the two women. Supper over, Mrs. Stout retired for the night,
+leaving her daughter and the young barrister together. No sooner had the
+mother left the room, than a distressing scene ensued.
+
+Unable to control or soothe her, Spencer gently divided the clasp of her
+hands, and having freed himself from her embrace, hastened from the room
+and abruptly left the house. He slept at his lodgings; and the next
+morning he was horror-struck on hearing that Sarah Stout's body had been
+found drowned in the mill-stream behind her old home. That catastrophe
+had actually occurred. Scarcely had the young barrister reached the
+Market Place, when the miserable girl threw herself into the stream from
+which her lifeless body was picked on the following morning. At the
+coroner's inquest which ensued, Spencer Cowper gave his evidence with
+extreme caution, withholding every fact that could be injurious to
+Sarah's reputation; and the jury returned a verdict that the deceased
+gentlewoman had killed herself whilst in a state of insanity.
+
+In deep dejection Spencer Cowper continued the journey of the circuit.
+
+But the excitement of the public was not allayed by the inquest and
+subsequent funeral. It was rumored that it was no case of self-murder,
+but a case of murder by the barrister, who had strangled his dishonored
+victim, and had then thrown her into the river. Anxious to save their
+sect from the stigma of suicide the Quakers concurred with the Tories in
+charging the young man with a hideous complication of crimes. The case
+against Spencer was laid before Chief Justice Holt, who at first
+dismissed the accusation as absurd, but was afterwards induced to commit
+the suspected man for trial; and in the July of 1699 the charge actually
+came before a jury at the Hertford Assizes. Four prisoners--Spencer
+Cowper, two attorneys, and a law-writer--were placed in the dock on the
+charge of murdering Sarah Stout.
+
+On the present occasion there is no need to recapitulate the ridiculous
+evidence and absurd misconduct of the prosecution in this trial; though
+criminal lawyers who wish to know what unfairness and irregularities
+were permitted in such inquiries in the seventeenth century cannot do
+better than to peruse the full report of the proceedings, which may be
+found in every comprehensive legal library. In this place it is enough
+to say that though the accusation was not sustained by a shadow of
+legal testimony, the prejudice against the prisoners, both on the part
+of a certain section of the Hertford residents and the presiding judge,
+Mr. Baron Hatsel, was such that the verdict for acquittal was a
+disappointment to many who heard it proclaimed by the foreman of the
+jury. Narcissus Luttrell, indeed, says that the verdict was "to the
+satisfaction of the auditors;" but in this statement the diarist was
+unquestionably wrong, so far as the promoters of the prosecution were
+concerned. Instead of accepting the decision without demur, they
+attempted to put the prisoners again on their trial by the obsolete
+process of "appeal of murder;" but this endeavor proving abortive, the
+case was disposed of, and the prisoners' minds set at rest.
+
+The barrister who was thus tried on a capital charge, and narrowly
+escaped a sentence that would have consigned him to an ignominious
+death, resumed his practice in the law courts, sat in the House of
+Commons and rose to be a judge in the Court of Common Pleas. It is said
+that he "presided on many trials for murder; ever cautious and
+mercifully inclined--remembering the great peril which he himself had
+undergone."
+
+The same writer who aspersed Somers with her unchaste thoughts, and
+reiterated the charge of bigamy against Lord Chancellor Cowper, did not
+omit to give a false and malicious version to the incidents which had
+acutely wounded the fine sensibilities of the younger Cowper. But enough
+notice has been taken of the 'New Atalantis' in this chapter. To that
+repulsive book we refer those readers who may wish to peruse Mrs.
+Manley's account of Sarah Stout's death.
+
+A distorted tradition of Sarah Stout's tragic end, and of Lord Cowper's
+imputed bigamy, was contributed to an early number of the 'European' by
+a clerical authority--the Rev. J. Hinton, Rector of Alderton, in
+Northamptonshire. "Mrs. Sarah Stout," says the writer, "whose death was
+charged upon Spencer Cowper, was strangled accidentally by drawing the
+steenkirk too tight upon her neck, as she, with four or five young
+persons, were at a game of romp upon the staircase; but it was not done
+by Mr. Cowper, though one of the company. Mrs. Clavering, Lord
+Chancellor Cowper's second wife, whom he married during the life of his
+first, was there too; they were so confounded with the accident, that
+they foolishly resolved to throw her into the water, thinking it would
+pass that she had drowned herself." This charming paragraph illustrates
+the vitality of scandal, and at the same time shows how ludicrously
+rumor and tradition mistell stories in the face of evidence.
+
+Spencer Cowper's second son, the Rev. John Cowper, D.D., was the father
+of William Cowper, the poet.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+EARLY MARRIAGES.
+
+
+Notwithstanding his illustrious descent, Simon Harcourt raised himself
+to the woolsack by his own exertions, and was in no degree indebted to
+powerful relatives for his elevation. The son of a knight, whose loyalty
+to the House of Stuart had impoverished his estate, he spent his
+student-days at Pembroke, Oxford, and the Inner Temple, in resolute
+labor, and with few indulgences. His father could make him but a slender
+allowance; and when he assumed the gown of a barrister, the future
+Chancellor, like Erskine in after years, was spurred to industry by the
+voices of his wife and children. Whilst he was still an undergraduate of
+the university, he fell in love with Rebecca Clark, daughter of a pious
+man, of whose vocation the modern peerages are ashamed. Sir Philip
+Harcourt (the Chancellor's father) in spite of his loyalty quarrelled
+with the Established Church, and joined the Presbyterians: and Thomas
+Clark was his Presbyterian chaplain, secretary, and confidential
+servant. Great was Sir Philip's wrath on learning that his boy had not
+only fallen in love with Rebecca Clark, but had married her privately.
+It is probable that the event lowered the worthy knight's esteem for the
+Presbyterian system; but as anger could not cut the nuptial bond, the
+father relented--gave the young people all the assistance he could, and
+hoped that they would live long without repenting their folly. The match
+turned out far better than the old knight feared. Taking his humble
+bride to modest chambers, young Harcourt applied sedulously to the study
+of the law; and his industry was rewarded by success, and by the
+gratitude of a dutiful wife. In unbroken happiness they lived together
+for a succession of years, and their union was fruitful of children.
+
+Harcourt fared better with his love-match than Sergeant Hill with his
+heiress, Miss Medlycott of Cottingham, Northamptonshire. On the morning
+of his wedding the eccentric sergeant, having altogether forgotten his
+most important engagement for the day, received his clients in chambers
+after his usual practice, and remained busy with professional cares
+until a band of devoted friends forcibly carried him to the church,
+where his bride had been waiting for him more than an hour. The ceremony
+having been duly performed, he hastened back to his chambers, to be
+present at a consultation. Notwithstanding her sincere affection for
+him, the lady proved but an indifferent wife to the black-letter lawyer.
+Empowered by Act of Parliament to retain her maiden-name after
+marriage, she showed her disesteem for her husband's patronymic by her
+mode of exercising the privilege secured to her by special law; and many
+a time the sergeant indignantly insisted that she should use his name in
+her signatures. "My name is Hill, madam; my father's name was Hill,
+madam; all the Hills have been named Hill, madam; Hill is a good
+name--and by ----, madam, you _shall_ use it." On other matters he was
+more compliant--humoring her old-maidish fancies in a most docile and
+conciliating manner. Curiously neat and orderly, Mrs. Medlycott took
+great pride in the faultlessness of her domestic arrangements, so far as
+cleanliness and precise order were concerned. To maintain the whiteness
+of the pipe-clayed steps before the front door of her Bedford Square
+mansion was a chief object of her existence; and to gratify her in this
+particular, Sergeant Hill use daily to leave his premises by the kitchen
+steps. Having outlived the lady, Hill observed to a friend who was
+condoling with him on his recent bereavement, "Ay, my poor wife is gone!
+She was a good sort of woman--in _her_ way a _very_ good sort of woman.
+I do honestly declare my belief that in _her_ way she had no equal.
+But--but--I'll tell you something in confidence. If ever I marry again,
+_I won't marry merely for money_." The learned sergeant died in his
+ninety-third year without having made a second marriage.
+
+Like Harcourt, John Scott married under circumstances that called forth
+many warm expressions of censure; and like Harcourt, he, in after life,
+reflected on his imprudent marriage as one of the most fortunate steps
+of his earlier career. The romance of the law contains few more pleasant
+episodes than the story of handsome Jack Scott's elopement with Bessie
+Surtees. There is no need to tell in detail how the comely Oxford
+scholar danced with the banker's daughter at the Newcastle assemblies;
+how his suit was at first recognised by the girl's parents, although the
+Scotts were but rich 'fitters,' whereas Aubone Surtees, Esquire, was a
+banker and gentleman of honorable descent; how, on the appearance of an
+aged and patrician suitor for Bessie's hand, papa and mamma told Jack
+Scott not to presume on their condescension, and counseled Bessie to
+throw her lover over and become the lady of Sir William Blackett; how
+Bessie was faithful, and Jack was urgent; how they had secret interviews
+on Tyne-side and in London, meeting clandestinely on horseback and on
+foot, corresponding privately by letters and confidential messengers;
+how, eventually, the lovers, to the consternation of 'good society' in
+Newcastle, were made husband and wife at Blackshiels, North Britain. Who
+is ignorant of the story? Does not every visitor to Newcastle pause
+before an old house in Sandhill, and look up at the blue pane which
+marks the window from which Bessie descended into her lover's arms?
+
+Jack and Bessie were not punished with even that brief period of
+suffering and uncertainty which conscientious novelists are accustomed,
+for the sake of social morals, to assign to run-away lovers before the
+merciful guardian or tender parent promises forgiveness and a liberal
+allowance, paid in quarterly installments. In his old age Eldon used to
+maintain that their plight was very pitiable on the third morning after
+their rash union. "Our funds were exhausted: we had not a home to go to,
+and we knew not whether our friends would ever speak to us again." In
+this strain ran the veteran's story, which, like all other anecdotes
+from the same source, must be received with caution. But even the old
+peer, ever ready to exaggerate his early difficulties, had not enough
+effrontery to represent that their dejection lasted more than three
+days. The fathers of the bride and bridegroom soon met and came to
+terms, and with the beginning of the new year Bessie Scott was living in
+New Inn Hall, Oxford, whilst her husband read Vinerian Lectures, and
+presided over that scholastic house. The position of Scott at this time
+was very singular. He was acting as substitute for Sir Robert Chambers,
+the principal of New Inn Hall and Vinerian Professor of Law, who
+contrived to hold his university preferments, whilst he discharged the
+duties of a judge in India. To give an honest color to this indefensible
+arrangement, it was provided that the lectures read from the Vinerian
+Chair should actually be written by the Professor, although they were
+delivered by deputy. Scott, therefore, as the Professor's mouth-piece,
+on a salary of L60 a year, with free quarters in the Principal's house,
+was merely required to read a series of treatises sent to him by the
+absent teacher. "The law-professor," the ex-Chancellor used to relate
+with true Eldonian humor and _fancy_--"sent me the first lecture, which
+I had to read immediately to the students, and which I began without
+knowing a single word that was in it. It was upon the statute (4 and 5
+P. and M. c. 8), 'of young men running away with maidens.' Fancy me
+reading, with about 140 boys and young men all giggling at the
+Professor! Such a tittering audience no one ever had." If this incident
+really occurred on the occasion of his 'first reading,' the laughter
+must have been inextinguishable; for, of course, Jack Scott's run-away
+marriage had made much gossip in Oxford Common Rooms, and the singular
+loveliness of his girlish wife (described by an eye-witness as being "so
+very young as to give the impression of childhood,") stirred the heart
+of every undergraduate who met her in High Street.
+
+There is no harm done by laughter at the old Chancellor's romantic
+fictions about the poverty which he and his Bessie encountered, hand in
+hand, at the outset of life; for the laughter blinds no one to the
+genuine affection and wholesome honesty of the young husband and wife.
+One has reason to wish that marriages such as theirs were more frequent
+amongst lawyers in these ostentatious days. At present the young
+barrister, who marries before he has a clear fifteen hundred a year, is
+charged with reckless imprudence; and unless his wife is a woman of
+fortune, or he is able to settle a heavy sum of money upon her, his
+anxious friends terrify him with pictures of want and sorrow stored up
+for him in the future. Society will not let him live after the fashion
+of 'juniors' eighty or a hundred years since. He must maintain two
+establishments--his chambers for business, his house in the west-end of
+town for his wife. Moreover, the lady must have a brougham and liberal
+pin money, or four or five domestic servants and a drawing-room well
+furnished with works of art and costly decorations. They must give state
+dinners and three or four routs every season; and in all other matters
+their mode of life must be, or seem to be, that of the upper ten
+thousand. Either they must live in this style, or be pushed aside and
+forgotten. The choice for them lies between very expensive society or
+none at all--that is to say, none at all amongst the rising members of
+the legal profession, and the sort of people with whom young barristers,
+from prudential motives, wish to form acquaintance. Doubtless many a
+fair reader of this page is already smiling at the writer's simplicity,
+and is saying to herself, "Here is one of the advocates of marriage on
+three hundred a year."
+
+But this writer is not going to advocate marriage on that or any other
+particular sum. From personal experience he knows what comfort a married
+man may have for an outlay of three or four hundred per annum; and from
+personal observation he knows what privations and ignominious poverty
+are endured by unmarried men who spend twice the larger of those sums
+on chamber-and-club life. He knows that there are men who shiver at the
+bare thought of losing caste by marriage with a portionless girl, whilst
+they are complacently leading the life which, in nine cases out of ten,
+terminates in the worst form of social degradation--matrimony where the
+husband blushes for his wife's early history, and dares not tell his own
+children the date of his marriage certificate. If it were his pleasure
+he could speak sad truths about the bachelor of modest income, who is
+rich enough to keep his name on the books of two fashionable clubs, to
+live in a good quarter of London, and to visit annually continental
+capitals, but far too poor to think of incurring the responsibilities of
+marriage. It could be demonstrated that in a great majority of instances
+this wary, prudent, selfish gentleman, instead of being the social
+success which many simple people believe him, is a signal and most
+miserable failure; that instead of pursuing a career of various
+enjoyments and keen excitements, he is a martyr to _ennui_, bored by the
+monotony of an objectless existence, utterly weary of the splendid
+clubs, in which he is presumed by unsophisticated admirers to find an
+ample compensation for want of household comfort and domestic affection:
+that as soon as he has numbered forty years, he finds the roll of his
+friends and cordial acquaintances diminish, and is compelled to retire
+before younger men, who snatch from his grasp the prizes of social
+rivalry; and that, as each succeeding lustre passes, he finds the chain
+of his secret disappointments and embarrassments more galling and heavy.
+
+It is not a question of marriage on three hundred a year without
+prospects, but a marriage on five or six hundred a year with good
+expectations. In the Inns of Court there are, at the present time,
+scores of clever, industrious fine-hearted gentlemen who have sure
+incomes of three or four hundred pounds per annum. In Tyburnia and
+Kensington there is an equal number of young gentlewomen with incomes
+varying between L150 and L300 a year. These men and women see each other
+at balls and dinners, in the parks and at theatres; the ladies would not
+dislike to be wives, the men are longing to be husbands. But that
+hideous tyrant, social opinion, bids them avoid marriage.
+
+In Lord Eldon's time the case was otherwise. Society saw nothing
+singular or reprehensible in his conduct when he brought Bessie to live
+in the little house in Cursitor Street. No one sneered at the young
+law-student, whose home was a little den in a dingy thoroughfare. At a
+later date, the rising junior, whose wife lived over his business
+chambers in Carey Street, was the object of no unkind criticism because
+his domestic arrangements were inexpensive, and almost frugal. Had his
+success been tardy instead of quick and decisive, and had circumstances
+compelled him to live under the shadow of Lincoln's Inn wall for thirty
+years on a narrow income, he would not on that account have suffered
+from a single disparaging criticism. Amongst his neighbors in adjacent
+streets, and within the boundaries of his Inn, he would have found
+society for himself and wife, and playmates for his children. Good
+fortune coming in full strong flood, he was not compelled to greatly
+change his plan of existence. Even in those days, when costly
+ostentation characterized aristocratic society--he was permitted to live
+modestly--and lay the foundation of that great property which he
+transmitted to his ennobled descendants.
+
+When satire has done its worst with the miserly propensities of the
+great lawyer and his wife, their long familiar intercourse exhibits a
+wealth of fine human affection and genuine poetry which sarcasm cannot
+touch. Often as he had occasion to regret Lady Eldon's peculiarities--the
+stinginess which made her grudge the money paid for a fish or a basket of
+fruit; the nervous repugnance to society, which greatly diminished his
+popularity; and the taste for solitude and silence which marked her
+painfully towards the close of her life--the Chancellor never even hinted
+to her his dissatisfaction. When their eldest daughter, following her
+mother's example, married without the permission of her parents, it was
+suggested to Lord Eldon that her ladyship ought to take better care of
+her younger daughter, Lady Frances, and entering society should play the
+part of a vigilant _chaperon_. The counsel was judicious; but the
+Chancellor declined to act upon it, saying,--"When she was young and
+beautiful, she gave up everything for me. What she is, I have made her;
+and I cannot now bring myself to compel her inclinations. Our marriage
+prevented her mixing in society when it afforded her pleasure; it
+appears to give pain now, and why should I interpose?" In his old age,
+when she was dead, he visited his estate in Durham, but could not
+find heart to cross the Tyne bridge and look at the old house from
+which he took her in the bloom and tenderness of her girlhood. An
+urgent invitation to visit Newcastle drew from him the reply--"I
+know my fellow-townsmen complain of my not coming to see them; but
+_how can I pass that bridge?_" After a pause, he added, "Poor Bessie!
+if ever there was an angel on earth she was one. The only reparation
+which one man can make to another for running away with his daughter,
+is to be exemplary in his conduct towards her."
+
+In pecuniary affairs not less prudent than his brother, Lord Stowell in
+matters of sentiment was capable of indiscretion. In the long list of
+legal loves there are not many episodes more truly ridiculous than the
+story of the older Scott's second marriage. On April 10, 1813, the
+decorous Sir William Scott, and Louisa Catharine, widow of John,
+Marquis of Sligo, and daughter of Admiral Lord Howe, were united in the
+bonds of holy wedlock, to the infinite amusement of the world of
+fashion, and to the speedy humiliation of the bridegroom. So incensed
+was Lord Eldon at his brother's folly, that he refused to appear at the
+wedding; and certainly the Chancellor's displeasure was not without
+reason, for the notorious absurdity of the affair brought ridicule on
+the whole of the Scott family connexion. The happy couple met for the
+first time in the Old Bailey, when Sir William Scott and Lord
+Ellenborough presided at the trial of the marchioness's son, the young
+Marquis of Sligo, who had incurred the anger of the law by luring into
+his yacht, in Mediterranean waters, two of the king's seamen. Throughout
+the hearing of that _cause celebre_, the marchioness sat in the fetid
+court of the Old Bailey, in the hope that her presence might rouse
+amongst the jury or in the bench feelings favorable to her son. This
+hope was disappointed. The verdict having been given against the young
+peer, he was ordered to pay a fine of L5000, and undergo four months'
+incarceration in Newgate, and--worse than fine and imprisonment--was
+compelled to listen to a parental address from Sir William Scott on the
+duties and responsibilities of men of high station. Either under the
+influence of sincere admiration for the judge, or impelled by desire for
+vengeance on the man who had presumed to lecture her son in a court of
+justice, the marchioness wrote a few hasty words of thanks to Sir
+William Scott for his salutary exhortation to her boy. She even went so
+far as to say that she wished the erring marquis could always have so
+wise a counsellor at his side. This communication was made upon a slip
+of paper, which the writer sent to the judge by an usher of the court.
+Sir William read the note as he sat on the bench, and having looked
+towards the fair scribe, he received from her a glance and smile that
+were fruitful of much misery to him. Within four months the courteous
+Sir William Scott was tied fast to a beautiful, shrill, voluble
+termagant, who exercised marvellous ingenuity in rendering him wretched
+and contemptible. Reared in a stately school of old-world politeness,
+the unhappy man was a model of decorum and urbanity. He took reasonable
+pride in the perfection of his tone and manner; and the
+marchioness--whose malice did not lack cleverness--was never more happy
+than when she was gravely expostulating with him, in the presence of
+numerous auditors, on his lamentable want of style, tact, and
+gentlemanlike bearing. It is said that, like Coke and Holt under similar
+circumstances, Sir William preferred the quietude of his chambers to the
+society of an unruly wife, and that in the cellar of his Inn he sought
+compensation for the indignities and sufferings which he endured at
+home. Fifty years since the crusted port of the Middle Temple could
+soothe the heart at night, without paining the head in the morning.
+
+
+
+
+PART III.
+
+MONEY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+FEES TO COUNSEL.
+
+
+From time immemorial popular satire has been equally ready to fix the
+shame of avarice upon Divinity Physic, and Law; and it cannot be denied
+that in this matter the sarcasms of the multitude are often sustained by
+the indisputable evidence of history. The greed of the clergy for tithes
+and dues is not more widely proverbial than the doctor's thirst for
+fees, or the advocate's readiness to support injustice for the sake of
+gain. Of Guyllyam of Horseley, physician to Charles VI. of France,
+Froissart says, "All his dayes he was one of the greatest nygardes that
+ever was;" and the chronicler adds, "With this rodde lightly all
+physicians are beaten." In his address to the sergeants who were called
+soon after his elevation to the Marble Chair, the Lord Keeper Puckering,
+directing attention to the grasping habits which too frequently
+disgraced the leaders of the bar, observed: "I am to exhort you also not
+to embrace multitude of causes, or to undertake more places of hearing
+causes than you are well able to consider of or perform, lest thereby
+you either disappoint your clients when their causes be heard, or come
+unprovided, or depart when their causes be in hearing. For it is all
+one not to come, as either to come unprovided, or depart before it be
+ended." Notwithstanding Lingard's able defence of the Cardinal, scholars
+are still generally of opinion that Beaufort--the Chancellor who lent
+money on the king's crown, the bishop who sold the Pope's soldiers for a
+thousand marks--is a notable instance of the union of legal covetousness
+and ecclesiastical greed.
+
+The many causes which affect the value of money in different ages create
+infinite perplexity for the antiquarian who wishes to estimate the
+prosperity of the bar in past times; but the few disjointed data, that
+can be gathered from old records, create an impression that in the
+fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the ordinary fees of
+eminent counsel were by no means exorbitant, although fortunate
+practitioners could make large incomes.
+
+Dugdale's 'Baronage' describes with delightful quaintness William de
+Beauchamp's interview with his lawyers when that noble (on the death of
+John Hastings, Earl of Pembroke, _temp._ Richard II., without issue),
+claimed the earl's estates under an entail, in opposition to Edward
+Hastings, the earl's heir-male of the half-blood. "Beauchamp," says
+Dugdale, "invited his learned counsel to his house in Paternoster Row,
+in the City of London; amongst whom were Robert Charlton (then a judge),
+William Pinchbek, William Branchesley, and John Catesby (all learned
+lawyers); and after dinner, coming out of his chapel, in an angry mood,
+threw to each of them a piece of gold, and said, 'Sirs, I desire you
+forthwith to tell me whether I have any right or title to Hastings'
+lordship and lands.' Whereupon Pinchbek stood up (the rest being silent,
+fearing that he suspected them), and said, 'No man here nor in England
+dare say that you have any right in them, except Hastings do quit his
+claim therein; and should he do it, being now under age, it would be of
+no validitie.'" Had Charlton, the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas,
+taken gold for his opinion on a case put before him in his judicial
+character, he would have violated his judicial oath. But in the earl's
+house in Paternoster Row he was merely a counsellor learned in the law,
+not a judge. Manifest perils attend a system which permits a judge in
+his private character to give legal opinions concerning causes on which
+he may be required to give judgment from the bench; but notwithstanding
+those perils, there is no reason for thinking that Charlton on this
+occasion either broke law or etiquette. The fair inference from the
+matter is, that in the closing years of the fourteenth century judges
+were permitted to give opinions for money to their private clients,
+although they were forbidden to take gold or silver from any person
+having "plea or process hanging before them."
+
+In the year of our Lord 1500 the corporation of Canterbury paid for
+advice regarding their civic interests 3_s._ 4_d._ to each of three
+sergeants, and gave the Recorder of London 6_s._ 8_d._ as a
+retaining-fee. Five years later, Mr. Serjeant Wood received a fee of
+10_s._ from the Goldsmiths' Company; and it maybe fairly assumed, that
+so important and wealthy a body paid the sergeant on a liberal scale. In
+the sixteenth century it was, and for several generations had been,
+customary for clients to provide food and drink for their counsel. Mr.
+Foss gives his readers the following list of items, taken from a bill of
+costs, made in the reign of Edward IV.:--
+
+                                                      _s._  _d._
+For a breakfast at Westminster spent on our counsel     1    6
+
+To another time for boat-hire in and out, and a
+  breakfast for two days                                1    6
+
+In like manner the accountant of St. Margaret's, Westminster, entered in
+the parish books, "Also, paid to Roger Fylpott, learned in the law, for
+his counsel given, 3_s._ 8_d._, with 4_d._ for his dinner."
+
+A yet more remarkable custom was that which enabled clients to hire
+counsel to plead for them at certain places, for a given time, in
+whatever causes their eloquence might be required. There still exists
+the record of an agreement by which, in the reign of Henry VII.,
+Sergeant Yaxley bound himself to attend the assizes at York, Nottingham
+and Derby, and speak in court at each of those places, whenever his
+client, Sir Robert Plumpton--"that perpetual and always unfortunate
+litigant," as he is called by Sergeant Manning--required him to do so.
+This interesting document runs thus--"This bill, indented at London the
+18th day of July, the 16th yeare of the reigne of King Henry the 7th,
+witnesseth that John Yaxley, Sergeant-at-Law, shall be at the next
+assizes to be holden at York, Nottin., and Derb., if they be holden and
+kept, and there to be of council with Sir Robert Plumpton, knight, such
+assizes and actions as the said Sir Robert shall require the said John
+Yaxley, for the which premises, as well as for his costs and his
+labours, John Pulan, gentleman, bindeth him by thease presents to
+content and pay to the said John Yaxley 40 marks sterling at the feast
+of the Nativetie of our Lady next coming, or within eight days next
+following, with 5 li paid aforehand, parcell of paiment of the said 40
+marks. Provided alway that if the said John Yaxley have knowledg and
+warning only to cum to Nottin. and Derby, then the said John Yaxley is
+agread by these presents to take only xv li besides the 5 li aforesaid.
+Provided alwaies that if the said John Yaxley have knowledg and warning
+to take no labour in this matter, then he to reteine and hold the said 5
+li resaived for his good will and labour. In witness hereof, the said
+John Yaxley, serjeant, to the part of this indenture remaining with the
+said John Pulan have put his seale the day and yeare above-written.
+Provided also that the said Robert Plumpton shall beare the charges of
+the said John Yaxley, as well at York as at Nottingham and Derby, and
+also to content and pay the said money to the said John Yaxley comed to
+the said assizes att Nott., Derb., and York. JOHN YAXLEY."
+
+This remarkable agreement--made after Richard III. had vainly endeavored
+to compose by arbitration the differences between Sir Robert and Sir
+Robert's heir-general--certifies that Sir Robert Plumpton engaged to
+provide the sergeant with suitable entertainment at the assize towns,
+and also throws light upon the origin of retaining-fees. It appears from
+the agreement that in olden time a retaining fee was merely part
+(surrendered in advance) of a certain sum stipulated to be paid for
+certain services. In principle it was identical with the payment of the
+shilling, still given in rural districts, to domestic servants on an
+agreement for service, and with the transfer of the queen's shilling
+given to every soldier on enlistment. There is no need to mention the
+classic origin of this ancient mode of giving force to a contract.
+
+From the 'Household and Privy Purse Expenses of the Le Stranges of
+Hunstanton,' published in the Archaeologia, may be gleamed some
+interesting particulars relating to the payment of counsel in the reign
+of Henry VIII. In 1520, Mr. Cristofer Jenney received from the Le
+Stranges a half-yearly fee of ten shillings; and this general retainer
+was continued on the same terms till 1527, when the fee was raised from
+L1 per annum to a yearly payment of L2 13_s._ 4_d._ To Mr. Knightley was
+paid the sum of 8_s._ 11_d._ "for his fee, and that money yt he layde
+oute for suying of Simon Holden;" and the same lawyer also received at
+another time 14_s._ 3_d._ "for his fee and cost of sute for iii termes."
+A fee of 6_s._ 8_d._ was paid to "Mr. Spelman, s'jeant, for his counsell
+in makyng my answer in ye Duchy Cham.;" and the same serjeant received
+a fee of 3_s._ 4_d._ "for his counsell in putting in of the answer."
+Fees of 3_s._ 4_d._ were in like manner given "for counsell" to Mr.
+Knightley and Mr. Whyte; and in 1534, Mr. Yelverton was remunerated "for
+his counsell" with the unusually liberal honorarium of twenty shillings.
+From the household book of the Earl of Northumberland, it appears that
+order was made, in this same reign, for "every oone of my lordes
+counsaill to have c's. fees, if he have it in household and not by
+patent." After the earl's establishment was reduced to forty-two
+persons, it still retained "one of my lordes counsaill for annswering
+and riddying of causes, whenne sutors cometh to my lord." At a time when
+every lord was required to administer justice to his tenants and the
+inferior people of his territory, a counsellor learned in the law, was
+an important and most necessary officer in a grand seigneur's retinue.
+
+Whilst Sir Thomas More lived in Bucklersbury, he "gained, without grief,
+not so little as L400 by the year." This income doubtless accrued from
+the emoluments of his judicial appointment in the City, as well as from
+his practice at Westminster and elsewhere. In Henry VIII.'s time it was
+a very considerable income, such as was equalled by few leaders of the
+bar not holding high office under the Crown.
+
+In Elizabeth's reign, and during the time of her successor, barristers'
+fees show a tendency toward increase; and the lawyers who were employed
+as advocates for the Crown, or held judicial appointments, acquired
+princely incomes, and in some cases amassed large fortunes. Fees of
+20_s._ were more generally paid to counsel under the virgin queen, than
+in the days of her father; but still half that fee was not thought too
+small a sum for an opinion given by Her Majesty's Solicitor General.
+Indeed, the ten-shilling fee was a very usual fee in Elizabeth's reign;
+and it long continued an ordinary payment for one opinion on a case, or
+for one speech in a cause of no great importance and of few
+difficulties. 'A barrister is like Balaam's ass, only speaking when he
+sees the angel,' was a familiar saying in the seventeenth century. In
+Chancery, however, by an ordinance of the Lords Commissioners passed in
+1654, to regulate the conduct of suits and the payments to masters,
+counsel, and solicitors, it was arranged that on the hearing of a cause,
+utter-barristers should receive L1 fees, whilst the Lord Protector's
+counsel and sergeants-at-law should receive L2 fees, _i.e._, 'double
+fees.'
+
+The archives of Lyme Regis show that under Elizabeth the usage was
+maintained of supplying counsel with delicacies of the table, and also
+of providing them with means of locomotion. Here are some items in an
+old record of disbursements made by the corporation of Lyme
+Regis:--"A.D. Paid for Wine carried with us to Mr. Poulett--L0 3_s._
+6_d._; Wine and sugar given to Mr. Poulett, L0 3_s._ 4_d._; Horse-hire,
+and for the Sergeant to ride to Mr. Walrond, of Bovey, and for a loaf of
+sugar, and for conserves given there to Mr. Poppel, L1 1_s._ 0_d._; Wine
+and sugar given to Judge Anderson, L0 3_s._ 4_d._ A bottle and sugar
+given to Mr. Gibbs (a lawyer)."
+
+Under Elizabeth, the allowance made to Queen's Sergeants was L26 6_s._
+8_d._ for fee, reward, and robes; and L20. for his services whenever a
+Queen's Sergeant travelled circuit as Justice of Assize. The fee for her
+Solicitor General was L50. When Francis Bacon was created King's Counsel
+to James I., an annual salary of forty pounds was assigned to him from
+the royal purse; and down to William IV.'s time, King's Counsel received
+a stipend of L40 a year, and an allowance for stationery. Under the last
+mentioned monarch, however, the stipend and allowance were both
+withdrawn; and at present the status of a Q.C. is purely an affair of
+professional precedence, to which no fixed emolument is attached.
+
+But a list of the fees, paid from the royal purse to each judge or crown
+lawyer under James I., would afford no indication as to the incomes
+enjoyed by the leading members of the bench and bar at that period. The
+salaries paid to those officers were merely retaining fees, and their
+chief remuneration consisted of a large number of smaller fees. Like the
+judges of prior reigns, King James's judges were forbidden to accept
+_presents_ from actual suitors; but no suitor could obtain a hearing
+from any one of them, until he had paid into court certain fees, of
+which the fattest was a sum of money for the judge's personal use. At
+one time many persons labored under an erroneous impression, that as
+judges were forbidden to accept presents from actual suitors, the honest
+judge of past times had no revenue besides his specified salary and
+allowance. Like the king's judges, the king's counsellors frequently
+made great incomes by fees, though their nominal salaries were
+invariably insignificant. At a time when Francis Bacon was James's
+Attorney General, and received no more than L81 6_s._ 8_d._ for his
+yearly salary, he made L6000 per annum in his profession; and of that
+income--a royal income in those days--the greater portion consisted of
+fees paid to him for attending to the king's business. "I shall now,"
+Bacon wrote to the king, "again make oblation to your Majesty,--first of
+my heart, then of my service; thirdly, of my place of Attorney, which I
+think is honestly worth L6000 per annum; and fourthly, of my place in
+the Star Chamber, which is worth L1600 per annum, and with the favor and
+countenance of a Chancellor, much more." Coke had made a still larger
+income during his tenure of the Attorney's place, the fees from his
+private official practice amounting to no loss a sum than seven
+thousand pounds in a single year.
+
+At later periods of the seventeenth century barristers made large
+incomes, but the fees seem to have been by no means exorbitant. Junior
+barristers received very modest payments, and it would appear that
+juniors received fees from eminent counsel for opinions and other
+professional services. Whilst he acted as treasurer of the Middle
+Temple, at an early period of his career, Whitelock received a fee from
+Attorney General Noy. "Upon my carrying the bill," writes Whitelock, "to
+Mr. Attorney General Noy for his signature, with that of the other
+benchers, he was pleased to advise with me about a patent the king had
+commanded him to draw, upon which he gave me a fee for it out of his
+little purse, saying, 'Here, take those single pence,' which amounted to
+eleven groats, 'and I give you more than an attorney's fee, because you
+will be a better man than the Attorney General. This you will find to be
+true.' After much other drollery, wherein he delighted and excelled, we
+parted, abundance of company attending to speak to him all this time."
+Of course the payment itself was no part of the drollery to which
+Whitelock alludes, for as a gentleman he could not have taken money
+proffered to him in jest, unless etiquette encouraged him to look for
+it, and allowed him to accept it. The incident justifies the inference
+that the services of junior counsel to senior barristers--services at
+the present time termed 'devilling'--were formerly remunerated with cash
+payments.
+
+Toward the close of Charles I.'s reign--at a time when political
+distractions were injuriously affecting the legal profession, especially
+the staunch royalists of the long robe--Maynard, the Parliamentary
+lawyer, received on one round of the Western Circuit, L700, "which,"
+observes Whitelock, to whom Maynard communicated the fact, "I believe
+was more than any one of our profession got before."
+
+Concerning the incomes made by eminent counsel in Charles II.'s time,
+many _data_ are preserved in diaries and memoirs. That a thousand a year
+was looked upon as a good income for a flourishing practitioner of the
+'merry monarch's' Chancery bar, may be gathered from a passage in
+'Pepys's Diary,' where the writer records the compliments paid to him
+regarding his courageous and eloquent defence of the Admiralty, before
+the House of Commons, in March, 1668. Under the influence of half-a-pint
+of mulled sack and a dram of brandy, the Admiralty clerk made such a
+spirited and successful speech in behalf of his department, that he was
+thought to have effectually silenced all grumblers against the
+management of his Majesty's navy. Compliments flowed in upon the orator
+from all directions. Sir William Coventry pledged his judgment that the
+fame of the oration would last for ever in the Commons; silver-tongued
+Sir Heneage Finch, in the blandest tones, averred that no other living
+man could have made so excellent a speech; the placemen of the Admiralty
+vied with each other in expressions of delight and admiration; and one
+flatterer, whose name is not recorded, caused Mr. Pepys infinite
+pleasure by saying that the speaker who had routed the accusers of a
+government office, might easily earn a thousand a year at the Chancery
+bar.
+
+That sum, however, is insignificant when it is compared with the incomes
+made by the most fortunate advocates of that period. Eminent speakers of
+the Common Law Bar made between L2000 and L3500 per annum on circuit and
+at Westminster, without the aid of king's business; and still larger
+receipts were recorded in the fee-books of his Majesty's attorneys and
+solicitors. At the Chancery bar of the second Charles, there was at
+least one lawyer, who in one year made considerably more than four times
+the income that was suggested to Pepys's vanity and self-complacence. At
+Stanford Court, Worcestershire, is preserved a fee-book kept by Sir
+Francis Winnington, Solicitor-General to the 'merry monarch,' from
+December 1674 to January 13, 1679, from the entries of which record the
+reader may form a tolerably correct estimate of the professional
+revenues of successful lawyers at that time. In Easter Term, 1671, Sir
+Francis pocketed L459; in Trinity Term L449 10s.; in Michaelmas Term
+L521; and in Hilary Term 1672, L361 10s.; the income for the year being
+L1791, without his earnings on the Oxford Circuit and during vacation.
+In 1673, Sir Francis received L3371; in 1674, he earned L3560;[8] and in
+1675--_i.e._, the first year of his tenure of the Solicitor's
+office--his professional income wars L4066, of which sum L429 were
+office fees. Concerning the Attorney-General's receipts about this time,
+we have sufficient information from Roger North, who records that his
+brother, whilst Attorney General, made nearly seven thousand pounds in
+one year, from private and official business. It is noteworthy that
+North, as Attorney General, made the same income which Coke realized in
+the same office at the commencement of the century. But under the
+Stuarts this large income of L7000--in those days a princely
+revenue--was earned by work so perilous and fruitful of obloquy, that
+even Sir Francis, who loved money and cared little for public esteem,
+was glad to resign the post of Attorney and retire to the Pleas with
+L4000 a year. That the fees of the Chancery lawyers under Charles II.
+were regulated upon a liberal scale we know from Roger North, and the
+record of Sir John King's success. Speaking of his brother Francis, the
+biographer says: "After he, as king's counsel, came within the bar, he
+began to have calls into the Court of Chancery; which he liked very
+well, because the quantity of the business, _as well as the fees_, was
+greater; but his home was the King's Bench, where he sat and reported
+like as other practitioners." And in Sir John King's memoirs it is
+recorded that in 1676 he made L4700, and that he received from L40 to
+L50 a day during the last four days of his appearance in court. Dying in
+1677,[9] whilst his supremacy in his own court was at its height, Sir
+John King was long spoken of as a singularly successful Chancery
+barrister.
+
+Of Francis North's mode of taking and storing his fees, the 'Life of
+Lord Keeper Guildford' gives the following picture: "His business
+increased, even while he was Solicitor, to be so much as to have
+overwhelmed one less dexterous; but when he was made Attorney General,
+though his gains by his office were great, they were much greater by his
+practice; for that flowed in upon him like an orage, enough to overset
+one that had not an extraordinary readiness in business. His skull-caps,
+which he wore when he had leisure to observe his constitution, as I
+touched before, were now destined to lie in a drawer to receive the
+money that came in by fees. One had the gold, another the crowns and
+half-crowns, and another the smaller money. When these vessels were
+full, they were committed to his friend (the Hon. Roger North), who was
+constantly near him, to tell out the cash, and put it into the bags
+according to the contents; and so they went to his treasurers, Blanchard
+and Child, goldsmiths, Temple Bar."[10] In the days of wigs, skull-caps
+like those which Francis North used as receptacles for money, were very
+generally worn by men of all classes and employments. On returning to
+the privacy of his home, a careful citizen usually laid aside his costly
+wig, and replaced it with a cheap and durable skull-cap, before he sat
+down in his parlor. So also, men careful of their health often wore
+skull-caps _under_ their wigs, on occasions when they were required to
+endure a raw atmosphere without the protection of their beavers. In days
+when the law-courts were held in the open hall of Westminster, and
+lawyers practising therein, were compelled to sit or speak for hours
+together, exposed to sharp currents of cold air, it was customary for
+wearers of the long robe to place between their wigs and natural hair
+closely-fitting caps, made of stout silk or soft leather. But more
+interesting than the money-caps, are the fees which they contained. The
+ringing of the gold pieces, the clink of the crowns with the
+half-crowns, and the rattle of the smaller money, led back the barrister
+to those happier and remote times, when the 'inferior order' of the
+profession paid the superior order with 'money down;' when, the advocate
+never opened his mouth till his fingers had closed upon the gold of his
+trustful client; when 'credit' was unknown in transactions between
+counsel and attorney;--that truly _golden_ age of the bar, when the
+barrister was less suspicious of the attorney, and the attorney held
+less power over the barrister.
+
+Having profited by the liberal payments of Chancery whilst he was an
+advocate, Lord Keeper Guildford destroyed one source of profit to
+counsel from which Francis North, the barrister, had drawn many a capful
+of money. Saith Roger, "He began to rescind all motions for speeding and
+delaying the hearing of causes besides the ordinary rule of court; and
+this lopped off a limb of the motion practice. I have heard Sir John
+Churchill, a famous Chancery practitioner, say, that in his walk from
+Lincoln's Inn down to the Temple Hall, where, in the Lord Keeper
+Bridgman's time, causes and motions out of term were heard, he had taken
+L28. with breviates only for motions and defences for hastening and
+retarding hearings. His lordship said, that the rule of the court
+allowed time enough for any one to proceed or defend; and if, for
+special reasons, he should give way to orders for timing matters, it
+would let in a deluge of vexatious pretenses, which, true or false,
+being asserted by the counsel with equal assurance, distracted the
+court and confounded the suitors."
+
+Let due honor be rendered to one Caroline, lawyer, who was remarkable
+for his liberality to clients, and carelessness of his own pecuniary
+interests. From his various biographers, many pleasant stories may be
+gleaned concerning Hale's freedom from base love of money. In his days,
+and long afterward, professional etiquette permitted clients and counsel
+to hold intercourse without the intervention of an attorney. Suitors,
+therefore, frequently addressed him personally and paid for his advice
+with their own hands, just as patients are still accustomed to fee their
+doctors. To these personal applicants, and also to clients who
+approached him by their agents, he was very liberal. "When those who
+came to ask his counsel gave him a piece, he used to give back the half,
+and to make ten shillings his fee in ordinary matters that did not
+require much time or study." From this it may be inferred that whilst
+Hale was an eminent member of the bar, twenty shillings was the usual
+fee to a leading counsel, and an angel the customary honorarium to an
+ordinary practitioner. As readers have already been told, the angel[11]
+was a common fee in the seventeenth century; but the story of Hale's
+generous usage implies that his more distinguished contemporaries were
+wont to look for and accept a double fee. Moreover, the anecdote would
+not be told in Hale's honor, if etiquette had fixed the double fee as
+the minimum of remuneration for a superior barrister's opinion. He was
+frequently employed in arbitration cases, and as an arbitrator he
+steadily refused payment for his services to legal disputants, saying,
+in explanation of his moderation, "In these cases I am made a judge, and
+a judge ought to take no money." The misapprehension as to the nature of
+an arbitrator's functions, displayed in these words, gives an
+instructive insight into the mental constitution of the judge who wrote
+on natural science, and at the same time exerted himself to secure the
+conviction of witches. A more pleasant and commendable illustration of
+his conscientiousness in pecuniary matters, is found in the steadiness
+with which he refused to throw upon society the spurious coin which he
+had taken from his clients. In a tone of surprise that raises a smile at
+the average morality of our forefathers, Bishop Burnet tells of Hale:
+"Another remarkable instance of his justice and goodness was, that when
+he found ill money had been put into his hands, he would never suffer it
+to be vented again; for he thought it was no excuse for him to put false
+money in other people's hands, because some had put it into his. A great
+heap of this he had gathered together, for many had so abused his
+goodness as to mix base money among the fees that were given him." In
+this particular case, the judge's virtue was its own reward. His house
+being entered by burglars, this accumulation of bad money attracted the
+notice of the robbers, who selected it from a variety of goods and
+chattels, and carried it off under the impression that it was the
+lawyer's hoarded treasure. Besides large sums expended on unusual acts
+of charity, this good man habitually distributed amongst the poor a
+tithe of his professional earnings.
+
+In the seventeenth century, General Retainers were very common, and the
+counsel learned in the law, were ready to accept them from persons of
+low extraction and questionable repute. Indeed, no upstart deemed
+himself properly equipped for a campaign at court, until he had recorded
+a fictitious pedigree at the Herald's College, taken a barrister as well
+as a doctor into regular employment, and hired a curate to say grace
+daily at his table. In the summer of his vile triumph, Titus Oates was
+attended, on public occasions, by a robed counsel and a physician.
+
+[8] In his 'Survey of the State of England in 1685,' Macauley--giving
+one of those misleading references with which his history abounds--says:
+"A thousand a year was thought a large income for a barrister. Two
+thousand a year was hardly to be made in the Court of King's Bench,
+except by crown lawyers." Whilst making the first statement, he
+doubtless remembered the passage in 'Pepys's Diary.' For the second
+statement, he refers to 'Layton's Conversation with Chief Justice Hale.'
+It is fair to assume that Lord Macauley had never seen Sir Francis
+Winnington's fee-book.
+
+[9] In the fourth day of his fever, he being att the Chancery Bar, he
+fell so ill of the fever, that he was forced to leave the Court and come
+to his chambers in the Temple, with one of his clerks, which constantly
+wayted on him and carried his bags of writings for his pleadings, and
+there told him that he should return to every clyent his breviat and his
+fee, for he could serve them no longer, for he had done with this world,
+and thence came home to his house in Salisbury Court, and took his
+bed.... And there he sequestered himself to meditation between God and
+his own soul, without the least regret, and quietly and patiently
+contented himself with the will of God.--_Vide Memoir of Sir John King,
+Knt., written by his Father._
+
+[10] The lawyers of the seventeenth century were accustomed to make a
+show of their fees to the clients who called upon them. Hudibras's
+lawyer (Hud., Part iii. cant. 3) is described as sitting in state with
+his books and money before him:
+
+"To this brave man the knight repairs For counsel in his law affairs,
+And found him mounted in his pew, With books and money placed for shew,
+Like nest-eggs, to make clients lay, And for his false, opinion pay: To
+whom the knight, with comely grace, Put off his hat to put his case,
+Which he as proudly entertain'd As the other courteously strain'd; And
+to assure him 'twas not that He looked for, bid him put on's hat."
+
+Under Victoria, the needy junior is compelled, for the sake of
+appearances, to furnish his shelves with law books, and cover his table
+with counterfeit briefs. Under the Stuarts, he placed a bowl of spurious
+money amongst the sham papers that lay upon his table.
+
+[11] In the 'Serviens ad Legem,' Mr. Sergeant Manning raises question
+concerning the antiquity of _guineas_ and half-guineas, with the
+following remarks:--"Should any cavil be raised against this jocular
+allusion, on the ground that guineas and half-guineas were unknown to
+sergeants who flourished in the sixteenth century, the objector might be
+reminded, that in antique records, instances occur in which the
+'guianois d'or,' issued from the ducal mint at Bordeaux, by the
+authority of the Plantagenet sovereigns of Guienne, were by the same
+authority, made current among their English subjects; and it might be
+suggested that those who have gone to the coast of Africa for the origin
+of the modern guinea, need not have carried their researches beyond the
+Bay of Biscay. _Quaere_, whether the Guinea Coast itself may not owe its
+name to the 'guianois d'or' for which it furnished the raw material."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+RETAINERS GENERAL AND SPECIAL.
+
+
+Pemberton's fees for his services in behalf of the Seven Bishops show
+that the most eminent counsel of his time were content with very modest
+remuneration for advice and eloquence. From the bill of an attorney
+employed in that famous trial, it appears that the ex-Chief Justice was
+paid a retaining-fee of five guineas, and received twenty guineas with
+his brief. He also pocketed three guineas for a consultation. At the
+present date, thirty times the sum of these paltry payments would be
+thought an inadequate compensation for such zeal, judgment, and ability
+as Francis Pemberton displayed in the defence of his reverend clients.
+
+But, though lawyers were paid thus moderately in the seventeenth
+century, the complaints concerning their avarice and extortions were
+loud and universal. This public discontent was due to the inordinate
+exactions of judges and place-holders rather than to the conduct of
+barristers and attorneys; but popular displeasure seldom cares to
+discriminate between the blameless and the culpable members of an
+obnoxious system, or to distinguish between the errors of ancient custom
+and the qualities of those persons who are required to carry out old
+rules. Hence the really honest and useful practitioners of the law
+endured a full share of the obloquy caused by the misconduct of venal
+justices and corrupt officials. Counsel, attorneys, and even scriveners
+came in for abuse. It was averred that they conspired to pick the public
+pocket; that eminent conveyancers not less than copying clerks, swelled
+their emoluments by knavish tricks. They would talk for the mere purpose
+of protracting litigation, injure their clients by vexations and
+bootless delays, and do their work so that they might be fed for doing
+it again. Draughtsmen find their clerks wrote loosely and wordily,
+because they were paid by the folio. "A term," writes the quaint author
+of 'Saint Hillaries Teares,' in 1642, "so like a vacation; the prime
+court, the Chancery (wherein the clerks had wont to dash their clients
+out of countenance with long dashes); the examiners to take the
+depositions in hyperboles, and roundabout _Robinhood_ circumstances with
+_saids_ and _aforesaids_, to enlarge the number of sheets." 'Hudibras'
+contains, amongst other pungent satires against the usages of lawyers,
+an allusion to this characteristic custom of legal draughtsmen, who
+being paid by the sheet, were wont
+
+   "To make 'twixt words and lines large gaps,
+   Wide as meridians in maps;
+   To squander paper and spare ink,
+   Or cheat men of their words some think."
+
+In the following century the abuses consequent on the objectionable
+system of folio-payment were noticed in a parliamentary report (bearing
+date November 8, 1740), which was the most important result of an
+ineffectual attempt to reform the superior courts of law and to lessen
+the expenses of litigation.
+
+More is known about the professional receipts of lawyers since the
+Revolution of 1688 than can be discovered concerning the incomes of
+their precursors in Westminster Hall. For six years, commencing with
+Michaelmas Term, 1719, Sir John Cheshire, King's Sergeant, made an
+average annual income of 3241_l._ Being then sixty-three years of age,
+he limited his practice to the Common Pleas, and during the next six
+years made in that one court 1320_l._ per annum. Mr. Foss, to whom the
+present writer is indebted for these particulars with regard to Sir John
+Cheshire's receipts, adds: "The fees of counsel's clerks form a great
+contrast with those that are now demanded, being only threepence on a
+fee of half-a-guinea, sixpence for a guinea, and one shilling for two
+guineas." Of course the increase of clerk's fees tells more in favor of
+the master than the servant. At the present time the clerk of a
+barrister in fairly lucrative practice costs his master nothing.
+Bountifully paid by his employer's clients, he receives no salary from
+the counsellor whom he serves; whereas, in old times, when his fees were
+fixed at the low rate just mentioned, the clerk could not live and
+maintain a family upon them, unless his master belonged to the most
+successful grade of his order.
+
+Horace Walpole tells his readers that Charles Yorke "was reported to
+have received 100,000 guineas in fees;" but his fee-book shows that his
+professional rise was by no means so rapid as those who knew him in his
+sunniest days generally supposed. The story of his growing fortunes is
+indicated in the following statement of successive incomes:--1st year of
+practice at the bar, 121_l._ 2nd, 201_l._; 3rd and 4th, between 300_l._
+and 400_l._ per annum; 5th, 700_l._; 6th, 800_l._; 7th, 1000_l._; 9th,
+1600_l._; 10th, 2500_l._ Whilst Solicitor General he made 3400_l._ in
+1757; and in the following year he earned 5000_l._ His receipts during
+the last year of his tenure of the Attorney Generalship amounted to
+7322_l._ The reader should observe that as Attorney General he made but
+little more than Coke had realized in the same office,--a fact serving
+to show how much better paid were Crown lawyers in times when they held
+office like judges during the Sovereign's pleasure, than in these latter
+days when they retire from place together with their political parties.
+
+The difference between the incomes of Scotch advocates and English
+barristers was far greater in the eighteenth century than at the present
+time, although in our own day the receipts of several second-rate
+lawyers of the Temple and Lincoln's Inn far surpass the revenues of the
+most successful advocates of the Edinburgh faculty. A hundred and thirty
+years since a Scotch barrister who earned 500_l._ per annum by his
+profession was esteemed notably successful.
+
+Just as Charles Yorke's fee-book shows us the pecuniary position of an
+eminent English barrister in the middle of the last century, John
+Scott's list of receipts displays the prosperity of a very fortunate
+Crown lawyer in the next generation. Without imputing motives the
+present writer, may venture to say that Lord Eldon's assertions with
+regard to his earnings at the bar, and his judicial incomes, were not in
+strict accordance with the evidence of his private accounts. He used to
+say that his first year's earnings in his profession amounted to
+half-a-guinea, but there is conclusive proof that he had a considerable
+quantity of lucrative business in the same year. "When I was called to
+the bar," it was his humor to say, "Bessie and I thought all our
+troubles were over, business was to pour in, and we were to be rich
+almost immediately. So I made a bargain with her that during the
+following year all the money I should receive in the first eleven
+months should be mine, and whatever I should get in the twelfth month
+should be hers. That was our agreement, and how do you think it turned
+out? In the twelfth month I received half-a-guinea--eighteenpence went
+for charity, and Bessy got nine shillings. In the other eleven months I
+got one shilling." John Scott, be it remembered, was called to the bar
+on February 9, 1776, and on October 2, of the same year, William Scott
+wrote to his brother Henry--"My brother Jack seems highly pleased with
+his circuit business. I hope it is only the beginning of future
+triumphs. All appearances speak strongly in his favor." There is no need
+to call evidence to show that Eldon's success was more than respectable
+from the outset of his career, and that he had not been called many
+years before he was in the foremost rank of his profession. His fee-book
+gives the following account of his receipts in thirteen successive
+years:--1786, 6833_l._ 7_s._; 1787, 7600_l._ 7_s._; 1788, 8419_l._
+14_s._; 1789, 9559_l._ 10_s._; 1790, 9684_l._ 15_s._; 1791, 10,213_l._
+13_s._ 6_d._; 1792, 9080_l._ 9_s._; 1793, 10,330_l._ 1_s._ 4_d._; 1794,
+11,592_l._; 1795, 11,149_l._ 15_s._ 4_d._; 1796, 12,140_l._ 15_s._
+8_d._; 1797, 10,861_l._ 5_s._ 8_d_; 1798, 10,557_l._ 17_s._ During the
+last six of the above-mentioned years he was Attorney General, and
+during the preceding four years Solicitor General.
+
+Although General Retainers are much less general than formerly, they are
+by no means obsolete. Noblemen could be mentioned who at the present
+time engage counsel with periodical payments, special fees of course
+being also paid for each professional service. But the custom is dying
+out, and it is probable that after the lapse of another hundred years it
+will not survive save amongst the usages of ancient corporations. Notice
+has already been taken of Murray's conduct when he returned nine hundred
+and ninety-five out of a thousand guineas to the Duchess of
+Marlborough, informing her that the professional fee with the general
+retainer was neither more nor less than five guineas. The annual salary
+of a Queen's Counsel in past times was in fact a fee with a general
+retainer; but this periodic payment is no longer made to wearers of
+silk.
+
+In his learned work on 'The Judges of England,' Mr. Foss observes: "The
+custom of retaining counsel in fee lingered in form, at least in one
+ducal establishment. By a formal deed-poll between the proud Duke of
+Somerset and Sir Thomas Parker, dated July 19, 1707, the duke retains
+him as his 'standing counsell in ffee,' and gives and allows him 'the
+yearly ffee of four markes, to be paid by my solicitor' at Michaelmas,
+'to continue during my will and pleasure.'" Doubtless Mr. Foss is aware
+that this custom still 'lingers in form;' but the tone of his words
+justifies the opinion that he underrates the frequency with which
+general retainers are still given. The 'standing counsel' of civic and
+commercial companies are counsel with general retainers, and usually
+their general retainers have fees attached to them.
+
+The payments of English barristers have varied much more than the
+remunerations of English physicians. Whereas medical practitioners in
+every age have received a certain definite sum for each consultation,
+and have been forbidden by etiquette to charge more or less than the
+fixed rate, lawyers have been allowed much freedom in estimating the
+worth of their labor. This difference between the usages of the two
+professions is mainly due to the fact, that the amount of time and
+mental effort demanded by patients at each visit or consultation is very
+nearly the same in all cases, whereas the requirements of clients are
+much more various. To get up the facts of a law-case may be the work of
+minutes, or hours, or days, or even weeks; to observe the symptoms of a
+patient, and to write a prescription, can be always accomplished within
+the limits of a short morning call. In all times, however, the legal
+profession has adopted certain scales of payment--that fixed the
+_minimum_ of remuneration, but left the advocate free to get more, as
+circumstances might encourage him to raise his demands. Of the many good
+stories told of artifices by which barristers have delicately intimated
+their desire for higher payment, none is better than an anecdote
+recorded of Sergeant Hill. A troublesome case being laid before this
+most erudite of George III.'s sergeants, he returned it with a brief
+note, that he "saw more difficulty in the case than, _under all the
+circumstances_, he could well solve." As the fee marked upon the case
+was only a guinea, the attorney readily inferred that its smallness was
+one of the circumstances which occasioned the counsel's difficulty. The
+case, therefore, was returned, with a fee of two guineas. Still
+dissatisfied, Sergeant Hill wrote that "he saw no reason to change his
+opinion."
+
+By the etiquette of the bar no barrister is permitted to take a brief on
+any circuit, save that on which he habitually practises, unless he has
+received a special retainer; and no wearer of silk can be specially
+retained with a less fee than three hundred guineas. Erskine's first
+special retainer was in the Dean of St. Asaph's case, his first speech
+in which memorable cause was delivered when he had been called to the
+bar but little more than five years. From that time till his elevation
+to the bench he received on an average twelve special retainers a year,
+by which at the minimum of payment he made L3600 per annum. Besides
+being lucrative and honorable, this special employment greatly augmented
+his practice in Westminster Hall, as it brought him in personal contact
+with attorneys in every part of the country, and heightened his
+popularity amongst all classes of his fellow-countrymen. In 1786 he
+entirely withdrew from ordinary circuit practice, and confined his
+exertions in provincial courts to the causes for which he was specially
+retained. No advocate since his time has received an equal number of
+special retainers; and if he did not originate the custom of special
+retainers,[12] he was the first English barrister who ventured to reject
+all other briefs.
+
+There is no need to recapitulate all the circumstances of Erskine's
+rapid rise in his profession--a rise due to his effective brilliance and
+fervor in political trial: but this chapter on lawyers' fees would be
+culpably incomplete, if it failed to notice some of its pecuniary
+consequences. In the eighth month after his call to the bar he thanked
+Admiral Keppel for a splendid fee of one thousand pounds. A few years
+later a legal gossip wrote: "Everybody says that Erskine will be
+Solicitor General, and if he is, and indeed whether he is or not, he
+will have had the most rapid rise that has been known at the bar. It is
+four years and a half since he was called, and in that time he has
+cleared L8000 or L9000, besides paying his debts--got a silk gown, and
+business of at least L3000 a year--a seat in Parliament--and, over and
+above, has made his brother Lord Advocate."
+
+Merely to mention large fees without specifying the work by which they
+were earned would mislead the reader. During the railway mania of 1845,
+the few leaders of the parliamentary bar received prodigious fees; and
+in some cases the sums were paid for very little exertion. Frequently it
+happened that a lawyer took heavy fees in causes, at no stage of which
+he either made a speech or read a paper in the service of his too
+liberal employers. During that period of mad speculation the
+committee-rooms of the two Houses were an El Dorado to certain favored
+lawyers, who were alternately paid for speech and _silence_ with
+reckless profusion. But the time was so exceptional, that the fees
+received and the fortunes made in it by a score of lucky advocates and
+solicitors cannot be fairly cited as facts illustrating the social
+condition of legal practitioners. As a general rule, it may be stated
+that large fortunes are not made at the bar by large fees. Our richest
+lawyers have made the bulk of their wealth by accumulating sufficient
+but not exorbitant payments. In most cases the large fee has not been a
+very liberal remuneration for the work done. Edward Law's retainer for
+the defence of Warren Hastings brought with it L500--a sum which caused
+our grandfathers to raise their hands in astonishment at the nabob's
+munificence; but the sum was in reality the reverse of liberal. In all,
+Warren Hastings paid his leading advocate considerably less than four
+thousand pounds; and if Law had not contrived to win the respect of
+solicitors by his management of the defence, the case could not be said
+to have paid him for his trouble. So also the eminent advocate, who in
+the great case of Small _v._ Attwood received a fee of L6000, was
+actually underpaid. When he made up the account of the special outlay
+necessitated by that cause, and the value of business which the
+burdensome case compelled him to decline, he had small reason to
+congratulate himself on his remuneration.
+
+A statement of the incomes made by chamber-barristers, and of the sums
+realized by counsel in departments of the profession that do not invite
+the attention of the general public, would astonish those uninformed
+persons who estimate the success of a barrister by the frequency with
+which his name appears in the newspaper reports of trials and suits. The
+talkers of the bar enjoy more _eclat_ than the barristers who confine
+themselves to chamber practice, and their labors lead to the honors of
+the bench; but a young lawyer, bent only on the acquisition of wealth,
+is more likely to achieve his ambition by conveyancing or
+arbitration-business than by court-work. Kenyon was never a popular or
+successful advocate, but he made L3000 a year by answering cases.
+Charles Abbott at no time of his life could speak better than a
+vestryman of average ability; but by drawing informations and
+indictments, by writing opinions on cases, he made the greater part of
+the eight thousand pounds which he returned as the amount of his
+professional receipts in 1807. In our own time, when that popular common
+law advocate, Mr. Edwin James, was omnipotent with juries, his income
+never equalled the incomes of certain chamber-practitioners whose names
+are utterly unknown to the general body of English society.
+
+[12] Lord Campbell observes: "Some say that special retainers began with
+Erskine; but I doubt the fact." It is strange that there should be
+uncertainty as to the time when special retainers--unquestionably a
+comparatively recent innovation in legal practice--came into vogue.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+JUDICIAL CORRUPTION.
+
+
+To a young student making his first researches beneath the surface of
+English history, few facts are more painful and perplexing than the
+judicial corruption which prevailed in every period of our country's
+growth until quiet recent times--darkening the brightest pages of our
+annals, and disfiguring some of the greatest chieftains of our race.
+
+Where he narrates the fall and punishment of De Weyland towards the
+close of the thirteenth century, Speed observes: "While the Jews by
+their cruel usuries had in one way eaten up the people, the justiciars,
+like another kind of Jews, had ruined them with delay in their suits,
+and enriched themselves with wicked convictions." Of judicial corruption
+in the reigns of Edward I. and Edward II. a vivid picture is given in a
+political ballad, composed in the time of one or the other of those
+monarchs. Of this poem Mr. Wright, in his 'Political Songs,' gives a
+free version, a part of which runs thus:--
+
+   "Judges there are whom gifts and favorites control,
+   Content to serve the devil alone and take from him a toll;
+   If nature's law forbids the judge from selling his decree,
+   How dread to those who finger bribes the punishment shall be.
+
+   "Such judges have accomplices whom frequently they send
+   To get at those who claim some land, and whisper as a friend,
+   ''Tis I can help you with the judge, if you would wish to plead,
+   Give me but half, I'll undertake before him you'll succeed.'
+
+   "The clerks who sit beneath the judge are open-mouthed as he,
+   As if they were half-famished and gaping for a fee;
+   Of those who give no money they soon pronounce the state,
+   However early they attend, they shall have long to wait.
+
+   "If comes some noble lady, in beauty and in pride,
+   With golden horns upon her head, her suit he'll soon decide;
+   But she who has no charms, nor friends, and is for gifts too poor,
+   Her business all neglected, she's weeping shown the door.
+
+   "But worse than all, within the court we some relators meet,
+   Who take from either side at once, and both their clients cheat;
+   The ushers, too, to poor men say, 'You labor here in vain,
+   Unless you tip us all around, you may go back again.'
+
+   "The sheriff's hard upon the poor who cannot pay for rest,
+   Drags them about to every town, on all assizes press'd
+   Compell'd to take the oath prescrib'd without objection made,
+   For if they murmur and can't pay, upon their backs they're laid.
+
+   "They enter any private house, or abbey that they choose,
+   Where meat and drink and all things else are given as their dues;
+   And after dinner jewels too, or this were all in vain,
+   Bedels and garcons must receive, and all that form the train.
+
+   "And next must gallant robes be sent as presents to their wives,
+   Or from the manor of the host some one his cattle drives;
+   While he, poor man, is sent to gaol upon some false pretence,
+   And pays at last at double cost, ere he gets free from thence.
+
+   "I can't but laugh to see their clerks, whom once I knew in need,
+   When to obtain a bailiwick they may at last succeed;
+   With pride in gait and countenance and with their necks erect
+   They lands and houses quickly buy and pleasant rents collect.
+
+   "Grown rich they soon the poor despise, and new-made laws display,
+   Oppress their neighbors and become the wise men of their day;
+   Unsparing of the least offence, when they can have their will,
+   The hapless country all around with discontent they fill."
+
+In the fourteenth century judicial corruption was so general and
+flagrant, that cries came from every quarter for the punishment of
+offenders. The Knights Hospitallers' Survey, made in the year 1338,
+gives us revelations that confound the indiscreet admirers of feudal
+manners. From that source of information it appears that regular
+stipends were paid to persons "tam in curia domini regis quam
+justiciariis, clericis, officiariis et aliis ministris, in diversis
+curiis suis, ac etiam aliis familaribus magnatum tam pro terris
+tenementis redditbus et libertatibus Hospitalis, quam Templariorum, et
+maxime pro terris Templariorum manutenendis." Of pensions to the amount
+of L440 mentioned in the account, L60 were paid to judges, clerks, and
+minor officers of courts. Robert de Sadington, the Chief Baron, received
+40 marks annually; twice a year the Knights Hospitallers presented caps
+to one hundred and forty officers of the Exchequer; and they expended
+200 marks _per annum_ on gifts that were distributed in law courts,
+"_pro favore habendo_, et pro placitis habendis, et expensis
+parliamentorum." In that age, and for centuries later, it was customary
+for wealthy men and great corporations to make valuable presents to the
+judges and chief servants the king's courts; but it was always presumed
+that the offerings were simple expressions of respect--not tribute
+rendered, "pro favore habendo."
+
+Bent on purifying the moral atmosphere of his courts, Edward III. raised
+the salaries of his judges, and imposed upon them such oaths that none
+of their order could pervert justice, or even encourage venal practices,
+without breaking his solemn vow[13] to the king's majesty.
+
+From the amounts of the _royal_ fees or stipends paid to Edward III.'s
+judges, it may be vaguely estimated how far they were dependent on gifts
+and _court_ fees for the means of living with appropriate state. John
+Knyvet, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, has L40 and 100 marks per
+annum. The annual fee of Thomas de Ingleby, the solitary puisne judge
+of the King's Bench at that time, was at first 40 marks; but he obtained
+an additional L40 when the 'fees' were raised, and he received moreover
+L20 a year as a judge of assize. The Chief of the Common Pleas, Robert
+de Thrope, received L40 per annum, payable during his tenure of office,
+and another annual sum of L40 payable during his life. John de Mowbray,
+William de Wychingham, and William de Fyncheden, the other judges of the
+Common Pleas, received 40 marks each as official salary, and L20 per
+annum for their services at assizes. Mowbray's stipend was subsequently
+increased by 40 marks, whilst Wychingham and Fyncheden received an
+additional L40 par annum. To the Chief Baron and the other two Barons of
+the Exchequer annual fees of 40 marks each were paid, the Chief Baron
+receiving L20 per annum as Justice of Assize, and one of the puisne
+Barons, Almaric de Shirland, getting an additional 40 marks for certain
+special services. The 'Issue Roll of 44 Edward III., 1370,' also shows
+that certain sergeants-at-law acted as Justices of Assize, receiving for
+their service L20 per annum.
+
+Throughout his reign Edward III. strenuously exerted himself to purge
+his law courts of abuses, and to secure his subjects from evils wrought
+by judicial dishonesty; and though there is reason to think that he
+prosecuted his reforms, and punished offending judges with more
+impulsiveness than consistency--with petulance rather than
+firmness[14]--his action must have produced many beneficial results. But
+it does not seem to have occurred to him that the system adopted by his
+predecessors, and encouraged by the usages of his own time, was the
+real source of the mischief, and that so long as judges received the
+greater part of their remuneration from suitors, fees and the donations
+of the public, enactments and proclamations would be comparatively
+powerless to preserve the streams of justice from pollution. The
+fee-system poisoned the morality of the law-courts. From the highest
+judge to the lowest usher, every person connected with a court of
+justice was educated to receive small sums of money for trifling
+services, to be always looking out for paltry dues or gratuities, to
+multiply occasions for demanding, and reasons for pocketing petty coins,
+to invent devices for legitimate peculation. In time the system produced
+such complications of custom, right, privilege, claim, that no one could
+say definitely how much a suitor was actually bound to pay at each stage
+of a suit. The fees had an equally bad influence on the public. Trained
+to approach the king's judges with costly presents, to receive them on
+their visits with lavish hospitality, to send them offerings at the
+opening of each year, the rich and the poor learnt to look on judicial
+decisions as things that were bought and sold. In many cases this
+impression was not erroneous. Judges were forbidden to accept gifts from
+actual suitors, or to take payments _for_ judgments after their
+delivery; but on the judgment-seat they were often influenced by
+recollections of the conduct of suitors who _had been_ munificent before
+the commencement of proceedings, and most probably would be equally
+munificent six months after delivery of a judgment favorable to their
+claims. Humorous anecdotes heightened the significance of patent facts.
+Throughout a shire it would be told how this suitor won a judgment by a
+sumptuous feast; how that suitor bought the justice's favor with a flask
+of rare wine, a horse of excellent breed, a hound of superior sagacity.
+
+In the fifteenth century the judge whose probity did not succumb to an
+excellent dinner was deemed a miracle of virtue. "A lady," writes Fuller
+of Chief Justice Markham, who was dismissed from his place in 1470,
+"would traverse a suit of law against the will of her husband, who was
+contented to buy his quiet by giving her her will therein, though
+otherwise persuaded in his judgment the cause would go against her. This
+lady, dwelling in the shire town, invited the judge to dinner, and
+(though thrifty enough herself) treated him with sumptuous
+entertainment. Dinner being done, and the cause being called, the judge
+gave it against her. And when, in passion, she vowed never to invite the
+judge again, 'Nay, wife,' said he, 'vow never to invite a _just judge_
+any more.'" It may be safely affirmed that no English lady of our time
+ever tried to bribe Sir Alexander Cockburn or Sir Frederick Pollock with
+a dinner _a la Russe_.
+
+By his eulogy of Chief Justice Dyer, who died March 24, 1582, Whetstone
+gives proof that in Elizabethan England purity was the exception rather
+than the rule with judges:--
+
+   "And when he spake he was in speeche reposde;
+     His eyes did search the simple suitor's harte;
+   To put by bribes his hands were ever closde,
+     His processe juste, he tooke the poore man's parte.
+     He ruld by lawe and listened not to arte,
+   Those foes to truthe--loove, hate, and private gain,
+   Which most corrupt, his conscience could not staine."
+
+There is no reason to suppose that the custom of giving and receiving
+presents was more general or extravagant in the time of Elizabeth than
+in previous ages; but the fuller records of her splendid reign give
+greater prominence to the usage than it obtained in the chronicles of
+any earlier period of English history. On each New Year's day her
+courtiers gave her costly presents--jewels, ornaments of gold or silver
+workmanship, hundreds of ounces of silver-gilt plate, tapestry, laces,
+satin dresses, embroidered petticoats. Not only did she accept such
+costly presents from men of rank and wealth, but she graciously received
+the donations of tradesmen and menials. Francis Bacon made her majesty
+"a poor oblation of a garment;" Charles Smith, the dustman, threw upon
+the pile of treasure "two bottes of cambric." The fashion thus
+countenanced by the queen was followed in all ranks of society; all men,
+from high to low, receiving presents, as expressions of affection when
+they came from their equals, as declarations of respect when they came
+from their social inferiors. Each of her great officers of state drew a
+handsome revenue from such yearly offerings. But though the burdens and
+abuses of this system were excessive under Elizabeth, they increased in
+enormity and number during the reigns of the Stuarts.
+
+That the salaries of the Elizabethan judges were small in comparison
+with the sums which they received in presents and fees may be seen from
+the following Table of stipends and allowances annually paid, towards
+the close of the sixteenth century:--
+
+                                                      L  _s._  _d._
+
+The Lord Cheefe Justice of England:--
+  Fee, Reward and Robes                              208   6     8
+  Wyne, 2 tunnes at L5 the tunne                      10   0     0
+  Allowance for being Justice of Assize               20   0     0
+
+The Lord Cheefe Justice of the Common Pleas:--
+  Fee, Reward, and Robes                             141  13     4
+  Wyne, two tunnes                                     8   0     0
+  Allowance as Justice of Assize                      20   0     0
+  Fee for keeping the Assize in the Augmentation
+  Court                                               12  10     8
+
+Each of the three Justices in these two Courts:--
+  Fee, Reward and Robes                             L123   6_s._ 8_d._
+  Allowance as Justice of Assize                      20   0     0
+
+The Lord Cheefe Baron of the Exchequer:--
+  Fee                                                100   0     0
+  Lyvery                                              12  17     8
+  Allowance as Justice of the Assize                  20   0     0
+
+Each of the three Barons:--
+  Fee                                                 46  12     4
+  Lyvery a peece                                      12  17     4
+  Allowance as Justice of Assize                      20   0     0
+
+Prior to and in the earlier part of Elizabeth's reign, the sheriffs had
+been required to provide diet and lodging for judges travelling on
+circuit, each sheriff being responsible for the proper entertainment of
+judges within the limits of his jurisdiction. This arrangement was very
+burdensome upon the class from which the sheriffs were elected, as the
+official host had not only to furnish suitable lodging and cheer for the
+justices themselves, but also to supply the wants of their attendants
+and servants. The ostentatious and costly hospitality which law and
+public opinion thus compelled or encouraged them to exercise towards
+circuiteers of all ranks had seriously embarrassed a great number of
+country gentlemen; and the queen was assailed with entreaties for a
+reform that should free a sheriff of small estate from the necessity of
+either ruining himself, or incurring a reputation for stinginess. In
+consequence of these urgent representations, an order of council,
+bearing date February 21, 1574, decided "the justices shall have of her
+majesty several sums of money out of her coffers for their daily diet."
+Hence rose the usage of 'circuit allowances.' The sheriffs, however,
+were still bound to attend upon the judges, and make suitable provision
+for the safe conduct of the legal functionaries from assize town to
+assize town;--the sheriff of each county being required to furnish a
+body-guard for the protection of the sovereign's representatives. This
+responsibility lasted till the other day, when an innovation (of which
+Mr. Arcedeckne, of Glevering Hall, Suffolk, was the most notorious,
+though not the first champion), substituted guards of policemen, paid by
+county-rates, for bands of javelin-men equipped and rewarded by the
+sheriffs. In some counties the javelin-men--remote descendants of the
+mail-clad knights and stalwart men-at-arms who formerly mustered at the
+summons of sheriffs--still do duty with long wands and fresh rosettes;
+but they are fast giving way to the wielders of short staves.
+
+Amongst the bad consequences of the system of gratuities was the color
+which it gave to idle rumors and malicious slander against the purity of
+upright judges.
+
+When Sir Thomas More fell, charges of bribery were preferred against him
+before the Privy Council. A disappointed suitor, named Parnell, declared
+that the Chancellor had been bribed with a gift-cup to decide in favor
+of his (Parnell's) adversary. Mistress Vaughan, the successful suitor's
+wife, had given Sir Thomas the cup with her own hands. The fallen
+Chancellor admitting that "he had received the cup as a New Year's
+Gift," Lord Wiltshire cried, with unseemly exultation, "Lo! did I not
+tell you, my lords, that you would find this matter true?" It seemed
+that More had pleaded guilty, for his oath did not permit him to receive
+a New Year's Gift from an actual suitor. "But, my lords," continued the
+accused man, with one of his characteristic smiles, "hear the other part
+of my tale. After having drunk to her of wine, with which my butler had
+filled the cup, and when she had pledged me, I restored it to her, and
+would listen to no refusal." It is possible that Mistress Vaughan did
+not act with corrupt intention, but merely in ignorance of the rule
+which forbade the Chancellor to accept her present. As much cannot be
+said in behalf of Mrs. Croker, who, being opposed in a suit to Lord
+Arundel, sought to win Sir Thomas More's favor by presenting him with a
+pair of gloves containing forty angels. With a courteous smile he
+accepted the gloves, but constrained her to take back the gold. The
+gentleness of this rebuff is charming; but the story does not tell more
+in favor of Sir Thomas than to the disgrace of the lady and the moral
+tone of the society in which she lived.
+
+Readers should bear in mind the part which New Year's Gifts and other
+customary gratuities played in the trumpery charges against Lord Bacon.
+Adopting an old method of calumny, the conspirators against his fair
+fame represented that the gifts made to him, in accordance with ancient
+usage, were bribes. For instance Reynel's ring, presented on New Year's
+day, was so construed by the accusers; and in his comment upon the
+charge, Bacon, who had inadvertently accepted the gift during the
+progress of a suit, observes, "This ring was received certainly
+_pendente lite_, and though it were at New Year's tide, yet it was too
+great a value for a New Year's Gift, though, as I take it, nothing near
+the value mentioned in the articles." So also Trevor's gift was a New
+Year's present, of which Bacon says, "I confess and declare that I
+received at New Year's tide an hundred pounds from Sir John Trevor, and
+because it came as a New Year's Gift, I neglected to inquire whether the
+cause was ended or depending; but since I find that though the cause was
+then dismissed to a trial at law, yet the equity is reserved, so as it
+was in that kind _pendente lite_." Bacon knew that this explanation
+would be read by men familiar with the history of New Year's Gifts, and
+all the circumstances of the ancient usage; and it is needless to say
+that no man of honor thought the less highly of Bacon at that time,
+because his pure and guiltless acceptance of customary presents was by
+ingenious and unscrupulous adversaries made to assume an appearance of
+corrupt compliance.
+
+How far the Chancellors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
+depended upon customary gratuities for their revenues may be seen from
+the facts which show the degree of state which they were required to
+maintain, and the inadequacy of the ancient fees for the maintenance of
+that pomp. When Elizabeth pressed Hatton for payment of the sums which
+he owed her, the Chancellor lamented his inability to liquidate her just
+claims, and urged in excuse that the _ancient fees_ were very inadequate
+to the expenses of the Chancellor's office. But though Elizabethan
+Chancellors could not live upon their ancient fees, they kept up palaces
+in town and country, fed regiments of lackeys, and surpassed the ancient
+nobility in the grandeur of their equipages. Egerton--the needy and
+illegitimate son of a rural knight, a lawyer who fought up from the
+ranks--not only sustained the costly dignities of office, but left to
+his descendants a landed estate worth L8000 per annum. Bacon's successor
+in the 'marble chair,' Lord Keeper Williams, assured Buckingham that in
+Egerton's time the Chancellor's lawful income was less than three
+thousand per annum. "The lawful revenue of the office stands thus,"
+wrote Williams, speaking from his intimate knowledge of Ellesmere's
+affairs, "or not much above it at anytime:--in fines certain, L1300 per
+annum, or thereabouts; in fines casual, L1250 or thereabouts; in greater
+writs, L140; for impost of wine, L100--in all, L2790; and these are all
+the true means of that great office." It is probable that Williams
+under-stated the revenue, but it is certain that the income, apart from
+gratuities, was insufficient.
+
+The Chancellor was not more dependent on customary gratuities than the
+chief of the three Common Law courts. At Westminster and on circuit,
+whenever he was required to discharge his official functions, the
+English judge extended his hand for the contributions of the
+well-disposed. No one thought of blaming judges for their readiness to
+take customary benevolences. To take gifts was a usage of the
+profession, and had its parallel in the customs of every calling and
+rank of life. The clergy took dues in like manner: from the earliest
+days of feudal life the territorial lords had supplied their wants in
+the same way; amongst merchants and yeomen, petty traders and servants,
+the system existed in full force. These presents were made without any
+secrecy. The aldermen of borough towns openly voted presents to the
+judges; and the judges received their offerings--not as benefactions,
+but as legitimate perquisites. In 1620--just a year before Lord Bacon's
+fall--the municipal council of Lyme Regis left it to the "mayor's
+discretion" to decide "what gratuity he will give to the Lord Chief
+Baron and his men" at the next assizes. The system, it is needless to
+say, had disastrous results. Empowering the chief judge of every court
+to receive presents not only from the public, but from subordinate
+judges, inferior officers, and the bar; and moreover empowering each
+place-holder to take gratuities from persons officially or by profession
+concerned in the business of the courts, it produced a complicated
+machinery for extortion. By presents the chief justices bought their
+places from the crown or a royal favorite; by presents the puisne
+justices, registrars, counsel bought place or favor from the chief; by
+presents the attorneys, sub-registrars, and outside public sought to
+gain their ends with the humbler place-holders. The meanest ushers of
+Westminster Hall took coins from ragged scriveners. Hence every place
+was actually bought and sold, the sum being in most cases very high.
+Sir James Ley offered the Duke of Buckingham L10,000 for the Attorney's
+place. At the same period the Solicitor General's office was sold for
+L4000. Under Charles I. matters grew still worse than they had been
+under his father. When Sir Charles Caesar consulted Laud about the worth
+of the vacant Mastership of the Rolls, the archbishop frankly said,
+"that as things then stood, the place was not likely to go without more
+money than he thought any wise man would give for it." Disregarding this
+intimation, Sir Charles paid the king L15,000 for the place, and added a
+loan of L2000. Sir Thomas Richardson, at the opening of the reign, gave
+L17,000 for the Chiefship of the Common Pleas. If judges needed gifts
+before the days when vacant seats were put up to auction, of course they
+stood all the more in need of them when they bought their promotions
+with such large sums. It is not wonderful that the wearers of ermine
+repaid themselves by venal practices. The sale of judicial offices was
+naturally followed by the sale of judicial decisions. The judges having
+submitted to the extortions of the king, the public had to endure the
+extortions of the judges. Corruption on the bench produced corruption at
+the bar. Counsel bought the attention and compliance of 'the court,' and
+in some cases sold their influence with shameless rascality. They would
+take fees to speak from one side in a cause and fees to be silent from
+the other side--selling their own clients as coolly as judges sold the
+suitors of their courts. Sympathizing with the public, and stung by
+personal experience of legal dishonesty, the clergy sometimes denounced
+from the pulpit the extortions of corrupt judges and unprincipled
+barristers. The assize sermons of Charles I.'s reign were frequently
+seasoned with such animadversions. At Thetford Assizes, March, 1630,
+the Rev. Mr. Ramsay, in the assize-sermon, spoke indignantly of judges
+who "favored causes," and of "counsellors who took fees to be silent."
+In the summer of 1631, at the Bury Assizes, "one Mr. Scott made a sore
+sermon in discovery of corruption in judges and others." At Norwich, the
+same authority, viz., 'Sir John Rous's Diary,' informs us--"Mr. Greene
+was more plaine, insomuch that Judge Harvey, in his charge, broke out
+thus: 'It seems by the sermon that we are corrupt, but we know that we
+can use conscience in our places as well as the best clergieman of
+all.'"
+
+In his 'Life and Death of Sir Matthew Hale,' Bishop Burnet tells a good
+story of the Chief's conduct with regard to a customary gift. "It is
+also a custom," says the biographer, "for the Marshall of the King's
+Bench to present the judges of that court with a piece of plate for a
+New Year's Gift, that for the Chief Justice being larger than the rest.
+This he intended to have refused, but the other judges told him it
+belonged to his office, and the refusing it would be a prejudice to his
+successors; so he was persuaded to take it, but he sent word to the
+marshall, that instead of plate he should bring him the value of it in
+money, and when he received it, he immediately sent it to the prisons
+for the relief and discharge of the poor there."
+
+[13] A portion of the oath prescribed for judges in the 'Ordinances for
+Justices,' 20 Edward III., will show the reader the evils which called
+for correction and the care taken to effect their cure. "Ye shall
+swear," ran the injunction to which each judge was required to vow
+obedience, "that well and lawfully ye shall serve our lord the king and
+his people in the office of justice; ... and that ye take not by
+yourself or by other, privily or apertly, gift or reward of gold or
+silver, nor any other thing which may turn to your profit, unless it be
+meat nor drink, and that of small value, _of any man that shall have
+plea or process before you, as long as the same process shall be so
+hanging, nor after for the same cause: and that ye shall take no fee as
+long as ye shall be justice, nor robes of any man, great or small_, but
+of the king himself: and that ye give none advice or counsel to no man,
+great or small, in any case where the king is party; &c. &c. &c." The
+clause forbidding the judge to receive gifts of actual suitors was a
+positive recognition of his right to customary gifts rendered by persons
+who had no process hanging before him. It should, moreover, be observed
+that in the passage, "ye shall take no fee as long as ye shall be
+justice, nor robes of any man," the word "fee" signifies "salary," and
+not a single payment or gratuity. The Judge was forbidden to receive
+from any man a fixed stipend (by the acceptance of which he would become
+the donor's servant), or robes (the assumption of which would be open
+declaration of service); but he was at liberty to accept the offerings
+which the public were wont to make to men of his condition, as well as
+the sums (or 'fees,' as they would be termed at the present day) due on
+different processes of his court. That the word 'fee' is thus used in
+the ordinance may be seen from the words "for this cause we have
+increased the fees (les feez) of the same our justices, in such manner
+as it ought reasonably to suffice them," by which language attention is
+drawn to the increase of judicial salaries.
+
+[14] Mr. Foss observes: "In 1350, William de Thrope, Chief Justice of
+the King's Bench, was convicted on his own confession of receiving
+bribes to stay justice; but though his property was forfeited to the
+Crown on his condemnation, the king appears to have relented, and to
+have made him second Baron of the Exchequer in May, 1352, unless I am
+mistaken in supposing the latter to have been the same person."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+GIFTS AND SALES.
+
+
+By degrees the public ceased to make presents to the principal judges of
+the kingdom; but long after the Chancellor and the three Chiefs had
+taken the last offerings of general society, they continued to receive
+yearly presents from the subordinate judges, placemen, and barristers
+of their respective courts. Lord Cowper deserves honor for being the
+holder of the seals who, by refusing to pocket these customary
+donations, put an end to a very objectionable system, so far as the
+Court of Chancery was concerned.
+
+On being made Lord Keeper, he resolved to depart from the custom of his
+predecessors for many generations, who on the first day of each new year
+had invariably entertained at breakfast the persons from whom tribute
+was looked for. Very droll were these receptions in the old time. The
+repast at an end, the guests forthwith disburdened themselves of their
+gold--the payers approaching the holder of the seals in order of rank,
+and laying on his table purses of money, which the noble payee accepted
+with his own hands. Sometimes his lordship was embarrassed by a ceremony
+that required him to pick gold from the fingers of men, several of whom
+he knew to be in indigent circumstances. In Charles II.'s time it was
+observed that the silver-tongued Lord Nottingham on such occasions
+always endeavored to hide his confusion under a succession of nervous
+smiles and exclamations--"Oh, Tyrant Cuthtom!--Oh, Tyrant Cuthtom!"
+
+It is noteworthy that in relinquishing the benefit of these exactions,
+the Lord Keeper feared unfriendly criticism much more than he
+anticipated public commendation. In his diary, under date December 30,
+Cowper wrote:--"I acquainted my Lord Treasurer with my design to refuse
+New Year's Gifts, if he had no objection against it, as spoiling, in
+some measure, a place of which he had the conferring. He answered it was
+not expected of me, but that I might do as my predecessors had done; but
+if I refused, he thought nobody could blame me for it." Anxious about
+the consequences of his innovation, the new Lord Keeper gave notice that
+on January 1, 1705-6, he would receive no gifts; but notwithstanding
+this proclamation, several officers of Chancery and counsellors came to
+his house with tribute, and were refused admittance. "New Year's Gifts
+turned back," he wrote in his diary at the close of the eventful day,
+"and pray God it doth me more credit and good than hurt, by making
+secret enemies _in faece Romuli_." His fears were in a slight degree
+fulfilled. The Chiefs of the three Common Law Courts were greatly
+displeased with an innovation which they had no wish to adopt; and their
+warm expressions of dissatisfaction induced the Lord Keeper to cover his
+disinterestedness with a harmless fiction. To pacify the indignant
+Chiefs and the many persons who sympathized with them, he pretended that
+though he had declined intentionally the gifts of the Chancery
+barristers, he had not designed to exercise the same self-denial with
+regard to the gifts of Chancery officers.[15]
+
+The common law chiefs were slow to follow in the Lord Keeper's steps,
+and many years passed before the reform, effected in Chancery by
+accident or design, or by a lucky combination of both, was adopted in
+the other great courts. In his memoir of Lord Cowper, Campbell observes:
+"His example with respect to New Year's Gifts was not speedily followed;
+and it is said that till very recently the Chief Justice of the Common
+Pleas invited the officers of his court to a dinner at the beginning of
+the year, when each of them deposited under his plate a present in the
+shape of a Bank of England note, instead of a gift of oxen roaring at
+his levee, as in ruder times." There is no need to remind the reader in
+this place of the many veracious and the many apocryphal stories
+concerning the basket justices of Fielding's time--stories showing that
+in law courts of the lowest sort applicants for justice were accustomed
+to fee the judges with victuals and drink until a comparatively recent
+date.
+
+Lucky would it have been for the first Earl of Macclesfield if the
+custom of selling places in Chancery had been put an end to forever by
+the Lord Keeper who abolished the custom of New Year's Gifts; but the
+judge who at the sacrifice of one-fourth of his official income swept
+away the pernicious usage which had from time immemorial marked the
+opening of each year, saw no reason why he should purge Chancery of
+another scarcely less objectionable practice. Following the steps of
+their predecessors, the Chancellors Cowper, Harcourt, and Macclesfield
+sold subordinate offices in their court; and whereas all previous
+Chancellors had been held blameless for so doing, Lord Macclesfield was
+punished with official degradation, fine, imprisonment, and obloquy.
+
+By birth as humble[16] as any layman who before or since his time has
+held the seals, Thomas Parker raised himself to the woolsack by great
+talents and honorable industry. As an advocate he won the respect of
+society and his profession; as a judge he ranks with the first
+expositors of English law. Although for imputed corruption he was hurled
+with ignominy from his high place, no one has ventured to charge him
+with venality on the bench. That he was a spotless character, or that
+his career was marked by grandeur of purpose, it would be difficult to
+establish; but few Englishmen could at the present time be found to deny
+that he was in the main an upright peer, who was not wittingly
+neglectful of his duty to the country which had loaded him with wealth
+and honors.
+
+Amongst the many persons ruined by the bursting of the South Sea Bubble
+were certain Masters of Chancery, who had thrown away on that wild
+speculation large sums of which they were the official guardians. Lord
+Macclesfield was one of the victims on whom the nation wreaked its wrath
+at a crisis when universal folly had produced universal disaster. To
+punish the masters for their delinquencies was not enough; greater
+sacrifices than a few comparatively obscure placemen were demanded by
+the suitors and wards whose money had been squandered by the fraudulent
+trustees. The Lord Chancellor should be made responsible for the
+Chancery defalcations. That was the will of the country. No one
+pretended that Lord Macclesfield had originated the practice which
+permitted Masters in Chancery to speculate with funds placed under their
+care; attorneys and merchants were well aware that in the days of
+Harcourt, Cowper, Wright, and Somers, it had been usual for masters to
+pocket interest accruing from suitors' money; notorious also was it
+that, though the Chancellor was theoretically the trustee of the money
+confided to his court, the masters were its actual custodians. Had the
+Chancellor known that the masters were trafficking in dangerous
+investments to the probable loss of the public, duty would have required
+him to examine their accounts and place all trust-moneys beyond their
+reach; but until the crash came, Lord Macclesfield knew neither the
+actual worthlessness of the South Sea Stock, nor the embarrassed
+circumstances of the defaulting masters, nor the peril of the persons
+committed to his care. The system which permitted the masters to
+speculate with money not their own was execrable, but the Lord
+Chancellor was not the parent of that system.
+
+Infuriated by the national calamity, in which they were themselves great
+sufferers, the Commons impeached the Chancellor, charging him with high
+crimes and misdemeanors, of which the peers unanimously declared him
+guilty. In this famous trial the great fact established against his
+lordship was that he had sold masterships to the defaulters. It appeared
+that he had not only sold the places, but had stood out for very high
+prices; the inference being, that in consideration of these large sums
+he had left the purchasers without the supervision usually exercised by
+Chancellors over such officers, and had connived at the practices which
+had been followed by ruinous results. To this it was replied, that if
+the Chancellor had sold the places at higher prices than his
+predecessors, he had done so because the places had become much more
+valuable; that at the worst he had but sold them to the highest bidder,
+after the example of his precursors; that the inference was not
+supported by any direct testimony.
+
+Very humorous was some of the evidence by which the sale of the
+masterships was proved. Master Elde deposed that he bought his office
+for 5000 guineas, the bargain being finally settled and fulfilled after
+a personal interview with the accused lord. Master Thurston, another
+purchaser at the high rate of 5000 guineas, paid his money to Lady
+Macclesfield. It must be owned that these sums were very large, but
+their magnitude does not fix fraudulent purpose upon the Chancellor.
+That he believed himself fairly entitled to a moderate present on
+appointing to a mastership is certain; that he regarded L2000 as the
+gratuity which he might accept, without blushing at its publication, may
+be inferred from the restitution of L3250 which he made to one of the
+purchasers for L5250 at a time when he anticipated an inquiry into his
+conduct; that he felt himself acting indiscreetly if not wrongfully in
+pressing for such large sums is testified by the caution with which he
+conferred with the purchasers and the secrecy with which he accepted
+their money.
+
+His defence before the peers admitted the sales of the places, but
+maintained that the transactions were legitimate.
+
+The defence was of no avail. When the question of guilty or not guilty
+was put to the peers, each of the noble lords present answered, "Guilty,
+upon my honor." Sentenced to pay a fine of L30,000, and undergo
+imprisonment until the mulct was paid, the unfortunate statesman
+bitterly repented the imprudence which had exposed him to the vengeance
+of political adversaries and to the enmity of the vulgar. Whilst the
+passions roused by the prosecution were at their height, the fallen
+Chancellor was treated with much harshness by Parliament, and with
+actual brutality by the mob. Ever ready to vilify lawyers, the rabble
+seized on so favorable an occasion for giving expression to one of their
+strongest prejudices. Amongst the crowds who followed the Earl to the
+Tower with curses, voices were heard to exclaim that "Staffordshire had
+produced the three greatest scoundrels of England--Jack Sheppard,
+Jonathan Wilde, and Tom Parker." Jonathan Wilde was executed in
+1725--the year of Lord Macclesfield's impeachment; and Jack Sheppard
+died on the gallows at Tyburn, November 16, 1724.
+
+Throughout the inquiry, and after the adverse verdict, George I.
+persisted in showing favor to the disgraced Chancellor; and when the
+violent emotions of the crisis had passed away it was generally admitted
+by enlightened critics of public events that Lord Macclesfield had been
+unfairly treated. The scape-goat of popular wrath, he suffered less for
+his own faults, than for the evil results of a bad system; and at the
+present time--when the silence of more than a hundred and thirty years
+rests upon his tomb--Englishmen, with one voice, acknowledge the
+valuable qualities that raised him to eminence, and regret the
+proceedings which consigned him in his old age to humiliation and gloom.
+
+[15] It should be observed that many persons are of opinion that the
+Lord Keeper's assertion on this point was not an artifice, but a simple
+statement of fact. To those who take this view, his lordship's position
+seems alike ridiculous and respectable--respectable because he actually
+intended to forbear from taking the barrister's money; ridiculous
+because, through clumsy and inadequate arrangements, he missed the other
+and not less precious gifts which he did not mean to decline. Anyhow,
+the critics admit that credit is due to him for persisting in a
+change--wrought in the first instance partly by honorable design and
+partly by accident.
+
+[16] The cases of John Scott, Philip Yorke, and Edward Sugden are before
+the mind of the present writer, when he pens the sentence to which this
+note refers. The social extraction of the English bar will be considered
+in a later chapter of this work.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+A ROD PICKLED BY WILLIAM COLE.
+
+
+"A proneness to take bribes may be generated from the habit of taking
+fees," said Lord Keeper Williams in his Inaugural Address, making an
+ungenerous allusion to Francis Bacon, whilst he uttered a statement
+which was no calumny upon King James's Bench and Bar, though it is
+signally inapplicable to lawyers of the present day.
+
+Of Williams, tradition preserves a story that illustrates the prevalence
+of judicial corruption in the seventeenth century, and the jealousy with
+which that Right Reverend Lord Keeper watched for attempts to tamper
+with his honesty. Whilst he was taking exercise in the Great Park of
+Nonsuch House, his attention was caught by a church recently erected at
+the cost of a rich Chancery suitor. Having expressed satisfaction with
+the church, Williams inquired of George Minors, "Has he not a suit
+depending in Chancery?" and on receiving an answer in the affirmative,
+observed, "he shall not fare the worse for building of churches." These
+words being reported to the pious suitor, he not illogically argued that
+the Keeper was a judge likely to be influenced in making his decisions
+by matters distinct from the legal merits of the case put before him.
+Acting on this impression, the good man forthwith sent messengers to
+Nonsuch House, bearing gifts of fruits and poultry to the holder of the
+seals. "Nay, carry them back," cried the judge, looking with a grim
+smile from the presents to George Minors; "nay, carry them back, George,
+and tell your friend that he shall not fare the better for sending of
+presents."
+
+Rich in satire directed against law and its professors, the literature
+of the Commonwealth affords conclusive testimony of the low esteem in
+which lawyers were held in the seventeenth century by the populace, and
+shows how universal was the belief that wearers of ermine and gentlemen
+of the long robe would practice any sort of fraud or extortion for the
+sake of personal advantage. In the pamphlets and broadsides, in the
+squibs and ballads of the period, may be found a wealth of quaint
+narrative and broad invective, setting forth the rascality of judges and
+attorneys, barristers and scriveners. Any literary effort to throw
+contempt upon the law was sure of success. The light jesters, who made
+merry with the phraseology and costumes of Westminster Hall, were only a
+few degrees less welcome than the stronger and more indignant scribes
+who cried aloud against the sins and sinners of the courts. When simple
+folk had expended their rage in denunciations of venal eloquence and
+unjust judgments, they amused themselves with laughing at the antiquated
+verbiage of the rascals who sought to conceal their bad morality under
+worse Latin. 'A New Modell, or the Conversion of the Infidell Terms of
+the Law: For the Better promoting of misunderstanding according to
+Common Sense,' is a publication consisting of a cover or fly-leaf and
+two leaves, that appeared about a year before the Restoration. The wit
+is not brilliant; its humor is not free from uncleanness; but its comic
+renderings[17] of a hundred law terms illustrate the humor of the
+times.
+
+More serious in aim, but not less comical in result, is William Cole's
+'A Rod for the Lawyers. London, Printed in the year 1659.' The preface
+of this mad treatise ends thus--"I do not altogether despair but that
+before I dye I may see the Inns of Courts, or dens of Thieves, converted
+into Hospitals, which were a rare piece of justice; that as they
+formerly have immured those that robbed the poor of houses, so they may
+at last preserve the poor themselves."
+
+Another book touching on the same subject and belonging to the same
+period, is, 'Sagrir, or Doomsday drawing nigh; With Thunder and
+Lightning to Lawyers, (1653) by John Rogers.'
+
+Violent, even for a man holding Fifth-Monarchy views, John Rogers
+prefers a lengthy indictment against lawyers, for whose delinquencies
+and heinous offence he admits neither apology nor palliation. In his
+opinion all judges deserve the death of Arnold and Hall, whose last
+moments were provided for by the hangman. The wearers of the long robe
+are perjurers, thieves, enemies of mankind; their institutions are
+hateful, and their usages abominable. In olden time they were less
+powerful and rapacious. But prosperity soon exaggerated all their evil
+qualities. Sketching the rise of the profession, the author
+observes--"These men would get sometimes Parents, Friends, Brothers,
+Neighbors, sometimes _others_ to be (in their absence) Agents, Factors,
+or Solicitors for them at Westminster, and as yet they had no stately
+houses or mansions to live in, as they have now (called Inns of Court),
+but they lodged like countrymen or strangers in ordinary Inns. But
+afterwards, when the interests of lawyers began to look big (as in
+Edward III.'s days), they got mansions or colleges, which they called
+Inns, and by the king's favor had an addition of honor, whence they were
+called Inns of Court."[18]
+
+The familiar anecdotes which are told as illustrations of Chief Justice
+Hale's integrity are very ridiculous, but they serve to show that the
+judges of his time were believed to be very accessible to corrupt
+influences. During his tenure of the Chiefship of the Exchequer, Hale
+rode the Western Circuit, and met with the loyal reception usually
+accorded to judges on circuit in his day. Amongst other attentions
+offered to the judges on this occasion was a present of venison from a
+wealthy gentleman who was concerned in a cause that was in due course
+called for hearing. No sooner was the call made than Chief Baron Hale
+resolved to place his reputation for judicial honesty above suspicion,
+and the following scene occurred:--
+
+"_Lord Chief Baron._--'Is this plaintiff the gentleman of the same name
+who hath sent me the venison?' _Judge's servant._--'Yes, please you, my
+lord.' _Lord Chief Baron._--'Stop a bit, then. Do not yet swear the
+jury. I cannot allow the trial to go on till I have paid him for his
+buck!' _Plaintiff._--'I would have your lordship to know that neither
+myself nor my forefathers have ever sold venison, and I have done
+nothing to your lordship which we have not done to every judge that has
+come this circuit for centuries bygone.' _Magistrate of the
+County._--'My lord, I can confirm what the gentleman says for truth, for
+twenty years back.' _Other Magistrates._--'And we, my lord, know the
+same.' _Lord Chief Baron._--'That is nothing to me. The Holy Scripture
+says, 'A gift perverteth the ways of judgment.' I will not suffer the
+trial to go on till the venison is paid for. Let my butler count down
+the full value thereof.' _Plaintiff._--'I will not disgrace myself and
+my ancestors by becoming a venison butcher. From the needless dread of
+_selling_ justice, your lordship _delays_ it. I withdraw my record.'"
+
+As far as good taste and dignity were concerned, the gentleman of the
+West Country was the victor in this absurd contest: on the other hand,
+Hale had the venison for nothing, and was relieved of the trouble of
+hearing the cause.
+
+In the same manner Hale insisted on paying for six loaves of sugar which
+the Dean and Chapter of Salisbury sent to his lodgings, in accordance
+with ancient usage. Similar cases of the judge's readiness to construe
+courtesies as bribes may be found in notices of trials and books of
+_ana_.
+
+_A propos_ of these stories of Hale's squeamishness, Lord Campbell tells
+the following good anecdote of Baron Graham: "The late Baron Graham
+related to me the following anecdote to show that he had more firmness
+than Judge Hale:--'There was a baronet of ancient family with whom the
+judges going the Western Circuit had always been accustomed to dine.
+When I went that circuit I heard that a cause, in which he was
+plaintiff, was coming on for trial: but the usual invitation was
+received, and lest the people might suppose that judges could be
+influenced by a dinner; I accepted it. The defendant, a neighboring
+squire, being dreadfully alarmed by this intelligence, said to himself,
+'Well, if Sir John entertains the judge hospitably, I do not see why I
+should not do the same by the jury.' So he invited to dinner the whole
+of the special jury summoned to try the cause. Thereupon the baronet's
+courage failed him, and he withdrew the record, so that the cause was
+not tried; and although I had my dinner, I escaped all suspicion of
+partiality."
+
+This story puts the present writer in mind of another story which he has
+heard told in various ways, the wit of it being attributed by different
+narrators to two judges who have left the bench for another world, and a
+Master of Chancery who is still alive. On the present occasion the
+Master of Chancery shall figure as the humorist of the anecdote.
+
+Less than twenty years since, in one of England's southern counties, two
+neighboring landed proprietors differed concerning their respective
+rights over some unenclosed land, and also about certain rights of
+fishing in an adjacent stream. The one proprietor was the richest
+baronet, the other the poorest squire of the county; and they agreed to
+settle their dispute by arbitration. Our Master in Chancery, slightly
+known to both gentlemen, was invited to act as arbitrator after
+inspecting the localities in dispute. The invitation was accepted and
+the master visited the scene of disagreement, on the understanding that
+he should give up two days to the matter. It was arranged that on the
+first day he should walk over the squire's estate, and hear the squire's
+uncontradicted version of the case, dining at the close of the day with
+both contendents at the squire's table; and that on the second day,
+having walked over the baronet's estate, and heard without interruption
+the other side of the story, he should give his award, sitting over wine
+after dinner at the rich man's table. At the close of the first day the
+squire entertained his wealthy neighbor and the arbitrator at dinner.
+In accordance with the host's means, the dinner was modest but
+sufficient. It consisted of three fried soles, a roast leg of mutton,
+and vegetables; three pancakes, three pieces of cheese, three small
+loaves of bread, ale, and a bottle of sherry. On the removal of the
+viands, three magnificent apples, together with a magnum of port, were
+placed on the table by way of dessert. At the close of the second day
+the trio dined at the baronet's table, when it appeared that, struck by
+the simplicity of the previous day's dinner, and rightly attributing the
+absence of luxuries to the narrowness of the host's purse, the wealthy
+disputant had resolved not to attempt to influence the umpire by giving
+him a superior repast. Sitting at another table the trio dined on
+exactly the same fare,--three fried soles, a roast leg of mutton, and
+vegetables; three pancakes, three pieces of cheese, three small loaves
+of bread, ale, and a bottle of sherry; and for dessert three magnificent
+apples, together with a magnum of port. The dinner being over, the
+apples devoured, and the last glass of port drunk, the arbitrator (his
+eyes twinkling brightly as he spoke) introduced his award with the
+following exordium:--"Gentlemen, I have with all proper attention
+considered your _sole_ reasons: I have taken due notice of your _joint_
+reasons, and I have come to the conclusion that your _des(s)erts_ are
+about equal."
+
+[17] Of these renderings the subjoined may be taken as favorable
+specimens:--"Breve originale, original sinne; capias, a catch to a sad
+tune; alias capias, another to the same (sad tune); habeas corpus, a
+trooper; capias ad satisfaciend., a hangman: latitat, bo-peep; nisi
+prius, first come first served; demurrer, hum and haw; scandal. magnat.,
+down with the Lords."
+
+[18] Even vacations stink in the nostrils of Mr. Rogers; for he
+maintains that they are not so much periods when lawyers cease from
+their odious practices, as times of repose and recreation wherein they
+gain fresh vigor and daring for the commission of further outrages, and
+allow their unhappy victims to acquire just enough wealth to render them
+worth the trouble of despoiling.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+CHIEF JUSTICE POPHAM.
+
+
+One of the strangest cases of corruption amongst English Judges still
+remains to be told on the slender authority which is the sole foundation
+of the weighty accusation. In comparatively recent times there have not
+been many eminent Englishmen to whom 'tradition's simple tongue' has
+been more hostile than Queen Elizabeth's Lord Chief Justice, Popham. The
+younger son of a gentle family, John Popham passed from Oxford to the
+Middle Temple, raised himself to the honors of the ermine, secured the
+admiration of illustrious contemporaries, in his latter years gained
+abundant praise for wholesome severity towards footpads, and at his
+death left behind him a name--which, tradition informs us, belonged to a
+man who in his reckless youth, and even after his call to the bar, was a
+cut-purse and highwayman. In mitigation of his conduct it is urged by
+those who credit the charge, that young gentlemen of his date were so
+much addicted to the lawless excitement of the road, that when he was
+still a beardless stripling, an act (1 Ed. VI. c. 12, s. 14) was passed,
+whereby any peer of the realm or lord of parliament, on a first
+conviction for robbery, was entitled to benefit of clergy, though he
+could not read. But bearing in mind the liberties which rumor is wont to
+take with the names of eminent persons, the readiness the multitude
+always display to attribute light morals to grave men, and the
+infrequency of the cases where a dissolute youth is the prelude to a
+manhood of strenuous industry and an old age of honor--the cautious
+reader will require conclusive testimony before he accepts Popham's
+connection with 'the road' as one of the unassailable facts of history.
+
+The authority for this grave charge against a famous judge is John
+Aubrey, the antiquary, who was born in 1627, just twenty years after
+Popham's death. "For severall yeares," this collector says of the Chief
+Justice, "he addicted himself but little to the studie of the lawes, but
+profligate company, and was wont to take a purse with them. His wife
+considered her and his condition, and at last prevailed with him to
+lead another life and to stick to the studie of the lawe, which, upon
+her importunity, he did, being then about thirtie yours old." As Popham
+was born in 1531, he withdrew, according to this account, from the
+company of gentle highwaymen about the year 1561--more than sixty years
+before Aubrey's birth, and more than a hundred years before the
+collector committed the scandalous story to writing. The worth of such
+testimony is not great. Good stories are often fixed upon eminent men
+who had no part in the transactions thereby attributed to them. If this
+writer were to put into a private note-book a pleasant but unauthorized
+anecdote imputing _kleptomania_ to Chief Justice Wiles (who died in
+1761), and fifty years hence the note-book should be discovered in a
+dirty corner of a forgotten closet and published to the world--would
+readers in the twentieth century be justified in holding that Sir John
+Willes was an eccentric thief?
+
+But Aubrey tells a still stranger story concerning Popham, when he sets
+forth the means by which the judge made himself lord of Littlecote Hall
+in Wiltshire. The case must be given in the narrator's own words.
+
+"Sir Richard Dayrell of Littlecot in com. Wilts. having got his lady's
+waiting-woman with child, when her travell came sent a servant with a
+horse for a midwife, whom he was to bring hoodwinked. She was brought,
+and layd the woman; but as soon as the child was born, she saw the
+knight take the child and murther it, and burn it in the fire in the
+chamber. She having done her business was extraordinarily rewarded for
+her paines, and went blindfold away. This horrid action did much run in
+her mind, and she had a desire to discover it, but knew not where 'twas.
+She considered with herself the time she was riding, and how many miles
+she might have rode at that rate in that time, and that it must be some
+great person's house, for the roome was twelve foot high: and she
+should know the chamber if she sawe it. She went to a justice of peace,
+and search was made. The very chamber found. The knight was brought to
+his tryall; and, to be short, this judge had this noble house, park, and
+manor, and (I think) more, for a bribe to save his life. Sir John Popham
+gave sentence according to lawe, but being a great person and a
+favorite, he procured a _nolle prosequi_."
+
+This ghastly tale of crime following upon crime has been reproduced by
+later writers with various exaggerations and modifications. Dramas and
+novels have been founded upon it; and a volume might be made of the
+ballads and songs to which it has given birth. In some versions the
+corrupt judge does not even go through the form of passing sentence, but
+secures an acquittal from the jury; according to one account, the
+mother, instead of the infant, was put to death; according to another,
+the erring woman was the murderer's daughter, instead of his wife's
+waiting-woman; another writer, assuming credit as a conscientious
+narrator of facts, places the crime in the eighteenth instead of the
+sixteenth century, and transforms the venal judge into a clever
+barrister.
+
+In a highly seasoned statement of the repulsive tradition communicated
+by Lord Webb Seymour to Walter Scott, the murder is described with
+hideous minuteness.
+
+Changing the midwife into 'a Friar of orders grey,' and murdering the
+mother instead of the baby, Sir Walter Scott revived the story in one of
+his most popular ballads. But of all the versions of the tradition that
+have come under this writer's notice, the one that departs most widely
+from Aubrey's statement is given in Mr. G.L. Rede's 'Anecdotes and
+Biography,' (1799).
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+JUDICIAL SALARIES.
+
+
+For the last three hundred years the law has been a lucrative
+profession, our great judges during that period having in many instances
+left behind them large fortunes, earned at the bar or acquired from
+official emoluments. The rental of Egerton's landed estates was L8,000
+per annum--a royal income in the days of Elizabeth and James. Maynard
+left great wealth to his grand-daughters, Lady Hobart and Mary Countess
+of Stamford. Lord Mansfield's favorite investment was mortgage; and
+towards the close of his life the income which he derived for moneys
+lent on sound mortgages was L30,000 per annum. When Lord Kenyon had lost
+his eldest son, he observed to Mr. Justice Allan Park--"How delighted
+George would be to take his poor brother from the earth and restore him
+to life, although he receives L250,000 by his decease." Lord Eldon is
+said to have left to his descendants L500,000; and his brother, Lord
+Stowell, to whom we are indebted for the phrase 'the elegant simplicity
+of the Three per Cents.,' also acquired property that at the time of his
+death yielded L12,000 per annum.
+
+Lord Stowell's personalty was sworn under L230,000, and he had invested
+considerable sums in land. It is noteworthy that this rich lawyer did
+not learn to be contented with the moderate interest of the Three per
+Cents. until he had sustained losses from bad speculations. Notable also
+is it that this rich lawyer--whose notorious satisfaction with three per
+cent. interest has gained for him a reputation of noble indifference to
+gain--was inordinately fond of money.
+
+These great fortunes were raised from fees taken in practice at the
+bar, from judicial salaries or pensions, and from other official
+gains--such as court dues, perquisites, sinecures, and allowances. Since
+the Revolution of 1688 these last named irregular or fluctuating sources
+of judicial income have steadily diminished, and in the present day have
+come to an end. Eldon's receipts during his tenure of the seals cannot
+be definitely stated, but more is known about them and his earnings at
+the bar than he intended the world to discover, when he declared in
+Parliament "that in no one year, since he had been made Lord Chancellor,
+had he received the same amount of profit which he enjoyed while at the
+bar." Whilst he was Attorney General he earned something more than
+L10,000 a year; and in returns which he himself made to the House of
+Commons, he admits that in 1810 he received, as Lord Chancellor, a gross
+income of L22,730, from which sum, after deduction of all expenses,
+there remained a net income of L17,000 per annum. He was enabled also to
+enrich the members of his family with presentations to offices, and
+reversions of places.
+
+Until comparatively recent times, judges were dangerously dependent on
+the king's favor; for they not only held their offices during the
+pleasure of the crown, but on dismissal they could not claim a retiring
+pension. In the seventeenth century, an aged judge, worn out by toil and
+length of days, was deemed a notable instance of royal generosity, if he
+obtained a small allowance on relinquishing his place in court. Chief
+Justice Hale, on his retirement, was signally favored when Charles II.
+graciously promised to continue his salary till the end of his
+life--which was manifestly near its close. Under the Stuarts, the judges
+who lost their places for courageous fidelity to law, were wont to
+resume practice at the bar. To provide against the consequences of
+ejection from office, great lawyers, before they consented to exchange
+the gains of advocacy for the uncertain advantages of the woolsack, used
+to stipulate for special allowance--over and above the ancient
+emoluments of place. Lord Nottingham had an allowance of L4000 per
+annum; and Lord Guildford, after a struggle for better times, was
+constrained, at a cost of mental serenity, to accept the seals, with a
+special salary of half that sum.[19]
+
+From 1688 down to the present time, the chronicler of changes in the
+legal profession, has to notice a succession of alterations in the
+system and scale of judicial payments--all of the innovations having a
+tendency to raise the dignity of the bench. Under William and Mary, an
+allowance (still continued), was made to holders of the seal on their
+appointment, for the cost of outfit and equipages. The amount of this
+special aid was L2000, but fees reduced it to L1843 13_s._ Mr. Foss
+observes--"The earliest existing record of this allowance, is dated June
+4, 1700, when Sir Nathan Wright was made Lord Keeper, which states it to
+be the same sum as had been allowed to his predecessor."
+
+At the same period, the salary of a puisne judge was but L1000 a year--a
+sum that would have been altogether insufficient for his expenses. A
+considerable part of a puisne's remuneration consisted of fees,
+perquisites, and presents. Amongst the customary presents to judges at
+this time, may be mentioned the _white gloves_, which men convicted of
+manslaughter, presented to the judges when they pleaded the king's
+pardon; the _sugar loaves_, which the Warden of the Fleet annually sent
+to the judges of the Common Pleas; and the almanacs yearly distributed
+amongst the occupants of the bench by the Stationers' Company. From one
+of these almanacs, in which Judge Rokeby kept his accounts, it appears
+that in the year 1694, the casual profits of his place amounted to L694,
+4_s._ 6_d._ Here is the list of his official incomes, (net) for ten
+years:--in 1689, L1378, 10_s._; in 1690, L1475, 10_s._ 10_d._; in 1691,
+L2063, 18_s._ 4_d._; in 1692, L1570, 1_s._ 4_d._; in 1693, L1569, 13_s._
+1_d._; in 1694, L1629, 4_s._ 6_d._; in 1695, L1443, 7_s._ 6_d._; in
+1696, L1478, 2_s._ 6_d._; in 1697, L1498, 11_s._ 11_d._; in 1698, L1631,
+10_s._ 11_d._ The fluctuation of the amounts in this list, is worthy of
+observation; as it points to one bad consequence of the system of paying
+judges by fees, gratuities, and uncertain perquisites. A needy judge,
+whose income in lucky years was over two thousand pounds, must have been
+sadly pinched in years when he did not receive fifteen hundred.
+
+Under the heading, "The charges of my coming into my judge's place, and
+the taxes upon it the first yeare and halfe," Judge Rokeby gives the
+following particulars:
+
+"1689, May 11. To Mr. Milton, Deputy Clerk of the Crown, as per note,
+for the patent and swearing privately, L21, 6_s._ 4_d._ May 30. To Mr.
+English, charges of the patent at the Secretary of State's Office, as
+per note, said to be a new fee, L6, 10_s._ Inrolling the patent in
+Exchequer and Treasury, L2, 3_s._ 4_d._ Ju. 27. Wine given as a judge,
+as per vintner's note, L23, 19_s._ Ju. 24. Cakes, given as a judge, as
+per vintner's note, L5, 14_s._ 6_d._ Second-hand judge's robes, with
+some new lining, L31. Charges for my part of the patent for our salarys,
+to Aaron Smith, L7, 15_s._, and the dormant warrant L3.--L10,
+15_s._--L101, 8_s._ 2_d._
+
+"Taxes, L420.
+
+"The charges of my being made a serjeant-at-law, and of removing myselfe
+and family to London, and a new coach and paire of horses, and of my
+knighthood (all which were within the first halfe year of my coming from
+York), upon the best calculation I can make of them, were att least
+L600."
+
+Concerning the expenses attendant on his removal from the Common Pleas
+to the King's Bench in 1695--a removal which had an injurious result
+upon his income--the judge records: Nov. 1. To Mr. Partridge, the Crier
+of King's Bench, claimed by him as a fee due to the 2 criers, L2. Nov.
+12. To Mr. Ralph Hall, in full of the Clerk of the Crown's bill for my
+patent, and swearing at the Lord Keeper's, and passing it through the
+offices, L28, 14_s._ 2_d._ Dec. 6. To Mr. Carpenter, the Vintner, for
+wine and bottles, L22, 10_s._ 6_d._ To Gwin, the Confectioner, for
+cakes, L5, 3_s._ 6_d._ To Mr. Mand (his clerk), which he paid att the
+Treasury, and att the pell for my patent, allowed there, L1, 15_s._ Tot.
+L60, 2_s._ 8_d._ The charges for wine and cakes were consequences of a
+custom which required a new judge to send biscuits and macaroons, sack
+and claret, to his brethren of the bench.
+
+In the reign of George I. the salaries of the common law judges were
+raised--the pensions of the chiefs being doubled, and the _puisnes_
+receiving fifteen hundred instead of a thousand pounds.
+
+Cowper's incomes during his tenure of the seals varied between something
+over seven and something under nine thousand per annum: but there is
+some reason to believe that on accepting office, he stipulated for a
+handsome yearly salary, in case he should be called upon to relinquish
+the place. Evelyn, not a very reliable authority, but still a chronicler
+worthy of notice even on questions of fact, says:--"Oct. 1705. Mr.
+Cowper made Lord Keeper. Observing how uncertain greate officers are of
+continuing long in their places, he would not accept it unless L2,000 a
+yeare were given him in reversion when he was put out, in consideration
+of his loss of practice. His predecessors, how little time soever they
+had the seal, usually got L100,000, and made themselves barons." It is
+doubtful whether this bargain was actually made; but long after
+Cowper's time, lawyers about to mount the woolsack, insisted on having
+terms that should compensate them for loss of practice. Lord
+Macclesfield had a special salary of L4000 per annum, during his
+occupancy of the marble chair, and obtained a grant of L12,000 from the
+king;--a tellership in the Exchequer being also bestowed upon his eldest
+son. Lord King obtained even better terms--a salary of L6000 per annum
+from the Post Office, and L1200 from the Hanaper Office; this large
+income being granted to him in consideration of the injury done to the
+Chancellor's emoluments by the proceedings against Lord
+Macclesfield--whereby it was declared illegal for chancellors to sell
+the subordinate offices in the Court of Chancery. This arrangement--giving
+the Chancellor an increased salary in _lieu_ of the sums which he could
+no longer raise by sales of offices--is conclusive testimony that in
+the opinion of the crown Lord Macclesfield had a right to sell the
+masterships. The terms made by Lord Northington, in 1766, on
+resigning the Seals and becoming President of the Council, illustrate
+this custom. On quitting the marble chair, he obtained an immediate
+pension of L2000 per annum; and an agreement that the annual payment
+should be made L4000 per annum, as soon as he retired from the
+Presidency: he also obtained a reversionary grant for two lives of the
+lucrative office of Clerk of the Hanaper in Chancery.
+
+In Lord Chancellor King's time, amongst the fees and perquisites which
+he wished to regulate and reform were the supplies of stationery,
+provided by the country for the great law-officers. It may be supposed
+that the sum thus expended on paper, pens, and wax was an insignificant
+item in the national expenditure; but such was not the case--for the
+chief of the courts were accustomed to place their personal friends on
+the free-list for articles of stationery. The Archbishop of Dublin, a
+dignitary well able to pay for his own writing materials, wrote to Lord
+King, April 10, 1733: "MY LORD,--Ever since I had the honor of being
+acquainted with Lord Chancellors, I have lived in England and Ireland
+upon Chancery paper, pens, and wax. I am not willing to lose an old
+advantageous custom. If your Lordship hath any to spare me by my
+servant, you will oblige your very humble servant,
+
+"JOHN DUBLIN."
+
+So long as judges or subordinate officers were paid by casual
+perquisites and fees, paid directly to them by suitors, a taint of
+corruption lingered in the practice of our courts. Long after judges
+ceased to sell injustice, they delayed justice from interested motives,
+and when questions concerning their perquisites were raised, they would
+sometimes strain a point, for the sake of their own private advantage.
+Even Lord Ellenborough, whose fame is bright amongst the reputations of
+honorable men, could not always exercise self-control when attempts were
+made to lessen his customary profits, "I never," writes Lord Campbell,
+"saw this feeling at all manifest itself in Lord Ellenborough except
+once, when a question arose whether money paid into court was liable to
+poundage. I was counsel in the case, and threw him into a furious
+passion, by strenuously resisting the demand; the poundage was to go
+into his own pocket--being payable to the chief clerk--an office held in
+trust for him. If he was in any degree influenced by this consideration,
+I make no doubt that he was wholly unconscious of it."
+
+George III.'s reign witnessed the introduction of changes long required,
+and frequently demanded in the mode and amounts of judicial payments. In
+1779, puisne judges and barons received an additional L400 per annum,
+and the Chief Baron an increase of L500 a year. Twenty years later,
+Stat. 39, Geo. III., c. 110, gave the Master of the Rolls, L4000 a
+year, the Lord Chief Baron L4000 a year, and each of the puisne judges
+and barons, L3000 per annum. By the same act also, life-pensions of
+L4000 per annum were secured to retiring holders of the seal, and it was
+provided that after fifteen years of service, or in case of incurable
+infirmity, the Chief Justice of the King's Bench could claim, on
+retirement, L3000 per annum, the Master of the Rolls, Chief of Common
+Pleas, and Chief Baron L2500 per annum, and each minor judge of those
+courts or Baron of the coif, L2000 a year. In 1809, (49 Geo. III., c.
+127) the Lord Chief Baron's annual salary was raised to L5000; whilst a
+yearly stipend of L4000 was assigned to each puisne judge or baron. By
+53 Geo. III., c. 153, the Chiefs and Master of the Rolls, received on
+retirement an additional yearly L800, and the puisnes an additional
+yearly L600. A still more important reform of George III.'s reign was
+the creation of the first Vice Chancellor in March, 1813. Rank was
+assigned to the new functionary next after the Master of the Rolls, and
+his salary was fixed at L5000 per annum.
+
+Until the reign of George IV. judges continued to take fees and
+perquisites; but by 6 Geo. IV. c. 82, 83, 84, it was arranged that the
+fees should be paid into the Exchequer, and that the undernamed great
+officers of justice should receive the following salaries and pensions
+on retirement:--
+
+                                                         An. Pension
+                                           An. Sal.    on retirement.
+
+Lord Chief Justice of King's Bench        L10,000             L4000
+Lord Chief Justice of Common Pleas           8000              3750
+The Master of the Rolls                      7000              3750
+The Vice Chancellor of England               6000              3750
+The Chief Baron of the Exchequer             7000              3750
+Each Puisne Baron or Judge                   5500              3500
+
+Moreover by this Act, the second judge of the King's Bench was
+entitled, as in the preceding reign, to L40 for giving charge to the
+grand jury in each term, and pronouncing judgment on malefactors.
+
+The changes with regard to judicial salaries under William IV. were
+comparatively unimportant. By 2 and 3 Will. IV. c. 116, the salaries of
+puisne judges and barons were reduced to L5000 a year; and by 2 and 3
+Will. IV. c. 111, the Chancellor's pension, on retirement, was raised to
+L5000, the additional L1000 per annum being assigned to him in
+compensation of loss of patronage occasioned by the abolition of certain
+offices. These were the most noticeable of William's provisions with
+regard to the payment of his judges.
+
+The present reign, which has generously given the country two new
+judges, called Lord Justices, two additional Vice Chancellors, and a
+swarm of paid justices, in the shape of county court judges and
+stipendiary magistrates, has exercised economy with regard to judicial
+salaries. The annual stipends of the two Chief Justices, fixed in 1825
+at L10,000 for the Chief of the King's Bench, and L8000 for the Chief of
+the Common Pleas, have been reduced, in the former case to L8000 per
+annum, in the latter to L7000 per annum. The Chancellor's salary for his
+services as Speaker of the House of Lords, has been made part of the
+L10,000 assigned to his legal office; so that his income is no more than
+ten thousand a year. The salary of the Master of the Rolls has been
+reduced from L7000 to L6000 a year; the same stipend, together with a
+pension on retirement of L3750, being assigned to each of the Lords
+Justices. The salary of a Vice Chancellor is L5000 per annum; and after
+fifteen years' service, or in case of incurable sickness, rendering him
+unable to discharge the functions of his office, he can retire with a
+pension of L3500.
+
+Thurlow had no pension on retirement; but with much justice Lord
+Campbell observes: "Although there was no parliamentary retired
+allowance for ex-Chancellors, they were better off than at present.
+Thurlow was a Teller of the Exchequer, and had given sinecures to all
+his relations, for one of which his nephew now receives a commutation of
+L9000 a year." Lord Loughborough was the first ex-Chancellor who
+enjoyed, on retirement, a pension of L4000 per annum, under Stat. 39
+Geo. III. c. 110. The next claimant for an ex-Chancellor's pension was
+Eldon, on his ejection from office in 1806; and the third claimant was
+Erskine, whom the possession of the pension did not preserve from the
+humiliation of indigence.
+
+Eldon's obstinate tenacity of office, was attended with one good result.
+It saved the nation much money by keeping down the number of
+ex-Chancellors entitled to L4000 per annum. The frequency with which
+Governments have been changed during the last forty years has had a
+contrary effect, producing such a strong bevy of lawyers--who are
+pensioners as well as peers--that financial reformers are loudly asking
+if some scheme cannot be devised for lessening the number of these
+costly and comparatively useless personages. At the time when this page
+is written, there are four ex-Chancellors in receipt of pensions--Lords
+Brougham, St. Leonards, Cranworth, and Westbury; but death has recently
+diminished the roll of Chancellors by removing Lords Truro and
+Lyndhurst. Not long since the present writer read a very able, but
+one-sided article in a liberal newspaper that gave the sum total spent
+by the country since Lord Eldon's death in ex-Chancellors' pensions; and
+in simple truth it must be admitted that the bill was a fearful subject
+for contemplation.
+
+[19] During the Commonwealth, the people, unwilling to pay their judges
+liberally, decided that a thousand a year was a sufficient income for a
+Lord Commissioner of the Great Seal.
+
+
+
+
+PART IV.
+
+COSTUME AND TOILET.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+BRIGHT AND SAD.
+
+
+From the days of the Conqueror's Chancellor, Baldrick, who is reputed to
+have invented and christened the sword-belt that bears his name, lawyers
+have been conspicuous amongst the best dressed men of their times. For
+many generations clerical discipline restrained the members of the bar
+from garments of lavish costliness and various colors, unless high rank
+and personal influence placed them above the fear of censure and
+punishment; but as soon as the law became a lay-profession, its
+members--especially those who were still young--eagerly seized the
+newest fashions of costume, and expended so much time and money on
+personal decoration, that the governors of the Inns deemed it expedient
+to make rules, with a view to check the inordinate love of gay apparel.
+
+By these enactments, foppish modes of dressing the hair was
+discountenanced or forbidden, not less than the use of gaudy clothes and
+bright arms. Some of these regulations have a quaint air to readers of
+this generation; and as indications of manners in past times, they
+deserve attention.
+
+From Dugdale's 'Origines Juridiciales,' it appears that in the earlier
+part of Henry VIII.'s reign, the students and barristers of the Inns
+were allowed great licence in settling for themselves minor points of
+costume; but before that paternal monarch died, this freedom was
+lessened. Accepting the statements of a previous chronicler, Dugdale
+observes of the members of the Middle Temple under Henry--"They have no
+order for their apparell; but every man may go as him listeth, so that
+his apparell pretend no lightness or wantonness in the wearer; for, even
+as his apparell doth shew him to be, even so he shall be esteemed among
+them." But at the period when this licence was permitted in respect of
+costume, the general discipline of the Inn was scandalously lax; the
+very next paragraph of the 'Origines' showing that the templars forbore
+to shut their gates at night, whereby "their chambers were oftentimes
+robbed, and many other misdemeanors used."
+
+But measures were taken to rectify the abuses and evil manners of the
+schools. In the thirty-eighth year of Henry VIII. an order was made
+"that the gentlemen of this company" (_i.e._, the Inner Temple) "should
+reform themselves in their cut or disguised apparel, and not to have
+long beards. And that the Treasurer of this society should confer with
+the other Treasurers of Court for an uniform reformation." The
+authorities of Lincoln's Inn had already bestirred themselves to reduce
+the extravagances of dress and toilet which marked their younger and
+more frivolous fellow-members. "And for decency in Apparel," writes
+Dugdale, concerning Lincoln's Inn, "at a council held on the day of the
+Nativity of St. John the Baptist, 23 Hen. VIII. it was ordered that for
+a continual rule, to be thenceforth kept in this house, no gentleman,
+being a fellow of this house, should wear any cut or pansid hose, or
+bryches; or pansid doublet, upon pain of putting out of the house."
+
+Ten years later the authorities of Lincoln's Inn (33 Hen. VIII.) ordered
+that no member of the society "being in commons, or at his repast,
+should wear a beard; and whoso did, to pay double commons or repasts in
+this house during such time as he should have any beard."
+
+By an order of 5 Maii, 1 and 2 Philip and Mary, the gentlemen of the
+Inner Temple were forbidden to wear long beards, no member of the
+society being permitted to wear a beard of more than three weeks'
+growth. Every breach of this law was punished by the heavy fine of
+twenty shillings. In 4 and 5 of Philip and Mary it was ordered that no
+member of the Middle Temple "should thenceforth wear any great bryches
+in their hoses, made after the Dutch, Spanish, or Almon fashion; or
+lawnde upon their capps; or cut doublets, upon pain of iiis iiiid
+forfaiture for the first default, and the second time to be expelled the
+house." At Lincoln's Inn, "in 1 and 2 Philip and Mary, one Mr Wyde, of
+this house, was (by special order made upon Ascension day) fined at five
+groats, for going in his study gown in Cheapside, on a Sunday, about ten
+o'clock before noon; and in Westminister Hall, in the Term time, in the
+forenoon." Mr. Wyde's offence was one of remissness rather than of
+excessive care for his personal appearance. With regard to beards in the
+same reign Lincoln's Inn exacted that such members "as had beards should
+pay 12_d._ for every meal they continued them; and every man" was
+required "to be shaven upon pain of putting out of commons."
+
+The orders made under Elizabeth with regard to the same or similar
+matters are even more humorous and diverse. At the Inner Temple "it was
+ordered in 36 Elizabeth (16 Junii), that if any fellow in commons, or
+lying in the Louse, did wear either hat or cloak in the Temple Church,
+hall, buttry, kitchen, or at the buttry-barr, dresser, or in the garden,
+he should forfeit for every such offence vis viiid. And in 42 Eliz. (8
+Febr.) that they go not in cloaks, hatts, bootes, and spurs into the
+city, but when they ride out of the town." This order was most
+displeasing to the young men of the legal academies, who were given to
+swaggering amongst the brave gallants of city ordinaries, and delighted
+in showing their rich attire at Paul's. The Templar of the Inner Temple
+who ventured to wear arms (except his dagger) in hall committed a grave
+offence, and was fined five pounds. "No fellow of this house should come
+into the hall" it was enacted at the Inner Temple, 38 Eliz. (20 Dec.)
+"with any weapons, except his dagger, or his knife, upon pain of
+forfeiting the sum of five pounds." In old time the lawyers often
+quarrelled and drew swords in hall; and the object of this regulation
+doubtless was to diminish the number of scandalous affrays. The Middle
+Temple, in 26 Eliz., made six prohibitory rules with regard to apparel,
+enacting, "1. That no ruff should be worn. 2. Nor any White color in
+doublets or hoses. 3. Nor any facing of velvet in gownes, but by such as
+were of the bench. 4. That no gentleman should walk in the streets in
+their cloaks, but in gownes. 5. That no hat, or long, or curled hair be
+worn. 6. Nor any gown, but such as were of a sad color." Of similar
+orders made at Gray's Inn, during Elizabeth's reign, the following edict
+of 42 Eliz. (Feb. 11) may be taken as a specimen:--"That no gentleman of
+this society do come into the hall, to any meal, with their hats, boots,
+or spurs; but with their caps, decently and orderly, according to the
+ancient order of this house: upon pain, for every offence, to forfeit
+iiis 4d, and for the third offence expulsion. Likewise, that no
+gentleman of this society do go into the city, or suburbs, or to walk in
+the Fields, otherwise than in his gown, according to the ancient usage
+of the gentlemen of the Inns of Court, upon penalty of iiis iiiid for
+every offence; and for the third, expulsion and loss of his chamber."
+
+At Lincoln's Inn it was enacted, "in 38 Eliz., that if any Fellow of
+this House, being a commoner or repaster, should within the precinct of
+this house wear any cloak, boots and spurs, or long hair, he should pay
+for every offence five shillings for a fine, and also to be put out of
+commons." The attempt to put down beards at Lincoln's Inn failed.
+Dugdale says, in his notes on that Inn, "And in 1 Eliz. it was further
+ordered, that no fellow of this house should wear any beard above a
+fortnight's growth; and that whoso transgresses therein should for the
+first offence forfeit 3_s._ 4d., to be paid and cast with his commons;
+and for the second time 6_s_ 8d., in like manner to be paid and cast with
+his commons; and the third time to be banished the house. But the
+fashion at that time of wearing beards grew then so predominant, as that
+the very next year following, at a council held at this house, upon the
+27th of November, it was agreed and ordered, that all orders before that
+time touching beards should be void and repealed." In the same year in
+which the authorities of Lincoln's Inn forbade the wearing of beards,
+they ordered that no fellow of their society "should wear any sword or
+buckler; or cause any to be born after him into the town." This was the
+first of the seven orders made in 1 Eliz. for _all_ the Inns of Court;
+of which orders the sixth runs thus:--"That none should wear any velvet
+upper cap, neither in the house nor city. And that none after the first
+day of January then ensuing, should wear any furs, nor any manner of
+silk in their apparel, otherwise than he could justifie by the stature
+of apparel, made _an._ 24 H. 8, under the penalty aforesaid." In the
+eighth year of the following reign it was ordained at Lincoln's Inn
+"that no rapier should be worn in this house by any of the society."
+
+Other orders made in the reign of James I., and similar enactments
+passed by the Inns in still more recent periods, can be readily found on
+reference to Dugdale and later writers upon the usages of lawyers.
+
+On such matters, however, fashion is all-powerful; and however grandly
+the benchers of an Inn might talk in their council-chamber, they could
+not prevail on their youngsters to eschew beards when beards were the
+mode, or to crop the hair of their heads when long tresses were worn by
+gallants at court. Even in the time of Elizabeth--when authority was
+most anxious that utter-barristers should in matters of costume maintain
+that reputation for 'sadness' which is the proverbial characteristic of
+apprentices of the law--counsellors of various degrees were conspicuous
+throughout the town for brave attire. If we had no other evidence
+bearing on the point, knowledge of human nature would make us certain
+that the bar imitated Lord Chancellor Hatton's costume. At Gray's Inn,
+Francis Bacon was not singular in loving rich clothes, and running into
+debt for satin and velvet, jewels and brocade, lace and feathers. Even
+of that contemner of frivolous men and vain pursuits, Edward Coke,
+biography assures us, "The jewel of his mind was put into a fair case, a
+beautiful body with comely countenance; a case which he did wipe and
+keep clean, delighting in good clothes, well worn; being wont to say
+that the outward neatness of our bodies might be a monitor of purity to
+our souls."
+
+The courts of James I. and his son drew some of their most splendid fops
+from the multitude of young men who were enjoined by the elders of their
+profession to adhere to a costume that was a compromise between the garb
+of an Oxford scholar and the guise of a London 'prentice. The same was
+the case with Charles II.'s London. Students and barristers outshone the
+brightest idlers at Whitehall, whilst within the walls of their Inns
+benchers still made a faint show of enforcing old restrictions upon
+costume. At a time when every Templar in society wore hair--either
+natural or artificial--long and elaborately dressed, Sir William Dugdale
+wrote, "To the office of the chief butler" (_i.e._, of the Middle
+Temple) "it likewise appertaineth to take the names of those that be
+absent at the said solemn revells, and to present them to the bench, as
+also inform the bench of such as wear hats, bootes, _long hair_, or the
+like (for the which he is commonly out of the young gentlemen's favor)."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+MILLINERY.
+
+
+Saith Sir William Dugdale, in his chapter concerning the personal attire
+of judges--"That peculiar and decent vestments have, from great
+antiquity, been used in religious services, we have the authority of
+God's sacred precept to Moses, '_Thou shall make holy rayments for Aaron
+and his sons, that are to minister unto me, that they may be for glory
+and beauty_.'" In this light and flippant age there are men irreverent
+enough to smile at the habiliments which our judges wear in court, for
+the glory of God and the seemly embellishment of their own natural
+beauty.
+
+Like the stuff-gown of the utter-barrister, the robes of English judges
+are of considerable antiquity; but antiquaries labor in vain to discover
+all the facts relating to their origin and history. Mr. Foss says that
+at the Stuart Restoration English judges resumed the robes worn by their
+predecessors since the time of Edward I.; but though the judicial robes
+of the present day bear a close resemblance to the vestments worn by
+that king's judges, the costume of the bench has undergone many
+variations since the twentieth year of his reign.
+
+In the eleventh year of Richard II. a distinction was made between the
+costumes of the chiefs of the King's Bench and Common Pleas and their
+assistant justices; and at the same time the Chief Baron's inferiority
+to the Chief Justices was marked by costume.
+
+Henry VI.'s Chief Justice of the King's Bench, Sir John Fortescue, in
+his delightful treatise 'De Laudibus Legum Angliae,' describes the
+ceremony attending the creation of a justice, and minutely sets forth
+the chief items of judicial costume in the Bench and Common Pleas during
+his time. "Howbeit," runs Robert Mulcaster's rendering of the 'De
+Laudibus,' "the habite of his rayment, hee shall from time to time
+forwarde, in some pointes change, but not in all the ensignments
+thereof. For beeing serjeaunt at lawe, hee was clothed in a long robe
+priestlyke, with a furred cape about his shoulders, and thereupon a
+hoode with two labels such as Doctours of the Lawes use to weare in
+certayne universityes, with the above described quoyfe. But being once
+made a justice, in steede of his hoode, hee shall weare a cloake cloased
+upon his righte shoulder, all the other ornaments of a serjeant still
+remayning; sauing that a justyce shall weare no partye coloured vesture
+as a serjeant may. And his cape is furred with none other than menever,
+whereas the serjeant's cape is ever furred with whyte lambe."
+
+Judicial costume varied with the fashion of the day or the whim of the
+sovereign in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Subsequent
+generations saw the introduction of other changes; and in the time of
+Charles I. questions relating to the attire of the common law judges
+were involved in so much doubt, and surrounded with so many
+contradictory precedents and traditions, that the judges resolved to
+simplify matters by conference and unanimous action. The result of their
+deliberation was a decree, dated June 6, 1635, to which Sir John
+Bramston, Chief of the King's Bench, Sir John Finch, Chief of the Common
+Pleas, Sir Humphrey Davenport, Chief of the Exchequer, and all the minor
+judges of the three courts, gave subscription.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+WIGS.
+
+
+The changes effected in judicial costume during the Commonwealth, like
+the reformation introduced at the same period into the language of the
+law, were all reversed in 1660, when Charles II.'s judges resumed the
+attire and usages of their predecessors in the first Charles's reign.
+When he had satisfied himself that monarchical principles were sure of
+an enduring triumph, and that their victory would conduce to his own
+advantage, great was young Samuel Pepys's delight at seeing the ancient
+customs of the lawyers restored, one after another. In October, 1660, he
+had the pleasure of seeing "the Lord Chancellor and all the judges
+riding on horseback, and going to Westminster Hall, it being the first
+day of term." In the February of 1663-4 his eyes were gladdened by the
+revival of another old practice. "28th (Lord's Day). Up and walked to
+St. Paul's," he writes, "and, by chance, it was an extraordinary day for
+the Readers of Inns of the Court and all the Students to come to church,
+it being an old ceremony not used these twenty-five years, upon the
+first Sunday in Lent. Abundance there was of students, more than there
+was room to seat but upon forms, and the church mighty full. One Hawkins
+preached, an Oxford man, a good sermon upon these words, 'But the wisdom
+from above is first pure, then peaceable.'" Hawkins was no doubt a
+humorist, and smiled in the sleeve of his Oxford gown as he told the
+law-students that _peace_ characterized the highest sort of _wisdom_.
+
+But, notwithstanding their zeal in reviving old customs, the lawyers of
+the Restoration introduced certain novelties into legal life. From Paris
+they imported the wig which still remains one of the distinctive
+adornments of the English barrister; and from the same centre of
+civilization they introduced certain refinements of cookery, which had
+been hitherto unknown in the taverns of Fleet Street and the Strand. In
+the earlier part of the 'merry monarch's' reign, the eating-house most
+popular with young barristers and law-students was kept by a French cook
+named Chattelin, who, besides entertaining his customers with delicate
+fare and choice wine, enriched our language with the word 'cutlet'--in
+his day spelt costelet.
+
+In the seventeenth century, until wigs were generally adopted, the
+common law judges, like their precursors for several past generations,
+wore in court velvet caps, coifs, and cornered caps. Pictures preserve
+to us the appearance of justices, with their heads covered by one or two
+of these articles of dress, the moustache in many instances adorning the
+lip, and a well-trimmed beard giving point to the judicial chin. The
+more common head-dress was the coif and coif-cap, of which it is
+necessary to say a few words.
+
+The coif was a covering for the head, made of white lawn or silk, and
+common law judges wore it as a sign that they were members of the
+learned brotherhood of sergeants. Speaking of the sergeants, Fortescue,
+in his 'De Laudibus,' says--"Wherefore to this state and degree hath no
+man beene hitherto admitted, except he hath first continued by the space
+of sixteene years in the said generall studio of the law, and in token
+or signe, that all justices are thus graduat, every one of them alwaies,
+while he sitteth in the Kinge's Courts, weareth a white quoyfe of silke;
+which is the principal and chiefe insignment of habite, wherewith
+serjeants-at-lawe in their creation are decked. And neither the justice,
+nor yet the serjeaunt, shall ever put off the quoyfe, no not in the
+kinge's presence, though he bee in talke with his majestie's highnesse."
+At times it was no easy matter to take the coif from the head; for the
+white drapery was fixed to its place with strings, which in the case of
+one notorious rascal were not untied without difficulty. In Henry III.'s
+reign, when William de Bossy was charged in open court with corruption
+and dishonesty, he claimed the benefit of clerical orders, and
+endeavored to remove his coif in order that he might display his
+tonsure; but before he could effect his purpose, an officer of the court
+seized him by the throat and dragged him off to prison. "Voluit," says
+Matthew Paris, "ligamenta coifae suae solvere, ut, palam monstraret se
+tonsuram habere clericalem; sed non est permissus. Satelles vero eum
+arripiens, non per coifae ligamina sed per guttur eum apprehendens,
+traxit ad carcerem." From which occurrence Spelman drew the untenable,
+and indeed, ridiculous inference, that the coif was introduced as a
+veil, beneath which ecclesiastics who wished to practice as judges or
+counsel in the secular courts, might conceal the personal mark of their
+order.
+
+The coif-cap is still worn in undiminished proportions by judges when
+they pass sentence of death, and is generally known as the 'black cap.'
+In old time the justice, on making ready to pronounce the awful words
+which consigned a fellow-creature to a horrible death, was wont to draw
+up the flat, square, dark cap, that sometimes hung at the nape of his
+neck or the upper part of his shoulder. Having covered the whiteness of
+his coif, and partially concealed his forehead and brows with the sable
+cloth, he proceeded to utter the dread sentence with solemn composure
+and firmness. At present the black cap is assumed to strike terror into
+the hearts of the vulgar; formerly it was pulled over the eyes, to hide
+the emotion of the judge.
+
+Shorn of their original size, the coif and the coif-cap may still be
+seen in the wigs worn by sergeants at the present day. The black blot
+which marks the crown of a sergeant's wig is generally spoken of as his
+coif, but this designation is erroneous. The black blot is the coif-cap;
+and those who wish to see the veritable coif must take a near view of
+the wig, when they will see that between the black silk and the
+horsehair there lies a circular piece of white lawn, which is the
+vestige of that pure raiment so reverentially mentioned by Fortescue. On
+the general adoption of wigs, the sergeants, like the rest of the bar,
+followed in the wake of fashion: but at first they wore their old coifs
+and caps over their false hair. Finding this plan cumbersome, they
+gradually diminished the size of the ancient covering, until the coif
+and cap became the absurd thing which resembles a bald place covered
+with court-plaster quite as much as the rest of the wig resembles human
+hair.
+
+Whilst the common law judges of the seventeenth century, before the
+introduction of wigs, wore the undiminished coif and coif-cap, the Lord
+Chancellor, like the Speaker of the House of Commons, wore a hat. Lord
+Keeper Williams, the last clerical holder of the seals, used to wear in
+the Court of Chancery a round, conical hat. Bradshaw, sitting as
+president of the commissioners who tried Charles I., wore a hat instead
+of the coif and cap which he donned at other times as a serjeant of law.
+Kennett tells us that "Mr. Sergeant Bradshaw, the President, was afraid
+of some tumult upon such new and unprecedented insolence as that of
+sitting judge upon his king; and therefore, beside other defence, he had
+a thick big-crowned beaver hat, lined with plated steel, to ward off
+blows." It is scarcely credible that Bradshaw resorted to such means for
+securing his own safety, for in the case of a tumult, a hat, however
+strong, would have been an insignificant protection against popular
+fury. If conspirators had resolved to take his life, they would have
+tried to effect their purpose by shooting or stabbing him, not by
+knocking him on the head. A steel-plated hat would have been but a poor
+guard against a bludgeon, and a still poorer defence against poignard or
+pistol. It is far more probable that in laying aside the ordinary
+head-dress of an English common law judge, and in assuming a
+high-crowned hat, the usual covering of a Speaker, Bradshaw endeavored
+to mark the exceptional character of the proceeding, and to remind the
+public that he acted under parliamentary sanction. Whatever the wearer's
+object, England was satisfied that he had a notable purpose, and
+persisted in regarding the act as significant of cowardice or of
+insolence, of anxiety to keep within the lines of parliamentary
+privilege or of readiness to set all law at defiance. At the time and
+long after Bradshaw's death, that hat caused an abundance of discussion;
+it was a problem which men tried in vain to solve, an enigma that
+puzzled clever heads, a riddle that was interpreted as an insult, a
+caution, a protest, a menace, a doubt. Oxford honored it with a Latin
+inscription, and a place amongst the curiosities of the university, and
+its memory is preserved to Englishmen of the present day in the familiar
+lines--
+
+   "Where England's monarch once uncovered sat,
+   And Bradshaw bullied in a broad-brimmed hat."
+
+Judges were by no means unanimous with regard to the adoption of wigs,
+some of them obstinately refusing to disfigure themselves with false
+tresses, and others displaying a foppish delight in the new decoration.
+Sir Matthew Hale, who died in 1676, to the last steadily refused to
+decorate himself with artificial locks. The likeness of the Chief
+Justice that forms the frontispiece to Burnet's memoir of the lawyer,
+represents him in his judicial robes, wearing his SS collar, and having
+on his head a cap--not the coif-cap, but one of the close-fitting
+skull-caps worn by judges in the seventeenth century. Such skull-caps,
+it has been observed in a prior page of this work, were worn by
+barristers under their wigs, and country gentlemen at home, during the
+last century. Into such caps readers have seen Sir Francis North put his
+fees. The portrait of Sir Cresswell Levinz (who returned to the bar on
+dismissal from the bench in 1686) shows that he wore a full-bottomed wig
+whilst he was a judge; whereas Sir Thomas Street, who remained a judge
+till the close of James II.'s reign, wore his own hair and a coif-cap.
+
+When Shaftesbury sat in court as Lord High Chancellor of England he wore
+a hat, which Roger North is charitable enough to think might have been a
+black hat. "His lordship," says the 'Examen,' "regarded censure so
+little, that he did not concern himself to use a decent habit as became
+a judge of his station; for he sat upon the bench in an ash-colored gown
+silver-laced, and full-ribboned pantaloons displayed, without any black
+at all in his garb, unless it were his hat, which, now, I cannot
+positively say, though I saw him, was so."
+
+Even so late as Queen Anne's reign, which witnessed the introduction of
+three-cornered hats, a Lord Keeper wore his own hair in court instead
+of a wig, until he received the sovereign's order to adopt the venerable
+disguise of a full-bottomed wig. Lady Sarah Cowper recorded of her
+father, 1705:--"The queen after this was persuaded to trust a Whigg
+ministry, and in the year 1705, Octr., she made my father Ld. Keeper of
+the Great Seal, in the 41st year of his age--'tis said the youngest Lord
+Keeper that ever had been. He looked very young, and wearing his own
+hair made him appear yet more so, which the queen observing, obliged him
+to cut it off, telling him the world would say she had given the seals
+to a boy."
+
+The young Lord Keeper of course obeyed; and when he appeared for the
+first time at court in a wig, his aspect was so grave and reverend that
+the queen had to look at him twice before she recognized him. More than
+half a century later, George II. experienced a similar difficulty, when
+Lord Hardwicke, after the close of his long period of official service,
+showed himself at court in a plain suit of black velvet, with a bag and
+sword. Familiar with the appearance of the Chancellor dressed in
+full-bottomed wig and robes, the king failed to detect his old friend
+and servant in the elderly gentleman who, in the garb of a private
+person of quality, advanced and rendered due obeisance. "Sir, it is Lord
+Hardwicke," whispered a lord in waiting who stood near His Majesty's
+person, and saw the cause of the cold reception given to the
+ex-Chancellor. But unfortunately the king was not more familiar with the
+ex-Chancellor's title than his appearance, and in a disastrous endeavor
+to be affable inquired, with an affectation of interest, "How long has
+your lordship been in town?" The peer's surprise and chagrin were great
+until the monarch, having received further instruction from the courtly
+prompter at his elbow, frankly apologized in bad English and with noisy
+laughter. "Had Lord Hardwicke," says Campbell, "worn such a uniform as
+that invented by George IV. for ex-Chancellors (very much like a Field
+Marshal's), he could not have been mistaken for a common man."
+
+The judges who at the first introduction of wigs refused to adopt them
+were prone to express their dissatisfaction with those coxcombical
+contrivances when exhibited upon the heads of counsel; and for some
+years prudent juniors, anxious to win the favorable opinion of anti-wig
+justices, declined to obey the growing fashion. Chief Justice Hale, a
+notable sloven, conspicuous amongst common law judges for the meanness
+of his attire, just as Shaftesbury was conspicuous in the Court of
+Chancery for foppishness, cherished lively animosity for two sorts of
+legal practitioners--attorneys who wore swords, and young Templars who
+adorned themselves with periwigs. Bishop Burnet says of Hale: "He was a
+great encourager of all young persons that he saw followed their books
+diligently, to whom he used to give directions concerning the method of
+their study, with a humanity and sweetness that wrought much on all that
+came near him; and in a smiling, pleasant way he would admonish them, if
+he saw anything amiss in them; particularly if they went too fine in
+their clothes, he would tell them it did not become their profession. He
+was not pleased to see students wear long periwigs, or attorneys go with
+swords, so that such men as would not be persuaded to part with those
+vanities, when they went to him laid them aside and went as plain as
+they could, to avoid the reproof which they knew they might otherwise
+expect." In England, however, barristers almost universally wore wigs at
+the close of the seventeenth century; but north of the Tweed advocates
+wore cocked hats and powdered hair so late as the middle of the
+eighteenth century. When Alexander Wedderburn joined the Scotch bar in
+1754, wigs had not come into vogue with the members of his profession.
+
+Many are the good stories told of judicial wigs, and amongst the best of
+them, is the anecdote which that malicious talker Samuel Rogers
+delighted to tell at Edward Law's expense. "Lord Ellenborough," says the
+'Table-Talk,' "was once about to go on circuit, when Lady Ellenborough
+said that she should like to accompany him. He replied that he had no
+objection provided she did not encumber the carriage with bandboxes,
+which were his utter abhorrence. During the first day's journey Lord
+Ellenborough, happening to stretch his legs, struck his foot against
+something below the seat; he discovered that it was a bandbox. Up went
+the window, and out went the bandbox. The coachman stopped, and the
+footman, thinking that the bandbox had tumbled out of the window by some
+extraordinary chance, was going to pick it up, when Lord Ellenborough
+furiously called out, 'Drive on!' The bandbox, accordingly, was left by
+the ditch-side. Having reached the county town where he was to officiate
+as judge, Lord Ellenborough proceeded to array himself for his
+appearance in the court-house. 'Now,' said he, 'where's my wig?--where
+_is_ my wig?' 'My lord,' replied his attendant, 'it was thrown out of
+the carriage window!'"
+
+Changing together with fashion, barristers ceased to wear their wigs in
+society as soon as the gallants and bucks of the West End began to
+appear with their natural tresses in theatres and ball rooms; but the
+conservative genius of the law has hitherto triumphed over the attempts
+of eminent advocates to throw the wig out of Westminster Hall. When Lord
+Campbell argued the great Privilege case, he obtained permission to
+appear without a wig; but this concession to a counsel--who, on that
+occasion, spoke for sixteen hours--was accompanied with an intimation
+that "it was not to be drawn into precedent."
+
+Less wise or less fortunate than the bar, the judges of England wore
+their wigs in society after advocates of all ranks and degrees had
+agreed to lay aside the professional head-gear during hours of
+relaxation. Lady Eldon's good taste and care for her husband's comfort,
+induced Lord Eldon, soon after his elevation to the pillow of the Common
+Pleas, to beg the king's permission that he might put off his judicial
+wig on leaving the courts, in which as Chief Justice he would be
+required to preside. The petition did not meet with a favorable
+reception. For a minute George III. hesitated; whereupon Eldon supported
+his prayer by observing, with the fervor of an old-fashioned Tory, that
+the lawyer's wig was a detestable innovation--unknown in the days of
+James I. and Charles the Martyr, the judges of which two monarchs would
+have rejected as an insult any proposal that they should assume a
+head-dress fit only for madmen at masquerades or mummers at country
+wakes. "What! what!" cried the king, sharply; and then, smiling
+mischievously, as he suddenly saw a good answer to the plausible
+argument, he added--"True, my lord, Charles the First's judges wore no
+wigs, but they wore beards. You may do the same, if you like. You may
+please yourself about wearing or not wearing your wig; but mind, if you
+please yourself by imitating the old judges, as to the head--you must
+please me by imitating them as to the chin. You may lay aside your wig;
+but if you do--you must wear a beard." Had he lived in these days, when
+barristers occasionally wear beards in court, and judges are not less
+conspicuous than the junior bar for magnitude of nose and whisker, Eldon
+would have accepted the condition. But the last year of the last
+century, was the very centre and core of that time which may be called
+the period of close shavers; and John Scott, the decorous and
+respectable, would have endured martyrdom rather than have grown a
+beard, or have allowed his whiskers to exceed the limits of mutton-chop
+whiskers.
+
+As Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and subsequently as Chancellor,
+Eldon wore his wig whenever he appeared in general society; but in the
+privacy of his own house he gratified Lady Eldon by laying aside the
+official head-gear. That this was his usage, the gossips of the
+law-courts knew well; and at Carlton House, when the Prince of Wales was
+most indignant with the Chancellor, who subsequently became his familiar
+friend, courtiers were wont to soothe the royal rage with diverting
+anecdotes of the attention which the odious lawyer lavished on the
+natural hair that gave his Bessie so much delight. On one occasion, when
+Eldon was firmly supporting the cause of the Princess of Wales, 'the
+first gentleman of Europe' forgot common decency so far, that he made a
+jeering allusion to this instance of the Chancellor's domestic
+amiability. "I am not the sort of person," growled the prince with an
+outbreak of peevishness, "to let my hair grow under my wig to please my
+wife." With becoming dignity Eldon answered--"Your Royal Highness
+condescends to be personal. I beg leave to withdraw;" and suiting his
+action to his words, the Chancellor made a low bow to the angry prince,
+and retired. The prince sneaked out of the position by an untruth,
+instead of an apology. On the following day he caused a written
+assurance to be conveyed to the Chancellor, that the offensive speech
+"was nothing personal, but simply a proverb--a proverbial way of saying
+a man was governed by his wife." It is needless to say that the
+expression was not proverbial, but distinctly and grossly personal. Lord
+Malmesbury's comment on this affair is "Very absurd of Lord Eldon; but
+explained by his having literally done what the prince said." Lord
+Eldon's conduct absurd! What was the prince's?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+BANDS AND COLLARS.
+
+
+Bands came into fashion with Englishmen many years before wigs, but like
+wigs they were worn in general society before they became a recognized
+and distinctive feature of professional costume. Ladies of rank dyed
+their hair, and wore false tresses in Elizabethan England; but their
+example was not extensively followed by the men of their time--although
+the courtiers of the period sometimes donned 'periwinkes,' to the
+extreme disgust of the multitude, and the less stormy disapprobation of
+the polite. The frequency with which bands are mentioned in Elizabethan
+literature, affords conclusive evidence that they were much worn toward
+the close of the sixteenth century; and it is also matter of certainty
+that they were known in England at a still earlier period. Henry VIII.
+had "4 shirte bands of silver with ruffes to the same, whereof one was
+perled with golde;" and in 1638 Peacham observed, "King Henry VIII. was
+the first that ever wore a band about his neck, and that very plain,
+without lace, and about an inch or two in depth. We may see how the case
+is altered, he is not a gentleman, or in the fashion, whose band of
+Italian cutwork standeth him not at the least in three or four pounds;
+yea, a sempster in Holborn told me there are of threescore pound price
+apiece." That the fops of Charles I.'s reign were spending money on a
+fashion originally set by King Henry the Bluff, was the opinion also of
+Taylor the Water Poet, who in 1630 wrote--
+
+   "Now up alofte I mount unto the ruffe,
+   Which into foolish mortals pride doth puffe;
+   Yet ruffes' antiquity is here but small--
+   Within this eighty years not one at all;
+   For the Eighth Henry (so I understand)
+   Was the first king that ever wore a _band_;
+   And but a _falling-band_, plaine with a hem;
+   All other people knew no use of them.
+   Yet imitation in small time began
+   To grow, that it the kingdom overran;
+   The little falling-bands encreased to ruffes,
+   Ruffes (growing great) were waited on by cuffes,
+   And though our frailties should awake our care,
+   We make our ruffes as careless as we are."
+
+In regarding the falling-band as the germ of the ruff, the Water-Poet
+differs from those writers who, with greater appearance of reason,
+maintain that the ruff was the parent of the band. Into this question
+concerning origin of species, there is no occasion to enter on the
+present occasion. It is enough to state that in the earlier part of the
+seventeenth century bands or collars--bands stiffened and standing at
+the backward part, and bands falling upon the shoulder and breast--were
+articles of costume upon which men of expensive and modish habits spent
+large sums.
+
+In the days of James I., when standing bands were still the fashion, and
+falling-bands had not come in, the Inns of Court men were very
+particular about the stiffness, cut, and texture of their collars.
+Speaking of the Inns of Court men, Sir Thomas Overbury, (who was
+poisoned in 1613), says: "He laughs at every man whose band sits not
+well, or that hath not a fair shoe-type, and is ashamed to be in any
+man's company who wears not his cloathes well."
+
+If portraits may be trusted, the falling-band of Charles I.'s time, bore
+considerable resemblance to the falling neck-frill, which twenty years
+since was very generally worn by quite little boys, and is still sometimes
+seen on urchins who are about six years of age. The bands worn by the
+barristers and clergy of our own time are modifications of this antique
+falling-band, and like the coif cap of the modern sergeant, they bear
+only a faint likeness to their originals. But though bands--longer than
+those still worn by clergymen--have come to be a distinctive feature of
+legal costume, the bar was slow to adopt falling-collars--regarding them
+as a strange and fanciful innovation. Whitelock's personal narrative
+furnishes pleasant testimony that the younger gentry of Charles I.'s
+England adopted the new collar before the working lawyers.
+
+"At the Quarter-Sessions of Oxford," says Whitelock, speaking of the
+year 1635, when he was only thirty years of age, "I was put into the
+chair in court, though I was in colored clothes, a sword by my side, and
+a falling-band, which was unusual for lawyers in those days, and in this
+garb I gave the charge to the Grand Jury. I took occasion to enlarge on
+the point of jurisdiction in the temporal courts in matters
+ecclesiastical, and the antiquity thereof, which I did the rather
+because the spiritual men began in those days to swell higher than
+ordinary, and to take it as an injury to the Church that anything
+savoring of the spirituality, should be within the cognisance of
+ignorant laymen. The gentlemen and freeholders seemed well pleased with
+my charge, and the management of the business of the sessions; and said
+they perceived one might speak as good sense in a falling-band as in a
+ruff." At this time Whitelock had been about seven years at the bar; but
+at the Quarter-Sessions the young Templar was playing the part of
+country squire, and as his words show, he was dressed in a fashion that
+directly violated professional usage.
+
+Whitelock's speech seems to have been made shortly before the bar
+accepted the falling-band as an article of dress admissible in courts of
+law. Towards the close of Charles's reign, such bands were very
+generally worn in Westminster Hall by the gentlemen of the long robe;
+and after the Restoration, a barrister would as soon have thought of
+appearing at the King's Bench without his gown as without his band.
+Unlike the bar-bands of the present time--which are lappets of fine
+lawn, of simple make--the bands worn by Charles II.'s lawyers were
+dainty and expensive articles, such as those which Peacham exclaimed
+against in the preceding reign. At that date the Templar in prosperous
+circumstances had his bands made entirely of point lace, or of fine lawn
+edged with point lace; and as he wore them in society as well as in
+court, he was constantly requiring a fresh supply of them. Few accidents
+were more likely to ruffle a Templar's equanimity than a mishap to his
+band occurring through his own inadvertence or carelessness on the part
+of a servant. At table the pieces of delicate lace-work were exposed to
+many dangers. Continually were they stained with wine or soiled with
+gravy, and the young lawyer was deemed a marvel of amiability who could
+see his point lace thus defiled and abstain from swearing. "I remember,"
+observes Roger North, when he is showing the perfect control in which
+his brother Francis kept his temper, at his table a stupid servant spilt
+a glass of red wine upon his point band and clothes. "He only wiped his
+face and clothes with the napkin, and 'Here,' said he, 'take this away;'
+and no more."
+
+In 'The London Spy,' Ned Ward shows that during Queen Anne's reign legal
+practitioners of the lowest sort were particular to wear bands.
+Describing the pettifogger, Ward says, "He always talks with as great
+assurance as if he understood what he pretends to know; and always wears
+a band, in which lies his gravity and wisdom." At the same period a
+brisk trade was carried on in Westminster Hall by the sempstresses who
+manufactured bands and cuffs, lace ruffles, and lawn kerchiefs for the
+grave counsellors and young gallants of the Inns of Court. "From
+thence," says the author of 'The London Spy', "we walked down by the
+sempstresses, who were very nicely digitising and pleating turnsovers
+and ruffles for the young students, and coaxing them with amorous looks,
+obliging cant, and inviting gestures, to give so extravagant a price for
+what they buy."
+
+From collars of lace and lawn, let us turn to collars of precious metal.
+
+Antiquarians have unanimously rejected the fanciful legend adopted by
+Dugdale concerning the SS collar, as well as many not less ingenious
+interpretations of the mystic letters; and at the present time it is
+almost unanimously settled that the SS collar is the old Lancastrian
+badge, corresponding to the Yorkist collar of Roses and Suns, and that
+the S is either the initial of the sentimental word 'Souvenez,' or, as
+Mr. Beltz maintains, the initial letter of the sentimental motto,
+'Souvenez-vous de moi.' In Mr. Foss's valuable work, 'The Judges of
+England,' at the commencement of the seventh volume, the curious reader
+may find an excellent summary of all that has been or can be said about
+the origin of this piece of feudal livery, which, having at one time
+been very generally assumed by all gentle and fairly prosperous
+partisans of the House of Lancaster, has for many generations been the
+distinctive badge of a few official persons. In the second year of Henry
+IV. an ordinance forbade knights and Esquires to wear the collar, save
+in the king's presence; and in the reign of Henry VIII., the privilege
+of wearing the collar was taken away from simple esquires by the 'Acte
+for Reformacyon of Excesse in Apparayle,' 24 Henry VIII. c. 13, which
+ordained "That no man oneless he be a knight ... weare any color of
+Gold, named a color of S." Gradually knights and non-official persons
+relinquished the decoration; and in our own day the right to bear it is
+restricted to the two Chief Justices, the Chief Baron, the
+sergeant-trumpetor, and all the officers of the Heralds' College,
+pursuivants excepted; "unless," adds Mr. Foss, "the Lord Mayor of London
+is to be included, whose collar is somewhat similar, and is composed of
+twenty-eight SS, fourteen roses, thirteen knots; and measures sixty-four
+inches."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+BAGS AND GOWNS.
+
+
+On the stages of the Caroline theatres the lawyer is found with a green
+bag in his hand; the same is the case in the literature of Queen Anne's
+reign; and until a comparatively recent date green bags were generally
+carried in Westminster Hall and in provincial courts by the great body
+of legal practitioners. From Wycherley's 'Plain Dealer,' it appears that
+in the time of Charles II. angry clients were accustomed to revile their
+lawyers as 'green bag-carriers.' When the litigious Widow Blackacre
+upbraids the barrister who declines to argue for her, she
+exclaims--"Impertinent again, and ignorant to me! Gadsboddikins! you
+puny upstart in the law, to use me so, you green-bag carrier, you
+murderer of unfortunate causes, the clerk's ink is scarce off of your
+fingers." In the same drama, making much play with the green bag,
+Wycherley indicates the Widow Blackacre's quarrelsome disposition by
+decorating her with an enormous green reticule, and makes her son the
+law-student, stagger about the stage in a gown, and under a heavy burden
+of green bags.
+
+So also in the time of Queen Anne, to say that a man intended to carry a
+green bag, was the same as saying that he meant to adopt the law as a
+profession. In Dr. Arbuthnot's 'History of John Bull,' the prevalence of
+the phrase is shown by the passage, "I am told, Cousin Diego, you are
+one of those that have undertaken to manage me, and that you have said
+you will carry a green bag yourself, rather than we shall make an end of
+our lawsuit. I'll teach them and you too to manage." It must, however,
+be borne in mind that in Queen Anne's time, green bags, like white
+bands, were as generally adopted by solicitors and attorneys, as by
+members of the bar. In his 'character of a pettifogger' the author of
+'The London Spy' observes--"His learning is commonly as little as his
+honesty, and his conscience much larger than his green bag."
+
+Some years have elapsed since green bags altogether disappeared from our
+courts of law; but the exact date of their disappearance has hitherto
+escaped the vigilance and research of Colonel Landman, 'Causidicus,' and
+other writers who in the pages of that useful and very entertaining
+publication, _Notes and Queries_, have asked for information on that
+point and kindred questions. Evidence sets aside the suggestion that the
+color of the lawyer's bag was changed from green to red because the
+proceedings at Queen Caroline's trial rendered green bags odious to the
+public, and even dangerous to their bearers; for it is a matter of
+certainty that the leaders of the Chancery and Common Law bars carried
+red bags at a time considerably anterior to the inquiry into the queen's
+conduct.
+
+In a letter addressed to the editor of _Notes and Queries_, a writer who
+signs himself 'Causidicus,' observes--"When I entered the profession
+(about fifty years ago) no junior barrister presumed to carry a bag in
+the Court of Chancery, unless one had been presented to him by a King's
+Counsel; who, when a junior was advancing in practice, took an
+opportunity of complimenting him on his increase of business, and giving
+him his own bag to carry home his papers. It was then a distinction to
+carry a bag, and a proof that a junior was rising in his profession. I
+do not know whether the custom prevailed in other courts." From this it
+appears that fifty years since the bag was an honorable distinction at
+the Chancery bar, giving its bearer some such professional status as
+that which is conferred by 'silk' in these days when Queen's Counsel are
+numerous.
+
+The same professional usage seems to have prevailed at the Common Law
+bar more than eighty years ago; for in 1780, when Edward Law joined the
+Northern Circuit, and forthwith received a large number of briefs, he
+was complimented by Wallace on his success, and presented with a bag.
+Lord Campbell asserts that no case had ever before occurred where a
+junior won the distinction of a bag during the course of his first
+circuit. There is no record of the date when members of the junior bar
+received permission to carry bags according to their own pleasure; it is
+even matter of doubt whether the permission was ever expressly accorded
+by the leaders of the profession--or whether the old restrictive usage
+died a gradual and unnoticed death. The present writer, however, is
+assured that at the Chancery bar, long after _all_ juniors were allowed
+to carry bags, etiquette forbade them to adopt bags of the same color as
+those carried by their leaders. An eminent Queen's Counsel, who is a
+member of that bar, remembers that when he first donned a stuff gown,
+he, like all Chancery jurors, had a purple bag--whereas the wearers of
+silk at the same period, without exception, carried red bags.
+
+Before a complete and satisfactory account can be given of the use of
+bags by lawyers, as badges of honor and marks of distinction, answers
+must be found for several questions which at present remain open to
+discussion. So late as Queen Anne's reign, lawyers of the lowest
+standing, whether advocates or attorneys, were permitted to carry
+bags;--a right which the junior bar appears to have lost when Edward Law
+joined the Northern Circuit. At what date between Queen Anne's day and
+1780 (the year in which Lord Ellenborough made his _debut_ in the
+North), was this change effected? Was the change gradual or sudden? To
+what cause was it due? Again, is it possible that Lord Campbell and
+Causidicus wrote under a misapprehension, when they gave testimony
+concerning the usages of the bar with regard to bags, at the close of
+the last and the beginning of the present century? The memory of the
+distinguished Queen's Counsel, to whom allusion is made in the preceding
+paragraph, is quite clear that in his student days Chancery jurors were
+forbidden by etiquette to carry _red_ bags, but were permitted to carry
+blue bags; and he is strongly of opinion that the restriction, to which
+Lord Campbell and Causidicus draw attention, did not apply at any time
+to blue bags, but only concerned red bags, which, so late as thirty
+years since, unquestionably were the distinguishing marks of men in
+leading Chancery practice. Perhaps legal readers of this chapter will
+favor the writer with further information on this not highly important,
+but still not altogether uninteresting subject.
+
+The liberality which for the last five and-twenty years has marked the
+distribution of 'silk' to rising members of the bar, and the ease with
+which all fairly successful advocates may obtain the rank of Queen's
+Counsel, enable lawyers of the present generation to smile at a rule
+which defined a man's professional position by the color of his bag,
+instead of the texture of his gown; but in times when 'silk' was given
+to comparatively few members of the bar, and when that distinction was
+most unfairly withheld from the brightest ornaments of their profession,
+if their political opinions displeased the 'party in power,' it was
+natural and reasonable in the bar to institute for themselves an 'order
+of merit'--to which deserving candidates could obtain admission without
+reference to the prejudices of a Chancellor or the whims of a clique.
+
+At present the sovereign's counsel learned in the law constitute a
+distinct order of the profession; but until the reign of William IV.
+they were merely a handful of court favorites. In most cases they were
+sound lawyers in full employment; but the immediate cause of their
+elevation was almost always some political consideration--and sometimes
+the lucky wearer of a silk gown had won the right to put K.C. or Q.C.
+after his name by base compliance with ministerial power. That our
+earlier King's Counsel were not created from the purest motives or for
+the most honorable purposes will be readily admitted by the reader who
+reflects that 'silk gowns' are a legal species, for which the nation is
+indebted to the Stuarts. For all practical purposes Francis Bacon was a
+Q.C. during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. He enjoyed peculiar and
+distinctive _status_ as a barrister, being consulted on legal matters by
+the Queen, although he held no place that in familiar parlance would
+entitle him to rank with her Crown Lawyers; and his biographers have
+agreed to call him Elizabeth's counsellor learned in the law. But a Q.C.
+holding his office by patent--that is to say, a Q.C. as that term is
+understood at the present time--Francis Bacon never was. On the
+accession, however, of James I., he received his formal appointment of
+K.C., the new monarch having seen fit to recognise the lawyer's claim to
+be regarded as a 'special counsel,' or 'learned counsel extraordinary.'
+Another barrister of the same period who obtained the same distinction
+was Sir Henry Montague, who, in a patent granted in 1608 to the two
+Temples, is styled "one of our counsel learned in the law." Thus
+planted, the institution of monarch's special counsel was for many
+generations a tree of slow growth. Until George III.'s reign the number
+of monarch's counsel, living and practising at the same time, was never
+large; and throughout the long period of that king's rule the fraternity
+of K.C. never assumed them agnitude and character of a professional
+order. It is uncertain what was the greatest number of contemporaneous
+K.C.'s during the Stuart dynasty; but there is no doubt that from the
+arrival of James I. to the flight of James II. there was no period when
+the K.C.'s at all approached the sergeants in name and influence. In
+Rymer's 'Foedera' mention is made of four barristers who were appointed
+counsellors to Charles I., one of whom, Sir John Finch, in a patent of
+precedence is designated "King's Counsel;" but it is not improbable that
+the royal martyr had other special counsellors whose names have not been
+recorded. At different times of Charles II.'s reign, there were created
+some seventeen K.C.'s, and seven times that number of sergeants. James
+II. made ten K.C.'s; William and Mary appointed eleven special
+counsellors; and the number of Q.C.'s appointed by Anne was ten. The
+names of George I.'s learned counsel are not recorded; the list of
+George II.'s K.C.'s, together with barristers holding patents of
+precedence, comprise thirty names; George III. throughout his long
+tenure of the crown, gave 'silk' with or without the title of K.C., to
+ninety-three barristers; George IV. to twenty-six; whereas the list of
+William IV.'s appointments comprised sixty-five names, and the present
+queen has conferred the rank of Q.C. on about two hundred advocates--the
+law-list for 1865 mentioning one hundred and thirty-seven barristers who
+are Q.C.'s, or holders of patents of precedence; and only twenty-eight
+sergeants-at-law, not sitting as judges in any of the supreme courts.
+The diminution in the numbers of the sergeants is due partly to the loss
+of their old monopoly of business in the Common Pleas, and partly--some
+say chiefly--to the profuseness with which silk gowns, with Q.C. rank
+attached, have been thrown to the bar since the passing of the Reform
+Bill.
+
+Under the old system when 'silk' was less bountifully bestowed, eminent
+barristers not only led their circuits in stuff; but, after holding
+office as legal advisers to the crown and wearing silk gowns whilst they
+so acted with their political friends, they sometimes resumed their
+stuff gowns and places 'outside the bar,' on descending from official
+eminence. When Charles York in 1763 resigned the post of Attorney
+General, he returned to his old place in court without the bar, clad in
+the black bombazine of an ordinary barrister, whereas during his tenure
+of office he had worn silk and sat within the bar. In the same manner
+when Dunning resigned the Solicitor Generalship in 1770, he reappeared
+in the Court of King's Bench, attired in stuff, and took his place
+without the bar; but as soon as he had made his first motion, he was
+addressed by Lord Mansfield, who with characteristic courtesy informed
+him that he should take precedence in that court before all members of
+the bar, whatever might be their standing, with the exception of King's
+Counsel, Sergeants, and the Recorder of London. On joining the Northern
+Circuit in 1780, Edward Law found Wallace and Lee leading in silk, and
+twenty years later he and Jemmy Park were the K.C.'s of the same
+district; Of course the circuit was not without wearers of the coif, one
+of its learned sergeants being Cockell, who, before Law obtained the
+leading place, was known as 'the Almighty of the North;' and whose
+success, achieved in spite of an almost total ignorance of legal
+science, was long quoted to show that though knowledge is power, power
+may be won without knowledge.
+
+From pure dislike of the thought that younger men should follow closely
+or at a distance in his steps to the highest eminences of legal success,
+Lord Eldon was disgracefully stingy in bestowing honors on rising
+barristers who belonged to his own party, but his injustice and
+downright oppression to brilliant advocates in the Whig ranks merit the
+warmest expressions of disapproval and contempt. The most notorious
+sufferers from his rancorous intolerance were Henry Brougham and Mr.
+Denman, who, having worn silk gowns as Queen Caroline's Attorney General
+and Solicitor General, were reduced to stuff attire on that wretched
+lady's death.
+
+It is worthy of notice that in old time, when silk gowns were few, their
+wearers were sometimes very young men. From the days of Francis North,
+who was made K.C. before he was a barrister for seven full years'
+standing, down to the days of Eldon, who obtained silk after seven
+years' service in stuff, instances could be cited of the rapidity with
+which lucky youngsters rose to the honors of silk, whilst hard-worked
+veterans were to the last kept outside the bar. Thurlow was called to
+the bar in November, 1754, and donned silk in December, 1761. Six years
+had now elapsed since his call to the English bar, when Alexander
+Wedderburn was entitled to put the initials K.C. after his name, and
+wrote to his mother in Scotland, "I can't very well explain to you the
+nature of my preferment, but it is what most people at the bar are very
+desirous of, and yet most people run a hazard of losing money by it. I
+can scarcely expect any advantage from it for some time equal to what I
+give up; and, notwithstanding, I am extremely happy, and esteem myself
+very fortunate in having obtained it." Erskine's silk was won with even
+greater speed, for he was invited within the bar, but his silk gown
+came to him with a patent of precedence, giving him the status without
+the title of a King's Counsel.
+
+Bar mourning is no longer a feature of legal costume in England. On the
+death of Charles II. members of the bar donned gowns indicative of their
+grief for the national loss, and they continued, either universally or
+in a large number of cases, to wear these woful habiliments till 1697,
+when Chief Justice Holt ordered all barristers practising in his court
+to appear "in their proper gowns and not in mourning ones"--an order
+which, according to Narcissus Luttrell, compelled the bar to spend L15
+per man. From this it may be inferred that (regard being had to change
+in value of money) a bar-gown at the close of the seventeenth century
+cost about ten times as much as it does at the present time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+HATS.
+
+
+Not less famous in history than Bradshaw's broad-brimmed hat, nor less
+graceful than Shaftesbury's jaunty beaver, nor less memorable than the
+sailor's tarpaulin, under cover of which Jeffreys slunk into the Red
+Cow, Wapping, nor less striking than the black cap still worn by Justice
+in her sternest mood, nor less fanciful than the cocked hat which
+covered Wedderburn's powdered hair when he daily paced the High Street
+of Edinburgh with his hands in a muff--was the white hat which an
+illustrious Templar invented at an early date of the eighteenth century.
+Beau Brummel's original mind taught the human species to starch their
+white cravats; Richard Nash, having surmounted the invidious bar of
+plebeian birth and raised himself upon opposing circumstances to the
+throne of Bath, produced a white hat. To which of these great men
+society owes the heavier debt of gratitude thoughtful historians cannot
+agree; but even envious detraction admits that they deserve high rank
+amongst the benefactors of mankind. Brummel was a soldier; but Law
+proudly claims as her own the parent of the pale and spotless _chapeau_.
+
+About lawyers' cocked hats a capital volume might be written, that
+should contain no better story than the one which is told of Ned
+Thurlow's discomfiture in 1788, when he was playing a trickster's game
+with his friends and foes. Windsor Castle just then contained three
+distinct centres of public interest--the mad king in the hands of his
+keepers; on the one side of the impotent monarch the Prince of Wales
+waiting impatiently for the Regency; on the other side, the queen with
+equal impatience longing for her husband's recovery. The prince and his
+mother both had apartments in the castle, her majesty's quarters being
+the place of meeting for the Tory ministers, whilst the prince's
+apartments were thrown open to the select leaders of the Whig
+expectants. Of course the two coteries kept jealously apart; but
+Thurlow, who wished to be still Lord Chancellor, "whatever king might
+reign," was in private communication with the prince's friends. With
+furtive steps he passed from the queen's room (where he had a minute
+before been assuring the ministers that he would be faithful to the
+king's adherents), and made clandestine way to the apartment where
+Sheridan and Payne were meditating on the advantages of a regency
+without restriction. On leaving the prince, the wary lawyer used to
+steal into the king's chamber, and seek guidance or encouragement from
+the madman's restless eyes. Was the malady curable? If curable, how
+long a time would elapse before the return of reason? These were the
+questions which the Chancellor put to himself, as he debated whether he
+should break with the Tories and go over to the Whigs. Through the
+action of the patient's disease, the most delicate part of the lawyer's
+occupation was gone; and having no longer a king's conscience to keep,
+he did not care, by way of diversion--to keep his own.
+
+For many days ere they received clear demonstration of the Chancellor's
+deceit, the other members of the cabinet suspected that he was acting
+disingenuously, and when his double-dealing was brought to their sure
+knowledge, their indignation was not even qualified with surprise. The
+story of his exposure is told in various ways; but all versions concur
+in attributing his detection to an accident. Like the gallant of the
+French court, whose clandestine intercourse with a great lady was
+discovered because, in his hurried preparations for flight from her
+chamber, he appropriated one of her stockings, Thurlow, according to one
+account, was convicted of perfidy by the prince's hat, which he bore
+under his arm on entering the closet where the ministers awaited his
+coming. Another version says that Thurlow had taken his seat at the
+council-table, when his hat was brought to him by a page, with an
+explanation that he had left it in the prince's private room. A third,
+and more probable representation of the affair, instead of laying the
+scene in the council-chamber, makes the exposure occur in a more public
+part of the castle. "When a council was to be held at Windsor," said the
+Right Honorable Thomas Grenville, in his old age recounting the
+particulars of the mishap, "to determine the course which ministers
+should pursue, Thurlow had been there some time before any of his
+colleagues arrived. He was to be brought back to London by one of them,
+and the moment of departure being come, the Chancellor's hat was
+nowhere to be found. After a fruitless search in the apartment where the
+council had been held, a page came with the hat in his hand, saying
+aloud, and with great _naivete_, 'My lord, I found it in the closet of
+his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.' The other Ministers were still
+in the Hall, and Thurlow's confusion corroborated the inference which
+they drew." Cannot an artist be found to place upon canvas this scene,
+which furnishes the student of human nature with an instructive instance
+of
+
+   "That combination strange--a lawyer and a blush?"
+
+For some days Thurlow's embarrassment and chagrim were very painful. But
+a change in the state of the king's health caused a renewal of the
+lawyer's attachment to Tory principles and to his sovereign.
+
+The lawyers of what may be termed the cocked hat period seldom
+maintained the happy mean between too little and too great care for
+personal appearance. For the most part they were either slovenly or
+foppish. From the days when as a student he used to slip into Nando's in
+a costume that raised the supercilious astonishment of his
+contemporaries, Thurlow to the last erred on the side of neglect. Camden
+roused the satire of an earlier generation by the miserable condition of
+the tiewig which he wore on the bench of Chancery, and by an undignified
+and provoking habit of "gartering up his stockings while counsel were
+the most strenuous in their eloquence." On the other hand Joseph
+Yates--the puisne judge whom Mansfield's jeers and merciless oppressions
+drove from the King's Bench to the Common Pleas, where he died within
+four months of his retreat--was the finest of fine gentlemen. Before he
+had demonstrated his professional capacity, the habitual costliness and
+delicacy of his attire roused the distrust of attorneys, and on more
+than one occasion wrought him injury. An awkward, crusty, hard-featured
+attorney entered the foppish barrister's chambers with a bundle of
+papers, and on seeing the young man in a superb and elaborate evening
+dress, is said to have inquired, "Can you say, sir, when Mr. Yates will
+return?" "Return, my good sir!" answered the barrister, with an air of
+surprise, "I am Mr. Yates, and it will give me the greatest pleasure to
+talk with you about those papers." Having taken a deliberate survey of
+the young Templar, and made a mental inventory of all the fantastic
+articles of his apparel, the honest attorney gave an ominous grunt,
+replaced the papers in one of the deep pockets of his long-skirted coat,
+twice nodded his head with contemptuous significance, and then, without
+another word--walked out of the room. It was his first visit to those
+chambers, and his last. Joseph Yates lost his client, before he could
+even learn his name; but in no way influenced by the occurrence he
+maintained his reputation for faultless taste in dress, and when he had
+raised himself to the bench, he was amongst the judges of his day all
+that Revell Reynolds was amongst the London physicians of a later date.
+
+Living in the midst of the fierce contentions which distracted Ireland
+in the days of our grandfathers, John Toler, first Earl of Norbury,
+would not have escaped odium and evil repute, had he been a merciful man
+and a scrupulous judge; but in consequence of failings and wicked
+propensities, which gave countenance to the slanders of his enemies and
+at the same time earned for him the distrust and aversion of his
+political coadjutors, he has found countless accusers and not a single
+vindicator. Resembling George Jeffreys in temper and mental capacity, he
+resembled him also in posthumous fame. A shrewd, selfish, overbearing
+man, possessing wit which was exercised with equal promptitude upon
+friends and foes, he alternately roused the terror and the laughter of
+his audiences. At the bar and in the Irish House of Commons he was alike
+notorious as jester and bully; but he was a courageous bully, and to the
+last was always as ready to fight with bullets as with epigrams, and
+though his humor was especially suited to the taste and passions of the
+rabble, it sometimes convulsed with merriment those who were shocked by
+its coarseness and brutality. Having voted for the abolition of the
+Irish Parliament, the Right Honorable John Toler was prepared to justify
+his conduct with hair-triggers or sarcasms. To the men who questioned
+his patriotism he was wont to answer, "Name any hour before my court
+opens to-morrow," but to the patriotic Irish lady who loudly charged him
+in a crowded drawing-room with having sold his country, he replied, with
+an affectation of cordial assent, "Certainly, madam, I have sold my
+country. It was very lucky for me that I had a country to sell--I wish I
+had another." On the bench he spared neither counsel nor suitors,
+neither witnesses nor jurors. When Daniel O'Connell, whilst he was
+conducting a cause in the Irish Court of Common Pleas, observed, "Pardon
+me, my lord, I am afraid your lordship does not apprehend me;" the Chief
+Justice (alluding to a scandalous and false report that O'Connell had
+avoided a duel by surrendering himself to the police) retorted, "Pardon
+me also; no one is more easily apprehended than Mr. O'Connell"--(a
+pause--and then with emphatic slowness of utterance)--"whenever he
+wishes to be apprehended." It is _said_ that when this same judge passed
+sentence of death on Robert Emmett, he paused when he came to the point
+where it is usual for a judge to add in conclusion, "And may the Lord
+have mercy on your soul!" and regarded the brave young man with
+searching eyes. For a minute there was an awful silence in the court;
+the bar and the assembled crowd supposing that the Chief Justice had
+paused so that a few seconds of unbroken stillness might add to the
+solemnity of his last words. The disgust and indignation of the
+spectators were beyond the power of language, when they saw a smile of
+brutal sarcasm steal over the face of the Chief Justice as he rose from
+his seat of judgment without uttering another word.
+
+Whilst the state prosecutions were going forward, Lord Norbury appeared
+on the bench in a costume that accorded ill with the gravity of his
+office. The weather was intensely hot; and whilst he was at his morning
+toilet the Chief Justice selected from his wardrobe the dress which was
+most suited to the sultriness of the air. The garb thus selected for its
+coolness was a dress which his lordship had worn at a masquerade ball,
+and consisted of a green tabinet coat decorated with huge
+mother-of-pearl buttons, a waistcoat of yellow relieved by black
+stripes, and buff breeches. When he first entered the court, and
+throughout all the earlier part of the proceedings against a party of
+rebels, his judicial robes altogether concealed this grotesque attire;
+but unfortunately towards the close of the sultry day's work, Lord
+Norbury--oppressed by the stifling atmosphere of the court, and
+forgetting all about the levity as well as the lightness of his inner
+raiment--threw back his judicial robe and displayed the dress which
+several persons then present had seen him wear at Lady Castlereagh's
+ball. Ere the spectators recovered from their first surprise, Lord
+Norbury, quite unconscious of his indecorum, had begun to pass sentence
+of death on a gang of prisoners, speaking to them in a solemn voice that
+contrasted painfully with the inappropriateness of his costume.
+
+In the following bright and picturesque sentence, Dr. Dibdin gives a
+life-like portrait of Erskine, whose personal vanity was only equalled
+by the egotism which often gave piquancy to his orations, and never
+lessened their effect:--"Cocked hats and ruffles, with satin
+small-clothes and silk stockings, at this time constituted the usual
+evening dress. Erskine, though a good deal shorter than his brethren,
+somehow always seemed to take the lead both in pace and in discourse,
+and shouts of laughter would frequently follow his dicta. Among the
+surrounding promenaders, he and the one-armed Mingay seemed to be the
+main objects of attraction. Towards evening, it was the fashion for the
+leading counsel to promenade during the summer in the Temple Gardens,
+and I usually formed one in the thronging mall of loungers and
+spectators. I had analysed Blackstone, and wished to publish it under a
+dedication to Mr. Erskine. Having requested the favor of an interview,
+he received me graciously at breakfast before nine, attired in the smart
+dress of the times, a dark green coat, scarlet waistcoat, and silk
+breeches. He left his coffee, stood the whole time looking at the chart
+I had cut in copper, and appeared much gratified. On leaving him, a
+chariot-and-four drew up to wheel him to some provincial town on a
+special retainer. He was then coining money as fast as his chariot
+wheels rolled along." Erskine's advocacy was marked by that attention to
+trifles which has often contributed to the success of distinguished
+artists. His special retainers frequently took him to parts of the
+country where he was a stranger, and required him to make eloquent
+speeches in courts which his voice had never tested. It was his custom
+on reaching the town where he would have to plead on the following day,
+to visit the court over-night, and examine its arrangements, so that
+when the time for action arrived he might address the jury from the most
+favorable spot in the chamber. He was a theatrical speaker, and omitted
+no pains to secure theatrical effect. It was noticed that he never
+appeared within the bar until the _cause celebre_ had been called; and
+a buzz of excitement and anxious expectation testified the eagerness of
+the assembled crowd to _see_, as well as to hear, the celebrated
+advocate. Every article of his bar costume received his especial
+consideration; artifice could be discerned in the modulations of his
+voice, the expressions of his countenance, and the movements of his
+entire body; but the coldest observer did not detect the artifice until
+it had stirred his heart. Rumor unjustly asserted that he never uttered
+an impetuous peroration which he had not frequently rehearsed in private
+before a mirror. About the cut and curls of his wigs, their texture and
+color, he was very particular: and the hands which he extended in
+entreaty towards British juries were always cased in lemon-colored kid
+gloves.
+
+Erskine was not more noticeable for the foppishness of his dress than
+was Lord Kenyon for a sordid attire. Whilst he was a leading advocate
+within the bar, Lord Kenyon's ordinary costume would have disgraced a
+copying clerk; and during his later years, it was a question amongst
+barristers whether his breeches were made of velvet or leather. The wits
+maintained that when he kissed hands upon his elevation to the
+Attorney's place, he went to court in a second-hand suit purchased from
+Lord Stormont's _valet_. In the letter attributed to him by a clever
+writer in the 'Rolliad,' he is made to say--"My income has been cruelly
+estimated at seven, or, as some will have it, eight thousand pounds per
+annum. I shall save myself the mortification of denying that I am rich,
+and refer you to the constant habits and whole tenor of my life. The
+proof to my friends is easy. My tailor's bill for the last fifteen years
+is a record of the most indisputable authority. Malicious souls may
+direct you, perhaps, to Lord Stormont's _valet de chambre_, and can
+vouch the anecdote that on the day when I kissed hands for my
+appointment to the office of Attorney General, I appeared in a laced
+waistcoat that once belonged to his master. I bought the waistcoat, but
+despise the insinuation; nor is this the only instance in which I am
+obliged to diminish my wants and apportion them to my very limited
+means. Lady K---- will be my witness that until my last appointment I
+was an utter stranger to the luxury of a pocket-handkerchief." The
+pocket-handkerchief which then came into his possession was supposed to
+have been found in the pocket of the second-hand waistcoat; and Jekyll
+always maintained that, as it was not considered in the purchase, it
+remained the valet's property, and did not pass into the lawyer's
+rightful possession. This was the only handkerchief which Lord Kenyon is
+said to have ever possessed, and Lord Ellenborough alluded to it when,
+in a conversation that turned upon the economy which the income-tax
+would necessitate in all ranks of life, he observed--"Lord Kenyon, who
+is not very nice, intends to meet the crisis by laying down his
+handkerchief."
+
+Of his lordship's way of getting through seasons of catarrh without a
+handkerchief, there are several stories that would scarcely please the
+fastidious readers of this volume.
+
+Of his two wigs (one considerably less worn than the other), and of his
+two hats (the better of which would not have greatly disfigured an old
+clothesman, whilst the worse would have been of service to a
+professional scarecrow), Lord Kenyon took jealous care. The inferior wig
+was always worn with the better hat, and the more dilapidated hat with
+the superior wig; and it was noticed that when he appeared in court with
+the shabbier wig he never removed his _chapeau_; whereas, on the days
+when he sat in his more decent wig, he pushed his old cocked hat out of
+sight. In the privacy of his house and in his carriage, whenever he
+traveled beyond the limits of town, he used to lay aside wig and hat,
+and cover his head with an old red night-cap. Concerning his great-coat,
+the original blackness of which had been tempered by long usage into a
+fuscous green, capital tales were fabricated. The wits could not spare
+even his shoes. "Once," Dr. Didbin gravely narrated, "in the case of an
+action brought for the non-fulfillment of a contract on a large scale
+for shoes, the question mainly was, whether or not they were well and
+soundly made, and with the best materials. A number of witnesses were
+called, one of them, a first-rate character in the gentle craft, being
+closely questioned, returned contradictory answers, when the Chief
+Justice observed, pointing to his own shoes, which were regularly
+bestridden by the broad silver buckle of the day, 'Were the shoes
+anything like these?' 'No, my lord,' replied the evidence, 'they were a
+good deal better and more genteeler.'" Dr. Didbin is at needless pains
+to assure his readers that the shoemaker's answer was followed by
+uproarious laughter.
+
+
+
+
+PART V.
+
+MUSIC.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+THE PIANO IN CHAMBERS.
+
+
+In the Inns of Court, even more often than in the colleges of Oxford and
+Cambridge, musical instruments and performances are regarded by severe
+students with aversion and abhorrence. Mr. Babbage will live in peace
+and charity with the organ-grinders who are continually doing him an
+unfriendly turn before the industrious conveyancer on the first floor
+will pray for the welfare of 'that fellow upstairs' who daily practises
+the flute or cornopean from 11 A.M. to 3 P.M. The 'Wandering Minstrels'
+and their achievements are often mentioned with respect in the western
+drawing-rooms of London; but if the gentlemen who form that
+distinguished _troupe_ of amateur performers wish to sacrifice their
+present popularity and take a leading position amongst the social
+nuisances of the period, they should migrate from the district which
+delights to honor them to chambers in Old Square, Lincoln's Inn, and
+give morning concerts every day of term time.
+
+Working lawyers feel warmly on this subject, maintaining that no man
+should be permitted to be an _amateur_-barrister and an
+_amateur_-musician at the same time, and holding that law-students with
+a turn for wind-instruments should, like vermin, be hunted down and
+knocked on the head--without law. Strange stories might be told of the
+discords and violent deeds to which music has given rise in the four
+Inns. In the last century many a foolish fellow was 'put up' at ten
+paces, because he refused to lay down an ophicleide; even as late as
+George IV.'s time death has followed from an inordinate addiction to the
+violin; and it was but the other day that the introduction of a piano
+into a house in Carey Street led to the destruction of three close and
+warm friendships.
+
+So alive are lawyers to the frightful consequences of a wholesale
+exhibition of melodious irritants, that a natural love of order and
+desire for self-preservation has prompted them to raise numerous
+obstructions to the free development of musical science in their
+peculiar localities of town. In the Inns of Court and Chancery Lane
+professional etiquette forbids barristers and solicitors to play upon
+organs, harmoniums, pianos, violins, or other stringed instruments,
+drums, trumpets, cymbals, shawms, bassoons, triangles, castanets or any
+other bony devices for the production of noise, flageolets, hautboys, or
+any other sort of boys--between the hours of 9 A.M. and 6 P.M. And this
+rule of etiquette is supported by various special conditions introduced
+into the leases by which the tenants hold much of the local house
+property. Under some landlords, a tenant forfeits his lease if he
+indulges in any pursuit that causes annoyance to his immediate
+neighbors; under others, every occupant of a set of chambers binds
+himself not to play any musical instrument therein, save between the
+hours of 9 A.M. and 12 P.M.; and in more than one clump of chambers,
+situated within a stone's throw from Chancery Lane, glee-singing is not
+permitted at any period of the four-and-twenty hours.
+
+That the pursuit of harmony is a dangerous pastime for young lawyers
+cannot be questioned, although a long list might be given of cases where
+musical barristers have gained the confidence of many clients, and
+eventually raised themselves to the bench. A piano is a treacherous
+companion for the student who can touch, it deftly--dangerous as an idle
+friend, whose wit is ever brilliant; fascinating as a beautiful woman,
+whose smile is always fresh; deceptive as the drug which seems to
+invigorate, whilst in reality it is stealing away the intellectual
+powers. Every persevering worker knows how large a portion of his hard
+work has been done 'against the grain,' and in spite of strong
+inclinations to indolence--in hours when pleasant voices could have
+seduced him from duty, and any plausible excuse for indulgence would
+have been promptly accepted. In the piano these pleasant voices are
+constantly present, and it can always show good reason--why reluctant
+industry should relax its exertions.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+THE BATTLE OF THE ORGANS.
+
+
+Sir Thomas More and Lord Bacon--the two most illustrious laymen who have
+held the Great Seal of England--were notable musicians; and many
+subsequent Keepers and Chancellors are scarcely less famous for love of
+harmonious sounds than for judicial efficiency. Lord Keeper Guildford
+was a musical amateur, and notwithstanding his low esteem of literature
+condescended to write about melody. Lord Jeffreys was a good
+after-dinner vocalist, and was esteemed a high authority on questions
+concerning instrumental performance. Lord Camden was an operatic
+composer; and Lord Thurlow studied thorough-bass, in order that he might
+direct the musical exercises of his children.
+
+In moments of depression More's favorite solace was the viol; and so
+greatly did he value musical accomplishments in women, that he not only
+instructed his first and girlish wife to play on various instruments,
+but even prevailed on the sour Mistress Alice Middleton "to take lessons
+on the lute, the cithara, the viol, the monochord, and the flute, which
+she daily practised to him." But More's love of music was expressed
+still more forcibly in the zeal with which he encouraged and took part
+in the choral services of Chelsea Church. Throughout his residence at
+Chelsea, Sir Thomas was a regular attendant at the church, and during
+his tenure of the seals he not only delighted to chant the appointed
+psalms, but used to don a white surplice, and take his place among the
+choristers. Having invited the Duke of Norfolk to dine with him, the
+Chancellor prepared himself for the enjoyment of that great peer's
+society by attending divine service, and he was still occupied with his
+religious exercises when his Grace of Norfolk entered the church, and to
+his inexpressible astonishment saw the keeper of the king's conscience
+in the flowing raiment of a chorister, and heard him give "Glory to God
+in the highest!" as though he were a hired singer. "God's body! God's
+body! My Lord Chancellor a parish clerk?--a parish clerk?" was the
+duke's testy expostulation with the Chancellor. Whereupon More, with
+gentle gravity, answered, "Nay; your grace may not think that the
+king--your master and mine--will with me, for serving his Master, be
+offended, and thereby account his office dishonored." Not only was it
+More's custom to sing in the church choir, but he used also to bear a
+cross in religious processions; and on being urged to mount horse when
+he followed the rood in Rogation week round the parish boundaries, he
+answered, "It beseemeth not the servant to follow his master prancing on
+a cock-horse, his master going on foot." Few incidents in Sir Thomas
+More's remarkable career point more forcibly to the vast difference
+between the social manners of the sixteenth century and those of the
+present day. If Lord Chelmsford were to recreate himself with leading
+the choristers in Margaret Street, and after service were seen walking
+homewards in an ecclesiastical dress, it is more than probable that
+public opinion would declare him a fit companion for the lunatics of
+whose interests he has been made the official guardian. Society felt
+some surprise as well as gratification when Sir Roundell Palmer recently
+published his 'Book of Praise;' but if the Attorney General, instead of
+printing his select hymns had seen fit to exemplify their beauties with
+his own voice from the stall of a church-singer, the piety of his
+conduct would have scarcely reconciled Lord Palmerston to its dangerous
+eccentricity.
+
+Amongst Elizabethan lawyers, Chief Justice Dyer was by no means singular
+for his love of music, though Whetstone's lines have given exceptional
+celebrity to his melodious proficiency:--
+
+   "For publique good, when care had cloid his minde,
+     The only joye, for to repose his sprights,
+   Was musique sweet, which showd him well inclind;
+     For he doth in musique much delight,
+     A conscience hath disposed to do most right:
+   The reason is, her sound within our eare,
+   A sympathie of heaven we thinke we heare."
+
+Like James Dyer, Francis Bacon found music a pleasant and salutary
+pastime, when he was fatigued by the noisy contentions of legal practice
+or by strenuous application to philosophic pursuits. A perfect master of
+the science of melody, Lord Bacon explained its laws with a clearness
+which has satisfied competent judges that he was familiar with the
+practice as well as the theories of harmony; but few passages of his
+works display more agreeably his personal delight and satisfaction in
+musical exercise and investigation than that section of the 'Natural
+History,' wherein he says, "And besides I practice as I do advise; which
+is, after long inquiry of things immersed in matter, to interpose some
+subject which is immateriate or less materiate; such as this of sounds:
+to the end that the intellect may be rectified and become not partial."
+
+A theorist as well as performer, the Lord Keeper Guilford enunciated his
+views regarding the principles of melody in 'A Philosophical Essay of
+Musick, Directed to a Friend'--a treatise that was published without the
+author's name, by Martin, the printer to the Royal Society, in the year
+1677, at which time the future keeper was Chief Justice of the Common
+Pleas. The merits of the tract are not great; but it displays the
+subtlety and whimsical quaintness of the musical lawyer, who performed
+on several instruments, was very vain of a feeble voice, and used to
+attribute much of his professional success to the constant study of
+music that marked every period of his life. "I have heard him say,"
+Roger records, "that if he had not enabled himself by these studies, and
+particular his practice of music upon his bass or lyra viol (which he
+used to touch lute-fashion upon his knee), to divert himself alone, he
+had never been a lawyer. His mind was so airy and volatile he could not
+have kept his chamber if he must needs be there, staked down purely to
+the drudgery of the law, whether in study or practice; and yet upon
+such a leaden proposition, so painful to brisk spirits, all the success
+of the profession, regularly pursued, depends." His first acquaintance
+with melodious art was made at Cambridge, where in his undergraduate
+days he took lessons on the viol. At this same period he "had the
+opportunity of practice so much in his grandfather's and father's
+families, where the entertainment of music in full concert was solemn
+and frequent, that he outdid all his teachers, and became one of the
+neatest violinists of his time." Scarcely in consistence with this
+declaration of the Lord Keeper's proficiency on the violin is a later
+passage of the biography, where Roger says that his brother "attempted
+the violin, being ambitious of the prime part in concert, but soon found
+that he began such a difficult art too late." It is, however, certain
+that the eminent lawyer in the busiest passages of his laborious life
+found time for musical practice, and that besides his essay on music, he
+contributed to his favorite art several compositions which were
+performed in private concert-rooms.
+
+Sharing in the musical tastes of his family, Roger North, the
+biographer, was the _friend_ who used to touch the harpsichord that
+stood at the door of the Lord Keeper's bedchamber; and when political
+changes had extinguished his hopes of preferment, he found consolation
+in music and literature. Retiring to his seat in Norfolk, Roger fitted
+up a concert-room with instruments that roused the astonishment of
+country squires, and an organ that was extolled by critical professors
+for the sweetness of its tones. In that seclusion, where he lived to
+extreme old age, the lettered lawyer composed the greater part of those
+writings which have rendered him familiar to the present generation. Of
+his 'Memoirs of Musick,' readers are not accustomed to speak so
+gratefully as of his biographies; but the curious sketch which Dr.
+Rimbault edited and for the first time published in 1846, is worthy of
+perusal, and will maintain a place on the shelves of literary collectors
+by the side of his brother's 'Essay.'
+
+In that treatise Roger alludes to a contest which in the reigns of
+Charles II. and James II. agitated the musicians of London, divided the
+Templars into two hostile parties, and for a considerable time gave rise
+to quarrels in every quarter of the town. All this disturbance resulted
+from "a competition for an organ in the Temple church, for which the two
+competitors, the best artists in Europe, Smith and Harris, were but just
+not ruined." The struggle thus mentioned in the 'Memoirs of Musick' is
+so comic an episode in the story of London life, and has been the
+occasion of so much error amongst writers, that it claims brief
+restatement in the present chapter.
+
+In February, 1682, the Benchers of the Temples, wishing to obtain for
+their church an organ of superlative excellence, invited Father Smith
+and Renatus Harris to compete for the honor of supplying the instrument.
+The masters of the benchers pledged themselves that "if each of these
+excellent artists would set up an organ in one of the halls belonging to
+either of the societies, they would have erected in their church that
+which, in the greatest number of excellencies, deserved the preference."
+For more than twenty years Father Smith had been the first organ-builder
+in England; and the admirable qualities of his instruments testify to
+his singular ability. A German artist (in his native country called
+Bernard Schmidt, but in London known as Father Smith), he had
+established himself in the English capital as early as the summer of
+1660; and gaining the cordial patronage of Charles II., he and his two
+grand-nephews soon became leaders of their craft. Father Smith built
+organs for Westminster Abbey, for the Church of St. Giles-in-the-Fields,
+for St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, for Durham Cathedral, and for
+other sacred buildings. In St. Paul's Cathedral he placed the organ
+which Wren disdainfully designated a "box of whistles;" and dying in
+1708, he left his son-in-law, Christopher Schreider, to complete the
+organ which still stands in the chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge.
+But notwithstanding his greatness, Father Smith had rivals; his first
+rival being Harris the Elder, who died in 1672, his second being Renatus
+Harris, or Harris the Younger. The elder Harris never caused Smith much
+discomfort; but his son, Renatus, was a very clever fellow, and a strong
+party of fashionable _connoisseurs_ declared that he was greatly
+superior to the German. Such was the position of these two rivals when
+the benchers made their proposal, which was eagerly accepted by the
+artificers, each of whom saw in it an opportunity for covering his
+antagonist with humiliation.
+
+The men went to work: and within fourteen months their instruments were
+ready for competition. Smith finished work before Harris, and prevailed
+on the benchers to let him place his organ in the Temple church, well
+knowing that the powers of the instrument could be much more readily and
+effectively displayed in the church than in either of the dining-halls.
+The exact site where he fixed his organ is unknown, but the careful
+author of 'A Few Notes on the Temple Organ, 1859,' is of opinion that it
+was put up "on the screen between the round and oblong churches--the
+position occupied by the organ until the present organ-chamber was
+built, and the organ removed there during the progress of the complete
+restoration of the church in the year 1843." No sooner had Harris
+finished his organ, than, following Father Smith's example, he asked
+leave of the benchers to erect it within the church. Harris's petition
+to this effect bears date May 26, 1684; and soon afterwards the organ
+was "set up in the Church on the south side of the Communion Table."
+
+Both organs being thus stationed under the roof of the church, the
+committee of benchers appointed to decide on their relative merits
+declared themselves ready to listen. The trial began, but many
+months--ay, some years--elapsed ere it came to an end. On either side
+the credit of the manufacturer was sustained by execution of the highest
+order of art. Father Smith's organ was handled alternately by Purcell
+and Dr. Blow; and Draghi, the queen's organist, did his best to secure a
+verdict for Renatus Harris. Of course the employment of these eminent
+musicians greatly increased the number of persons who felt personal
+interest in the contest. Whilst the pupils and admirers of Purcell and
+Blow were loud in declaring that Smith's organ ought to win, Draghi's
+friends were equally sure that the organ touched by his expert fingers
+ought not to lose. Discussion soon became violent; and in every
+profession, clique, coterie of the town, supporters of Smith wrangled
+with supporters of Harris. Like the battle of the Gauges in our time,
+the battle of the Organs was the grand topic with every class of
+society, at Court and on 'Change, in coffee-houses and at ordinaries.
+Again and again the organs were tested in the hearing of dense and
+fashionable congregations; and as often the judicial committee was
+unable to come to a decision. The hesitation of the judges put oil upon
+the fire; for Smith's friends, indignant at the delay, asserted that
+certain members of the committee were bound to Harris by corrupt
+considerations--an accusation that was retorted by the other side with
+equal warmth and want of justice.
+
+After the squabble had been protracted through many months, Harris
+created a diversion by challenging Father Smith to make additional
+reed-stops within a given time. The challenge was accepted; and
+forthwith the Father went to work and made Vox Humana, Cremorne, Double
+Courtel, or Double Bassoon, and other stops. A day was appointed for the
+renewal of the contest; but party feeling ran so high, that during the
+night preceding the appointed day a party of hot-headed Harrissians
+broke into the Temple Church, and cut Smith's bellows--so that on the
+following morning his organ was of no more service than an old
+linen-press. A row ensued; and in the ardor of debate swords were drawn.
+
+In June, 1685, the benchers of the Middle Temple, made a written
+declaration in favor of Father Smith, and urged that his organ should be
+forthwith accepted. Strongly and rather discourteously worded, this
+declaration gave offence to the benchers of the Inner Temple, who
+regarded it as an attempt at dictation; and on June 22, 1685, they
+recommended the appointment of another committee with powers to decide
+the contest. Declining to adopt this suggestion, the Middle Temple
+benchers reiterated their high opinion of Smith's instrument. On this
+the Battle of the Organs became a squabble between the two Temples; and
+the outside public, laughing over the quarrel of the lawyers, expressed
+a hope that honest men would get their own since the rogues had fallen
+out.
+
+At length, when the organ-builders had well-nigh ruined each other, and
+the town had grown weary of the dispute, the Inner Temple yielded
+somewhere about the beginning of 1688--at an early date of which year
+Smith received a sum of money in part payment for his organ. On May 27th
+of the same year, Mr. Pigott was appointed organist. After its rejection
+by the Temple, Renatus Harris divided his organ into two, and having
+sent the one part to the cathedral of Christ's Church, Dublin, he set up
+the other part in the church of St. Andrew, Holborn. Three years after
+his disappointment, Renatus Harris was tried at the Old Bailey for a
+political offence, the nature of which may be seen from the following
+entry in Narcissus Luttrell's Diary:--"April, 1691. The Sessions have
+been at the Old Bailey, where these persons, Renatus Harris, John Watts,
+William Rutland, Henry Gandy, and Thomas Tysoe, were tried at the Old
+Bailey for setting up policies of insurance that Dublin would be in the
+hands of some other king than their present majesties by Christmas next:
+the jury found them guilty of a misdemeanor." For this offence Renatus
+Harris was fined L200, and was required to give security for his good
+conduct until Christmas.
+
+An erroneous tradition assigns to Lord Jeffreys the honor of bringing
+the Battle of the Organs to a conclusion, and writers improving upon
+this tradition, have represented that Jeffreys acted as sole umpire
+between the contendants. In his 'History of Music,' Dr. Burney, to whom
+the prevalence of this false impression is mainly due, observes--"At
+length the decision was left to Lord Chief Justice Jeffries, afterwards
+King James the Second's pliant Chancellor, who was of that society (the
+Inner Temple), and he terminated the controversy in favor of Father
+Smith; so that Harris's organ was taken away without loss of reputation,
+having so long pleased and puzzled better judges than Jefferies."
+
+Careful inquirers have ascertained that Harris's organ did not go to
+Wolverhampton, but to Dublin and St. Andrew's Holborn, part of it being
+sent to the one, and part to the other place. It is certain that Jeffrys
+was not chosen to act as umpire in 1681, for the benchers did not make
+their original proposal to the rival builders until February, 1682; and
+years passed between that date and the termination of the squabble. When
+Burney wrote:--"At length the decision was left to Lord Chief Justice
+Jefferies, _afterwards King James II.'s pliant Chancellor_," the
+musician was unaware that the squabble was still at white heat whilst
+Jeffreys occupied the woolsack. On his return from the Western Campaign,
+Jeffreys received the seals in September, 1685, whereas the dispute
+about the organs did not terminate till the opening of 1688, or at
+earliest till the close of 1687. There is no authentic record in the
+archives of the Temples which supports, or in any way countenances, the
+story that Jeffreys made choice of Smith's instrument; but it is highly
+probable that the Lord Chancellor exerted his influence with the Inner
+Temple (of which society he was a member), and induced the benchers, for
+the sake of peace, to yield to the wishes of the Middle Temple. It is no
+less probable that his fine musical taste enabled him to see that the
+Middle Temple benchers were in the right, and gave especial weight to
+his words when he spoke against Harris's instrument.
+
+Though Jeffreys delighted in music, he does not seem to have held its
+professors in high esteem. In the time of Charles II. musical artists of
+the humbler grades liked to be styled 'musitioners;' and on a certain
+occasion, when he was sitting as Recorder for the City of London, George
+Jeffreys was greatly incensed by a witness who, in a pompous voice,
+called himself a musitioner. With a sneer the Recorder interposed--"A
+musitioner! I thought you were a fiddler!" "I am a musitioner," the
+violinist answered, stoutly. "Oh, indeed," croaked Jeffreys. "That is
+very important--highly important--extremely important! And pray, Mr.
+Witness, what is the difference between a musitioner and a fiddler?"
+With fortunate readiness the man answered, "As much, sir, as there is
+between a pair of bag-pipes and a Recorder."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+A THICKNESS IN THE THROAT.
+
+
+The date is September, 1805, and the room before us is a drawing-room in
+a pleasant house at Brighton. The hot sun is beating down on cliff and
+terrace, beach and pier, on the downs behind the town and the sparkling
+sea in front. The brightness of the blue sky is softened by white vapor
+that here and there resembles a vast curtain of filmy gauze, but nowhere
+has gathered into visible masses of hanging cloud. In the distance the
+sea is murmuring audibly, and through the screened windows, together
+with the drowsy hum of the languid waves, comes a light breeze that is
+invigorating, notwithstanding its sensible warmth.
+
+Besides ourselves there are but two people in the room: a gentlewoman
+who has said farewell to youth, but not to feminine grade and delicacy;
+and an old man, who is lying on a sofa near one of the open windows,
+whilst his daughter plays passages of Handel's music on the piano-forte.
+
+The old man wears the dress of an obsolete school of English gentlemen;
+a large brown wig with three rows of curls, the lowest row resting on
+the curve of his shoulders; a loose grey coat, notable for the size of
+its cuffs and the bigness of its heavy buttons; ruffles at his wrists,
+and frills of fine lace below his roomy cravat. These are the most
+conspicuous articles of his costume, but not the most striking points of
+his aspect. Over his huge, pallid, cadaverous, furrowed face there is an
+air singularly expressive of exhaustion and power, of debility and
+latent strength--an air that says to sensitive beholders, "This
+prostrate veteran was once a giant amongst giants; his fires are dying
+out; but the old magnificent courage and ability will never altogether
+leave him until the beatings of his heart shall have quite ceased: touch
+him with foolishness or disrespect, and his rage will be terrible."
+Standing here we can see his prodigious bushy eyebrows, that are as
+white as driven snow, and under them we can see the large black eyes,
+beneath the angry fierceness of which hundreds of proud British peers,
+assembled in their council-chamber, have trembled like so many whipped
+schoolboys. There is no lustre in them now, and their habitual
+expression is one of weariness and profound indifference to the world--a
+look that is deeply pathetic and depressing, until some transient cause
+of irritation or the words of a sprightly talker rouse him into
+animation. But the most noticeable quality of his face is its look of
+extreme age. Only yesterday a keen observer said of him, "Lord Thurlow
+is, I believe, only seventy-four; and from his appearance I should think
+him a hundred years old."
+
+So quiet is the reclining form, that the pianist thinks her father must
+be sleeping. Turning on the music-stool to get a view of his
+countenance, and to satisfy herself as to his state, she makes a false
+note, when, quick as the blunder, the brown wig turns upon the
+pillow--the furrowed face is presented to her observation, and an
+electric brightness fills the big black eyes, as the veteran, with deep
+rolling tones, reproves her carelessness:--"What are you doing?--what
+are you doing? I had almost forgotten the world. Play that piece again."
+
+Twelve months more--and the lady will be playing Handel's music on that
+same instrument; but the old man will not be a listener.
+
+From Brighton, in 1805, let readers transport themselves to Canterbury
+in 1776, and let them enter a barber's shop, hard by Canterbury
+Cathedral. It is a primitive shop, with the red and white pole over the
+door, and a modest display of wigs and puff-boxes in the window. A small
+shop, but, notwithstanding its smallness, the best shop of its kind in
+Canterbury; and its lean, stiff, exceedingly respectable master is a man
+of good repute in the cathedral town. His hands have, ere now, powdered
+the Archbishop's wig, and he is specially retained by the chief clergy
+of the city and neighborhood to keep their false hair in order, and trim
+the natural tresses of their children. Not only have the dignitaries of
+the cathedral taken the worthy barber under their special protection,
+but they have extended to his little boy Charles, a demure, prim lad,
+who is at this present time a pupil in the King's School, to which
+academy clerical interest gained him admission. The lad is in his
+fourteenth year; and Dr. Osmund Beauvoir, the master of the school,
+gives him so good a character for industry and dutiful demeanor, that
+some of the cathedral ecclesiastics have resolved to make the little
+fellow's fortune--by placing him in the office of a Chorister. There is
+a vacant place in the cathedral choir; and the boy who is lucky enough
+to receive the appointment will be provided for munificently. He will
+forthwith have a maintenance, and in course of time his salary will be
+L70 per annum.
+
+During the last fortnight the barber has been in great and constant
+excitement--hoping that his little boy will obtain this valuable piece
+of preferment; persuading himself that the lad's thickness of voice,
+concerning which the choir-master speaks with aggravating persistence,
+is a matter of no real importance; fearing that the friends of another
+contemporary boy, who is said by the choir-master to have an exceedingly
+mellifluous voice, may defeat his paternal aspirations. The momentous
+question agitates many humble homes in Canterbury; and whilst Mr.
+Abbott, the barber, is encouraged to hope the best for his son, the
+relatives and supporters of the contemporary boy are urging him not to
+despair. Party spirit prevails on either side--Mr. Abbott's family
+associates maintaining that the contemporary boy's higher notes resemble
+those of a penny whistle; whilst the contemporary boy's father, with
+much satire and some justice, murmurs that "old Abbott, who is the
+gossip-monger of the parsons, wants to push his son into a place for
+which there is a better candidate."
+
+To-day is the eventful day when the election will be made. Even now,
+whilst Abbott, the barber, is trimming a wig at his shop window, and
+listening to the hopeful talk of an intimate neighbor, his son Charley
+is chanting the Old Hundredth before the whole chapter. When Charley has
+been put through his vocal paces, the contemporary boy is requested to
+sing. Whereupon that clear-throated competitor, sustained by justifiable
+self-confidence and a new-laid egg which he had sucked scarcely a minute
+before he made his bow to their reverences, sings out with such richness
+and compass that all the auditors recognize his great superiority.
+
+Ere ten more minutes have passed Charley Abbot knows that he has lost
+the election; and he hastens from the cathedral with quick steps.
+Running into the shop he gives his father a look that tells the whole
+story of--failure, and then the little fellow, unable to command his
+grief, sits down upon the floor and sobs convulsively.
+
+Failure is often the first step to eminence.
+
+Had the boy gained the chorister's place, he would have a cathedral
+servant all his days.
+
+Having failed to get it, he returned to the King's School, went a poor
+scholar to Oxford, and fought his way to honor. He became Chief Justice
+of the King's Bench, and a peer of the realm. Towards the close of his
+honorable career Lord Tenterden attended service in the Cathedral of
+Canterbury, accompanied by Mr. Justice Richardson. When the ceremonial
+was at an end the Chief Justice said to his friend--"Do you see that old
+man there amongst the choristers? In him, brother Richardson, behold the
+only being I ever envied: when at school in this town we were candidates
+together for a chorister's place; he obtained it; and if I had gained my
+wish he might have been accompanying you as Chief Justice, and pointing
+me out as his old school-fellow, the singing man."
+
+
+
+
+PART VI.
+
+AMATEUR THEATRICALS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+ACTORS AT THE BAR.
+
+
+Some years since the late Sergeant Wilkins was haranguing a crowd of
+enlightened electors from the hustings of a provincial borough, when a
+stentorian voice exclaimed, "Go home, you rope-dancer!" Disdaining to
+notice the interruption, the orator continued his speech for fifty
+seconds, when the same voice again cried out, "Go home, you
+rope-dancer!" A roar of laughter followed the reiteration of the insult;
+and in less than two minutes thrice fifty unwashed blackguards were
+roaring with all the force of their lungs, "Ah-h-h--Go home, you
+rope-dancer!" Not slow to see the moaning of the words, the unabashed
+lawyer, who in his life had been a dramatic actor, replied with his
+accustomed readiness and effrontery. A young man unacquainted with mobs
+would have descanted indignantly and with many theatrical flourishes on
+the dignity and usefulness of the player's vocation; an ordinary
+demagogue would have frankly admitted the discourteous impeachment, and
+pleaded in mitigation that he had always acted in leading parts and for
+high salaries. Sergeant Wilkins took neither of those courses, for he
+knew his audience, and was aware that his connection with the stage was
+an affair about which he had better say as little as possible. Instead
+of appealing to their generosity, or boasting of his histrionic
+eminence, he threw himself broadly on their sense of humor. Drawing
+himself up to his full height, the big, burly man advanced to the marge
+of the platform, and extending his right hand with an air of authority,
+requested silence by the movement of his arm. The sign was instantly
+obeyed; for having enjoyed their laugh, the multitude wished for the
+rope-dancer's explanation. As soon as the silence was complete, he drew
+back two paces, put himself in an oratorical _pose_, as though he were
+about to speak, and then, disappointing the expectations of the
+assembly, deliberately raised forwards and upwards the skirts of his
+frock-coat. Having thus arranged his drapery he performed a slow
+gyration--presenting his huge round shoulders and unwieldy legs to the
+populace. When his back was turned to the crowd, he stooped and made a
+low obeisance to his vacant chair, thereby giving the effect of
+caricature to the outlines of his most protuberant and least honorable
+part. This pantomime lasted scarcely a minute; and before the spectators
+could collect themselves to resent so extraordinary an affront, the
+sergeant once again faced them, and in a clear, rich, jovial tone
+exclaimed, "_He_ called me a rope-dancer!--after what you have seen, do
+you believe him?"
+
+With the exception of the man who started the cry, every person in the
+dense multitude was convulsed with laughter; and till the end of the
+election no turbulent rascal ventured to repeat the allusion to the
+sergeant's former occupation. At a moment of embarrassment, Mr.
+Disraeli, in the course of one of his youthful candidatures, created a
+diversion in his favor by telling a knot of unruly politicians that he
+_stood on his head_. With less wit, and much less decency, but with
+equal good fortune, Sergeant Wilkins took up his position on a baser
+part of his frame.
+
+The electors who respected Mr. Wilkins because he was a successful
+barrister, whilst they reproached him with having been a stage-player,
+were unaware how close an alliance exists between the art of the actor
+and the art of the advocate. To lawyers of every grade and speciality
+the histrionic faculty is a useful power; but to the advocate who wishes
+to sway the minds of jurors it is a necessary endowment. Comprising
+several distinct abilities, it not only enables the orator to rouse the
+passions and to play on the prejudices of his hearers, but it preserves
+him from the errors of judgment, tone, emphasis--in short, from manifold
+blunders of indiscretion and tact by which verdicts are lost quite as
+often as through defect of evidence and merit. Like the dramatic
+performer, the court-speaker, especially at the common law bar, has to
+assume various parts. Not only should he know the facts of his brief,
+but he should thoroughly identify himself with the client for whom his
+eloquence is displayed. On the theatrical stage mimetic business is cut
+up into specialities, men in most cases filling the parts of men, whilst
+actresses fill the parts of women; the young representing the
+characteristics of youth, whilst actors with special endowments simulate
+the qualities of old age; some confining themselves to light and trivial
+characters, whilst others are never required to strut before the scenes
+with hurried paces, or to speak in phrases that lack dignity and fine
+sentiment. But the popular advocate must in turn fill every _role_. If
+childish simplicity be his client's leading characteristic, his
+intonations will express pliancy and foolish confidence; or if it is
+desirable that the jury should appreciate his client's honesty of
+purpose, he speaks with a voice of blunt, bluff, manly frankness.
+Whatever quality the advocate may wish to represent as the client's
+distinctive characteristic, it must be suggested to the jury by mimetic
+artifice of the finest sort. Speaking of a famous counsel, an
+enthusiastic juryman once said to this writer--"In my time I have heard
+Sir Alexander in pretty nearly every part: I've heard him as an old man
+and a young woman; I have heard him when he has been a ship run down at
+sea, and when he has been an oil-factory in a state of conflagration;
+once, when I was foreman of a jury, I saw him poison his intimate
+friend, and another time he did the part of a pious bank director in a
+fashion that would have skinned the eyelids of Exeter Hall: he ain't bad
+as a desolate widow with nine children, of which the eldest is under
+eight years of age; but if ever I have to listen to him again, I should
+like to see him as a young lady of good connexions who has been seduced
+by an officer of the Guards." In the days of his forensic triumphs Henry
+Brougham was remarkable for the mimetic power which enabled him to
+describe friend or foe by a few subtle turns of the voice. At a later
+period, long after he had left the bar, in compliance with a request
+that he would return thanks for the bridesmaids at a wedding breakfast,
+he observed, that "doubtless he had been selected for the task in
+consideration of his youth, beauty, and innocence." The laughter that
+followed this sally was of the sort which in poetic phraseology is
+called inextinguishable; and one of the wedding guests who heard the
+joke and the laughter, assures this writer that the storm of mirthful
+applause was chiefly due to the delicacy and sweetness of the
+intonations by which the speaker's facile voice, with its old and once
+familiar art, made the audience realize the charms of youth, beauty and
+innocence--charms which, so far as the lawyer's wrinkled visage was
+concerned, were conspicuous by their absence.
+
+Eminent advocates have almost invariably possessed qualities that would
+have made them successful mimics on the stage. For his mastery of
+oratorical artifices Alexander Wedderburn was greatly indebted to
+Sheridan, the lecturer on elocution, and to Macklin, the actor, from
+both of whom he took lessons; and when he had dismissed his teachers and
+become a leader of the English bar he adhered to their rules, and daily
+practised before a looking-glass the facial tricks by which Macklin
+taught him to simulate surprise or anger, indignation or triumph.
+Erskine was a perfect master of dramatic effect, and much of his
+richly-deserved success was due to the theatrical artifices with which
+he played upon the passions of juries. At the conclusion of a long
+oration he was accustomed to feign utter physical prostration, so that
+the twelve gentlemen in the box, in their sympathy for his sufferings
+and their admiration for his devotion to the interests of his client,
+might be impelled by generous emotion to return a favorable verdict.
+Thus when he defended Hardy, hoarseness and fatigue so overpowered him
+towards the close of his speech, that during the last ten minutes he
+could not speak above a whisper, and in order that his whispers might be
+audible to the jury, the exhausted advocate advanced two steps nearer to
+their box, and then extended his pale face to their eager eyes. The
+effect of the artifice on the excited jury is said to have been great
+and enduring, although they were speedily enlightened as to the real
+nature of his apparent distress. No sooner had the advocate received the
+first plaudits of his theatre on the determination of his harangue, than
+the multitude outside the court, taking up the acclamations which were
+heard within the building, expressed their feelings with such deafening
+clamor, and with so many signs of riotous intention, that Erskine was
+entreated to leave the court and soothe the passions of the mob with a
+few words of exhortation. In compliance with this suggestion he left the
+court, and forthwith addressed the dense out-door assembly in clear,
+ringing tones that were audible in Ludgate Hill, at one end of the Old
+Bailey, and to the billowy sea of human heads that surged round St.
+Sepulchre's Church at the other extremity of the dismal thoroughfare.
+
+At the subsequent trial of John Horne Tooke, Sir John Scott, unwilling
+that Erskine should enjoy a monopoly of theatrical artifice, endeavored
+to create a diversion in favor of the government by a display of those
+lachrymose powers, which Byron ridiculed in the following century. "I
+can endure anything but an attack on my good name," exclaimed the
+Attorney General, in reply to a criticism directed against his mode of
+conducting the prosecution; "my good name is the little patrimony I have
+to leave to my children, and, with God's help, gentlemen of the jury, I
+will leave it to them unimpaired." As he uttered these words tears
+suffused the eyes which, at a later period of the lawyer's career, used
+to moisten the woolsack in the House of Lords--
+
+   "Because the Catholics would not rise,
+   In spite of his prayers and his prophecies."
+
+For a moment Horne Tooke, who persisted in regarding all the
+circumstances of his perilous position as farcical, smiled at the
+lawyer's outburst in silent amusement; but as soon as he saw a
+sympathetic brightness in the eyes of one of the jury, the dexterous
+demagogue with characteristic humor and effrontery accused Sir John
+Mitford, the Solicitor General, of needless sympathy with the
+sentimental disturbance of his colleague. "Do you know what Sir John
+Mitford is crying about?" the prisoner inquired of the jury. "He is
+thinking of the destitute condition of Sir John Scott's children, and
+the _little patrimony_ they are likely to divide among them." The jury
+and all present were not more tickled by the satire upon the Attorney
+General than by the indignant surprise which enlivened the face of Sir
+John Mitford, who was not at all prone to tears, and had certainly
+manifested no pity for John Scott's forlorn condition.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+"THE PLAY'S THE THING."
+
+
+Following the example set by the nobility in their castles and civic
+palaces, the Inns of Court set apart certain days of the year for
+feasting and revelry, and amongst the diversions with which the lawyers
+recreated themselves at these periods of rejoicing, the rude
+Pre-Shakespearian dramas took a prominent place. So far back as A.D.
+1431, the Masters of the Lincoln's Inn Bench restricted the number of
+annual revels to four--"one at the feast of All-Hallown, another at the
+feast of St. Erkenwald; the third at the feast of the Purification of
+our Lady; and the 4th at Midsummer." The ceremonials of these holidays
+were various; but the brief and sometimes unintelligible notices of the
+chroniclers give us sufficiently vivid and minute pictures of the
+boisterous jollity that marked the proceedings. Miracle plays and
+moralities, dancing and music, fantastic processions and mad pranks,
+spurred on the hours that were not devoted to heavy meals and deep
+potations. In the merriments of the different Inns there was a pleasant
+diversity--with regard to the duration and details of the
+entertainments: and occasionally the members of the four societies acted
+with so little concert that their festivals, falling at exactly the same
+time, were productive of rivalry and disappointments. Dugdale thinks
+that the Christmas revels were not regularly kept in Lincoln's Inn
+during the reign of Henry VIII.; and draws attention to an order made by
+the benchers of that house on 27 Nov., 22 H. VIII., the record of which
+runs thus:--"It is agreed that IF the two Temples do kepe Chrystemas,
+then the Chrystemas to be kept here; and to know this, the Steward of
+the House ys commanded to get knowledge, and to advertise my masters by
+the next day at night."
+
+But notwithstanding changes and novelties, the main features of a revel
+in an Inn of Court were always much the same. Some member of the society
+conspicuous for rank or wit of style, or for a combination of these
+qualities, was elected King of the Revel, and until the close of the
+long frolic he was despot and sole master of the position--so long as he
+did not disregard a few not vexatious conditions by which, the benchers
+limited his authority. He surrounded himself with a mock court, exacted
+homage from barristers and students, made proclamations to his loyal
+children, sat on a throne at daily banquets, and never appeared in
+public without a body-guard, and a numerous company of musicians, to
+protect his person and delight his ear.
+
+The wit and accomplishments of the younger lawyers were signally
+displayed in the dramatic interludes that usually enlivened these
+somewhat heavy and sluggish jollifications. Not only did they write the
+pieces, and put them before the audience with cunning devices for the
+production of scenic effect, but they were their own actors. It was not
+long before their 'moralities' were seasoned with political sentiments
+and allusions to public affairs. For instance, when Wolsey was in the
+fulness of his power, Sergeant Roo ventured to satirize the Cardinal in
+a masque with which Gray's Inn entertained Henry VIII. and his
+courtiers. Hall records that, "This plaie was so set furth with riche
+and costlie apparel; with strange diuises of maskes and morrishes, that
+it was highly praised of all menne saving the Cardinall, whiche imagined
+that the plaie had been deuised of him, and in greate furie sent for the
+said Maister Roo, and toke from hym his coife, and sent him to the
+Flete, and after he sent for the yoong gentlemen that plaied in the
+plaie, and them highly rebuked and threatened, and sent one of them,
+called Thomas Moyle, of Kent, to the Flete; but by means of friendes
+Master Roo and he wer deliuered at last." The author stoutly denied that
+he intended to satirize the Cardinal; and the chronicler, believing the
+sergeant's assertions, observes, "This plaie sore displeased the
+Cardinal, and yet it was never meant to him." That the presentation of
+plays was a usual feature of the festivals at Gray's Inn may be inferred
+from the passage where Dugdale, in his notes on that society, says;--"In
+4 Edw. VI. (17 Nov.), it was also ordered that henceforth there should
+be no comedies called _Interludes_ in this House out of Term time, but
+when the feast of the Nativity of our Lord is solemnly observed. And
+that when there shall be any such comedies, then all the society at that
+time in commons to bear the charge of the apparel."
+
+Notwithstanding her anxiety for the maintenance of good discipline in
+the Inns of Court, Queen Elizabeth encouraged the Societies to celebrate
+their feasts with costliness and liberal hospitality, and her taste for
+dramatic entertainments increased the splendor and frequency of
+theatrical diversions amongst the lawyers. Christopher Hatton's name is
+connected with the history of the English drama, by the acts which he
+contributed to 'The Tragedie of Tancred and Gismunda, compiled by the
+gentlemen of the Inner Temple, and by them presented before her
+majestie;' and he was one of the chief actors in that ponderous and
+extravagant mummery with which the Inner Temple kept Christmas in the
+fourth year of Elizabeth's reign.
+
+The circumstances of that festival merit special notice.
+
+In the third year of Elizabeth's reign the Middle Temple and the Inner
+Temple were at fierce war, the former society having laid claim to
+Lyon's Inn, which had been long regarded as a dependency of the Inner
+Temple. The two Chief Justices, Sir Robert Catlyn and Sir James Dyer,
+were known to think well of the claimant's title, and the masters of the
+Inner Temple bench anticipated an adverse decision, when Lord Robert
+Dudley (afterwards Earl of Leicester) came to their relief with an order
+from Queen Elizabeth enjoining the Middle Templars no longer to vex
+their neighbors in the matter. Submission being the only course open to
+them, the lawyers of the Middle Temple desisted from their claim; and
+the Masters of the Inner Temple Bench expressed their great gratitude to
+Lord Robert Dudley, "by ordering and enacting that no person or persons
+of their society that then were, or thereafter should be, should be
+retained of councell against him the said Lord Robert, or his heirs; and
+that the arms of the said Lord Robert should be set up and placed in
+some convenient place in their Hall as a continual monument of his
+lordship's favor unto them."
+
+Further honors were paid to this nobleman at the ensuing Christmas, when
+the Inner Temple held a revel of unusual magnificence and made Lord
+Robert the ruler of the riot. Whilst the holidays lasted the young
+lord's title and style were "Pallaphilos, prince of Sophie High
+Constable Marshal of the Knights Templars, and Patron of the Honorable
+Order of Pegasus." And he kept a stately court, having for his chief
+officers--Mr. Onslow (Lord Chancellor), Anthony Stapleton (Lord
+Treasurer), Robert Kelway (Lord Privy Seal), John Fuller (Chief Justice
+of the King's Bench), William Pole (Chief Justice of the Common Pleas),
+Roger Manwood (Chief Baron of the Exchequer), Mr. Bashe (Steward of the
+Household), Mr. Copley (Marshal of the Household), Mr. Paten (Chief
+Butler), Christopher Hatton (Master of the Game), Messieurs Blaston,
+Yorke, Penston, Jervise (Masters of the Revels), Mr. Parker (Lieutenant
+of the Tower), Mr. Kendall (Carver), Mr. Martyn (Ranger of the Forests),
+and Mr. Stradling (Sewer). Besides these eighteen Placemen, Pallaphilos
+had many other mock officers, whose names are not recorded, and he was
+attended by a body-guard of fourscore members of the Inn.
+
+From the pages of Gerard Leigh and Dugdale, the reader can obtain a
+sufficiently minute account of the pompous ceremonials and heavy
+buffooneries of the season. He may learn some of the special services
+and contributions which Prince Pallaphilos required of his chief
+courtiers, and take note how Mr. Paten, as Chief Butler, had to provide
+seven dozen silver and gilt spoons, twelve dozen silver and gilt
+salt-cellars, twenty silver and gilt candlesticks, twenty fine large
+table-cloths of damask and diaper, twenty dozen white napkins, three
+dozen fair large towels, twenty dozen white cups and green pots, to say
+nothing of carving-knives, carving table, tureens, bread, beer, ale, and
+wine. The reader also may learn from those chroniclers how the company
+were placed according to degrees at different tables; how the banquets
+were served to the sound of drums and fifes; how the boar's head was
+brought in upon a silver dish; how the gentlemen in gowns, the
+trumpeters, and other musicians followed the boar's head in stately
+procession; and how, by a rule somewhat at variance with modern notions
+concerning old English hospitality, strangers of worth were expected to
+pay in cash for their entertainment, eightpence per head being the
+charge for dinner on the day of Christmas Eve, and twelve-pence being
+demanded from each stranger for his dinner on the following day.
+
+Ladies were not excluded from all the festivities; though it may be
+presumed they did not share in all the riotous meals of the period. It
+is certain that they were invited, together with the young law-students
+from the Inns of Chancery, to see a play and a masque acted in the hall;
+that seats were provided for their special accommodation in the hall
+whilst the sports were going forward; and that at the close of the
+dramatic performances the gallant dames and pretty girls were
+entertained by Pallaphilos in the library with a suitable banquet;
+whilst the mock Lord Chancellor, Mr. Onslow, presided at a feast in the
+hall, which with all possible speed had been converted from theatrical
+to more appropriate uses.
+
+But though the fun was rare and the array was splendid to idle folk of
+the sixteenth century, modern taste would deem such gaiety rude and
+wearisome, would call the ladies' banquet a disorderly scramble, and
+think the whole frolic scarce fit for schoolboys. And in many respects
+those revels of olden time were indecorous, noisy, comfortless affairs.
+There must have been a sad want of room and fresh air in the Inner
+Temple dining-hall, when all the members of the inn, the selected
+students from the subordinate Inns of Chancery, and half a hundred
+ladies (to say nothing of Mr. Gerard Leigh and illustrious strangers),
+had crowded into the space set apart for the audience. At the dinners
+what wrangling and tumult must have arisen through squabbles for place,
+and the thousand mishaps that always attend an endeavor to entertain
+five hundred gentlemen at a dinner, in a room barely capacious enough
+for the proper accommodation of a hundred and fifty persons. Unless this
+writer greatly errs, spoons and knives were in great request, and table
+linen was by no means 'fair and spotless' towards the close of the rout.
+
+Superb, on that holyday, was the aspect of Prince Pallaphilos. Wearing a
+complete suit of elaborately wrought and richly gilt armor, he bore
+above his helmet a cloud of curiously dyed feathers, and held a gilt
+pole-axe in his hand. By his side walked the Lieutenant of the Tower
+(Mr. Parker), clad in white armor, and like Pallaphilos furnished with
+feathers and a pole-axe.
+
+On entering the hall the prince and his Lieutenant of the Tower were
+preceded by sixteen trumpeters (at full blare), four drummers (at full
+drum), and a company of fifers (at full whistle), and followed by four
+men in white armor, bearing halberds in their hands. Thrice did this
+procession march round the fire that blazed in the centre of the hall;
+and when in the course of these three circuits the four halberdiers and
+the musicians had trodden upon everybody's toes (their own included),
+and when moreover they had blown themselves out of time and breath,
+silence was proclaimed; and Prince Pallaphilos, having laid aside his
+pole-axe and his naked sword and a few other trifles, took his seat at
+the urgent entreaty of the mock Lord Chancellor.
+
+But Kit Hatton's appearance and part in the proceedings were even more
+outrageously ridiculous. The future Lord Chancellor of England was then
+a very elegant and witty young fellow, proud of his quick humor and
+handsome face, but far prouder of his exquisitely proportioned legs. No
+sooner had Prince Pallaphilos taken his seat, at the Lord Chancellor's
+suggestion, than Kit Hatton (as master of the game) entered the hall,
+dressed in a complete suit of green velvet, and holding a green bow in
+his left hand. His quiver was supplied with green arrows, and round his
+neck was slung a hunting-horn. By Kit's side, arrayed in exactly the
+same style, walked the Ranger of the Forests (Mr. Martyn); and having
+forced their way into the crowded chamber, the two young men blew three
+blasts of venery upon their horns, and then paced three times round the
+fire. After thus parading the hall they paused before the Lord
+Chancellor, to whom the Master of Game made three curtsies, and then on
+his knees proclaimed the desire of his heart to serve the mighty Prince
+Pallaphilos.
+
+Having risen from his kneeling posture Kit Hatton blew his horn, and at
+the signal his huntsman entered the room, bringing with him a fox, a
+cat, and ten couples of hounds. Forthwith the fox was released from the
+pole to which it was bound; and when the luckless creature had crept
+into a corner under one of the tables, the ten couples of hounds were
+sent in pursuit. It is a fact that English gentlemen in the sixteenth
+century thus amused themselves with a fox-hunt in a densely crowded
+dining-room. Over tables and under tables, up the hall and down the
+hall, those score hounds went at full cry after a miserable fox, which
+they eventually ran into and killed in the cinder-pit, or as Dugdale
+expresses it, "beneath the fire." That work achieved, the cat was turned
+off, and the hounds sent after her, with much blowing of horns, much
+cracking of whips, and deafening cries of excitement from the gownsmen,
+who tumbled over one another in their eagerness to be in at the death.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+THE RIVER AND THE STRAND BY TORCHLIGHT.
+
+
+Scarcely less out of place in the dining-hall than Kit Hatton's hounds,
+was the mule fairly mounted on which the Prince Pallaphilos made his
+appearance at the High Table after supper, when he notified to his
+subjects in what manner they were to disport themselves till bedtime.
+Thus also when the Prince of Purpoole kept his court at Gray's Inn, A.D.
+1594, the prince's champion rode into the dining-hall upon the back of a
+fiery charger which, like the rider, was clothed in a panoply of steel.
+
+In costliness and riotous excess the Prince of Purpoole's revel at
+Gray's Inn was not inferior to any similar festivity in the time of
+Elizabeth. On the 20th of December, St. Thomas's Eve, the Prince (one
+Master Henry Holmes, a Norfolk gentleman) took up his quarters in the
+Great Hall of the Inn, and by the 3rd day of January the grandeur and
+comicality of his proceedings had created so much talk throughout the
+town that the Lord Treasurer Burghley, the Earls of Cumberland, Essex,
+Shrewsbury and Westmoreland, the Lords Buckhurst, Windsor, Sheffield,
+Compton, and a magnificent array of knights and ladies visited Gray's
+Inn Hall on that day and saw the masque which the revellers put upon the
+stage. After the masque there was a banquet, which was followed by a
+ball. On the following day the prince, attended by eighty gentlemen of
+Gray's Inn and the Temple (each of the eighty wearing a plume on his
+head), dined in state with the Lord Mayor and aldermen of the city, at
+Crosby Place. The frolic continued for many days more; the royal
+Purpoole on one occasion visiting Blackwall with a splendid retinue, on
+another (Twelfth Night) receiving a gallant assembly of lords, ladies,
+and Knights, at his court in Gray's Inn, and on a third (Shrovetide)
+visiting the queen herself at Greenwich, when Her Majesty warmly
+applauded the masque set before her by the actors who were members of
+the Prince's court. So delighted was Elizabeth with the entertainment,
+that she graciously allowed the masquers to kiss her right hand, and
+loudly extolled Gray's Inn "as an house she was much indebted to, for it
+did always study for some sports to present unto her;" whilst to the
+mock Prince she showed her favor, by placing in his hand the jewel (set
+with seventeen diamonds and fourteen rubies) which he had won by valor
+and skill in the tournament which formed part of the Shrovetide sports.
+
+Numerous entries in the records of the inns testify to the importance
+assigned by the olden lawyers to their periodic feasts; and though in
+the fluctuations of public opinion with regard to the effects of
+dramatic amusements, certain benchers, or even all the benchers of a
+particular inn, may be found at times discountenancing the custom of
+presenting masques, the revels were usually diversified and heightened
+by stage plays. Not only were interludes given at the high and grand
+holidays styled _Solemn Revels_, but also at the minor festivities
+termed Post Revels they were usually had recourse to for amusement.
+"Besides those _solemn revels_, or measures aforesaid," says Dugdale,
+concerning the old usages of the 'Middle Temple,' "they had wont to be
+entertained with Post Revels performed by the better sort of the young
+gentlemen of the society, with galliards, corrantoes, and other dances,
+or else with stage-plays; the first of these feasts being at the
+beginning, and the other at the latter end of Christmas. But of late
+years these Post Revels have been disused, both here and in the other
+Inns of Court."
+
+Besides producing and acting some of our best Pro-Shakespearian dramas,
+the Elizabethan lawyers put upon the stage at least one of William
+Shakespeare's plays. From the diary of a barrister (supposed to be John
+Manningham, of the Middle Temple), it is learnt that the Middle
+Templar's acted Shakespeare's 'Twelfth Night' at the Readers' feast on
+Candlemas Day, 1601-2.[20]
+
+In the following reign, the masques of the lawyers in no degree fell off
+with regard to splendor. Seldom had the Thames presented a more
+picturesque and exhilarating spectacle than it did on the evening of
+February 20, 1612, when the gentlemen masquers of Gray's Inn and the
+Temple, entered the king's royal barge at Winchester House, at seven
+o'clock, and made the voyage to Whitehall, attended by hundreds of
+barges and boats, each vessel being so brilliantly illuminated that the
+lights reflected upon the ripples of the river, seemed to be countless.
+As though the hum and huzzas of the vast multitude on the water were
+insufficient to announce the approach of the dazzling pageant, guns
+marked the progress of the revellers, and as they drew near the palace,
+all the attendant bands of musicians played the same stirring tune with
+uniform time. It is on record that the king received the amateur actors
+with an excess of condescension, and was delighted with the masque which
+Master Beaumont of the Inner Temple, and his friend, Master Fletcher,
+had written and dedicated "to the worthy Sir Francis Bacon, his
+Majesty's Solicitor-General, and the grave and learned bench of the
+anciently-called houses of Grayes Inn and the Inner Temple, and the
+Inner Temple and Grayes Inn." The cost of this entertainment was
+defrayed by the members of the two inns--each reader paying L4, each
+ancient, L2 10_s._; each barrister, L2, and each student, 20_s._
+
+The Inner Temple and Gray's Inn having thus testified their loyalty and
+dramatic taste, in the following year on Shrove-Monday night (Feb. 15,
+1613), Lincoln's Inn and the Middle Temple, with no less splendor and
+_eclat_, enacted at Whitehall a masque written by George Chapman. For
+this entertainment, Inigo Jones designed and perfected the theatrical
+decorations in a style worthy of an exhibition that formed part of the
+gaieties with which the marriage of the Palsgrave with the Princess
+Elizabeth was celebrated. And though the masquers went to Whitehall by
+land, their progress was not less pompous than the procession which had
+passed up the Thames in the February of the preceding year. Having
+mustered in Chancery Lane, at the official residence of the Master of
+the Rolls, the actors and their friends delighted the town with a
+gallant spectacle. Mounted on richly-caparisoned and mettlesome horses,
+they rode from Fleet Street up the Strand, and by Charing Cross to
+Whitehall, through a tempest of enthusiasm. Every house was illuminated,
+every window was crowded with faces, on every roof men stood in rows,
+from every balcony bright eyes looked down upon the gay scene, and from
+basement to garret, from kennel to roof-top throughout the long way,
+deafening cheers testified, whilst they increased the delight of the
+multitude. Such a pageant would, even in these sober days, rouse London
+from her cold propriety. Having thrown aside his academic robe, each
+masquer had donned a fantastic dress of silver cloth embroidered with
+gold lace, gold plate, and ostrich plumes. He wore across his breast a
+gold baldrick, round his neck a ruff of white feathers brightened with
+pearls and silver lace, and on his head a coronal of snowy plumes.
+Before each mounted masquer rode a torch-bearer, whose right hand waved
+a scourge of flame, instead of a leathern thong. In a gorgeous chariot,
+preceded by a long train of heralds, were exhibited the Dramatis
+Personae--Honor, Plutus, Eunomia, Phemeis, Capriccio--arrayed in their
+appointed costumes; and it was rumored that the golden canopy of their
+coach had been bought for an enormous sum. Two other triumphal cars
+conveyed the twelve chief musicians of the kingdom, and these masters of
+melody were guarded by torch-bearers, marching two deep before and
+behind, and on either side of the glittering carriages. Preceding the
+musicians, rode a troop of ludicrous objects, who roused the derision of
+the mob, and made fat burghers laugh till tears ran down their cheeks.
+They were the mock masque, each resembling an ape, each wearing a
+fantastic dress that heightened the hideous absurdity of his monkey's
+visage, each riding upon an ass, or small pony, and each of them
+throwing shells upon the crowd by way of a largess. In the front of the
+mock masque, forming the vanguard of the entire spectacle, rode fifty
+gentlemen of the Inns of Court, reining high-bred horses, and followed
+by their running footmen, whose liveries added to the gorgeous
+magnificence of the display.
+
+Besides the expenses which fell upon individuals taking part in the
+play, or procession, this entertainment cost the two inns L1086 8_s._
+11_d._ About the same time Gray's Inn, at the instigation of Attorney
+General Sir Francis Bacon, performed 'The Masque of Flowers' before the
+lords and ladies of the court, in the Banqueting-house, Whitehall; and
+six years later Thomas Middleton's Inner Temple Masque, or Masque of
+Heroes' was presented before a goodly company of grand ladies by the
+Inner Templars.
+
+[20] The propensity of lawyers for the stage, lingered amongst
+barristers on Circuit, to a comparatively recent date. 'Old stagers' of
+the Home and Western Circuits, can recall how the juniors of their
+briefless and bagless days used to entertain the natives of Guildford
+and Exeter with Shakspearian performances. The Northern Circuit also was
+at one time famous for the histrionic ability of its bar, but toward the
+close of the last century, the dramatic recreations of its junior
+members were discountenanced by the Grand Court.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+ANTI-PRYNNE.
+
+
+Of all the masques mentioned in the records of the Inns of Court, the
+most magnificent and costly was the famous Anti-Prynne demonstration, by
+which the lawyers endeavored to show their contemptuous disapproval of a
+work that inveighed against the licentiousness of the stage, and
+preferred a charge of wanton levity against those who encouraged
+theatrical performances.
+
+Whilst the 'Histriomastix' rendered the author ridiculous to mere men of
+pleasure, it roused fierce animosities by the truth and fearless
+completeness of its assertions; but to no order of society was the
+famous attack on the stage more offensive than to the lawyers; and of
+lawyers the members of Lincoln's Inn were the most vehement in their
+displeasure. The actors writhed under the attack; the lawyers were
+literally furious with rage--for whilst rating them soundly for their
+love of theatrical amusements, Prynne almost contrived to make it seem
+that his views were acceptable to the wisest and most reverend members
+of the legal profession. Himself a barrister of Lincoln's Inn, he with
+equal craft and audacity complimented the benchers of that society on
+the firmness with which they had forbidden professional actors to take
+part in the periodic revels of the inn, and on their inclination to
+govern the society in accordance with Puritanical principles. Addressing
+his "Much Honored Friends, the Right Worshipful Masters of the Bench of
+the Honorable Flourishing Law Society of Lincoln's Inne," the
+utter-barrister said: "For whereas other Innes of Court (I know not by
+what evil custom, and worse example) admit of common actors and
+interludes upon their two grand festivalls, to recreate themselves
+withall, notwithstanding the statutes of our Kingdome (of which
+lawyers, of all others, should be most observant), have branded all
+professed stage-players for infamous rogues, and stage-playes for
+unlawful pastimes, especially on Lord's-dayes and other solemn
+holidayes, on which these grand dayes ever fall; yet such hath been your
+pious tender care, not only of this societie's honor, but also of the
+young students' good (for the advancing of whose piety and studies you
+have of late erected a magnificent chapel, and since that a library),
+that as you have prohibited by late publicke orders, all disorderly
+Bacchanalian Grand-Christmasses (more fit for pagans than Christians;
+for the deboisest roarers than grave civill students, who should be
+patternes of sobriety unto others), together with all publicke dice-play
+in the Hall (a most pernicious, infamous game; condemned in all ages,
+all places, not onely by councels, fathers, divines, civilians,
+canonists, politicians, and other Christian writers; by divers Pagan
+authors of all sorts, and by Mahomet himselfe; but likewise by sundry
+heathen, yea, Christian Magistrates' edicts)."
+
+Concerning the London theatres he observes that the "two old play
+houses" (_i.e._, the Fortune and the Red Bull), the "new theatre"
+(_i.e._, Whitefriars play-house), and two other established theatres,
+being found inadequate to the wants of the play-going public, a sixth
+theatre had recently been opened. "The multitude of our London
+play-haunters being so augmented now, that all the ancient Divvel's
+Chappels (for so the fathers style all play-houses) being five in
+number, are not sufficient to containe their troops, whence we see a
+sixth now added to them, whereas even in vitious Nero his raigne there
+were but three standing theatres in Pagan Rome (though far more splendid
+than Christian London), and those three too many." Having thus
+enumerated some of the saddest features of his age, the author of the
+'Player's Scourge' again commends the piety and decorum of the
+Lincoln's Inn Benchers, saying, "So likewise in imitation of the ancient
+Lacedaemonians and Massilienses, or rather of primitive zealous
+Christians, you have always from my first admission into your society,
+and long before, excluded all common players with their ungodly
+interludes, from all your solemn festivals."
+
+If the benchers of one Inn winced under Prynne's 'expressions of
+approval,' the students of all the Inns of Court were even more
+displeased with the author who, in a dedicatory letter "to the right
+Christian, Generous Young Gentlemen-Students of the four Innes of Court,
+and especially those of Lincolne's Inne," urged them to "at last
+falsifie that ignominious censure which some English writers in their
+printed works have passed upon Innes of Court Students, of whom they
+record:--That Innes of Court men were undone but for players, that they
+are their chiefest guests and imployment, and the sole business that
+makes them afternoon's men; that is one of the first things they learne
+as soon as they are admitted, to see stage-playes, and take smoke at a
+play-house, which they commonly make their studie; where they quickly
+learne to follow all fashions, to drinke all healths, to wear favours
+and good cloathes, to consort with ruffianly companions, to swear the
+biggest oaths, to quarrel easily, fight desperately, quarrel
+inordinately, to spend their patrimony ere it fall, to use gracefully
+some gestures of apish compliment, to talk irreligiously, to dally with
+a mistresse, and hunt after harlots, to prove altogether lawless in
+steed of lawyers, and to forget that little learning, grace, and vertue
+which they had before; so much that they grow at last past hopes of ever
+doing good, either to the church, their country, their owne or others'
+souls."
+
+The storm of indignation which followed the appearance of the
+'Histriomastix' was directed by the members of the Four Inns, who felt
+themselves bound by honor no less than by interest, to disavow all
+connexion with, or leaning towards, the unpopular author.
+
+On the suggestion of Lincoln's Inn, the four societies combined their
+forces, and at a cost of more than twenty thousand pounds, in addition
+to sums spent by individuals, entertained the Court with that splendid
+masque which Whitelock has described in his 'Memoirs' with elaborate
+prolixity. The piece entitled 'The Triumph of Peace,' was written by
+Shirley, and it was produced with a pomp and lavish expenditure that
+were without precedent. The organization and guidance of the undertaking
+were entrusted to a committee of eight barristers, two from each inn;
+and this select body comprised men who were alike remarkable for
+talents, accomplishments, and ambition, and some of whom were destined
+to play strangely diverse parts in the drama of their epoch. It
+comprised Edward Hyde, then in his twenty-sixth year; young Bulstrode
+Whitelock, who had not yet astonished the more decorous magnates of his
+country by wearing a falling-band at the Oxford Quarter Sessions; Edward
+Herbert, the most unfortunate of Cavalier lawyers; John Selden, already
+a middle-aged man; John Finch, born in the same year as Selden, and
+already far advanced in his eager course to a not honorable notoriety.
+Attorney General Noy was also of the party, but his disastrous career
+was already near its close.
+
+The committee of management had their quarters at Ely House, Holborn;
+and from that historic palace the masquers started for Whitehall on the
+eve of Candlemas Day, 1633-4. It was a superb procession. First marched
+twenty tall footmen, blazing in liveries of scarlet cloth trimmed with
+lace, each of them holding a baton in his right hand, and in his left a
+flaring torch that covered his face with light, and made the steel and
+silver of his sword-scabbard shine brilliantly. A company of the
+marshal's men marched next with firm and even steps, clearing the way
+for their master. A burst of deafening applause came from the multitude
+as the marshal rode through the gateway of Ely House, and caracoled over
+the Holborn way on the finest charger that the king's stables could
+furnish. A perfect horseman and the handsomest man then in town, Mr.
+Darrel of Lincoln's Inn, had been elected to the office of marshal in
+deference to his wealth, his noble aspect, his fine nature, and his
+perfect mastery of all manly sports. On either side of Mr. Darrel's
+horse marched a lacquey bearing a flambeau, and the marshal's page was
+in attendance with his master's cloak. An interval of some twenty paces,
+and then came the marshal's body-guard, composed of one hundred mounted
+gentlemen of the Inns of Court--twenty-five from each house; showing in
+their faces the signs of gentle birth and honorable nurture; and with
+strong hands reining mettlesome chargers that had been furnished for
+their use by the greatest nobles of the land. This flood of flashing
+chivalry was succeeded by an anti-masque of beggars and cripples,
+mounted on the lamest and most unsightly of rat-tailed srews and
+spavined ponies, and wearing dresses that threw derision on legal
+vestments and decorations. Another anti-masque satirized the wild
+projects of crazy speculators and inventors; and as it moved along the
+spectators laughed aloud at the "fish-call, or looking-glass for fishes
+in the sea, very useful for fishermen to call all kinds of fish to their
+nets;" the newly-invented wind-mate for raising a breeze over becalmed
+seas, the "movable hydraulic" which should give sleep to patients
+suffering under fever.
+
+Chariots and horsemen, torch-bearers and lacqueys, followed in order.
+"Then came the first chariot of the grand masquers, which was not so
+large as those that went before, but most curiously framed, carved, and
+painted with exquisite art, and purposely for this service and occasion.
+The form of it was after that of the Roman triumphant chariots. The
+seats in it were made of oval form in the back end of the chariot, so
+that there was no precedence in them, and the faces of all that sat in
+it might be seen together. The colors of the first chariot were silver
+and crimson, given by the lot to Gray's Inn: the chariot was drawn with
+four horses all abreast, and they were covered to their heels all over
+with cloth of tissue, of the colors of crimson and silver, huge plumes
+of white and red feathers on their heads; the coachman's cap and
+feather, his long coat, and his very whip and cushion of the same stuff
+and color. In this chariot sat the four grand masquers of Gray's Inn,
+their habits, doublets, trunk-hose, and caps of most rich cloth of
+tissue, and wrought as thick with silver spangles as they could be
+placed; large white stockings up to their trunk-hose, and rich sprigs in
+their cap, themselves proper and beautiful young gentlemen. On each side
+of the chariot were four footmen in liveries of the color of the
+chariot, carrying huge flamboys in their hands, which, with the torches,
+gave such a lustre to the paintings, spangles, and habits that hardly
+anything could be invented to appear more glorious."
+
+Six musicians followed the state-chariot of Gray's Inn, playing as they
+went; and then came the triumphal cars of the Middle Templars, the Inner
+Templars, and the Lincoln's Inn men--each car being drawn by four horses
+and attended by torch-bearers, flambeau-bearers, and musicians. In shape
+these four cars were alike, but they differed in the color of their
+fittings. Whilst Gray's Inn used scarlet and silver, the Middle
+Templars chose blue and silver decorations, and each of the other two
+houses adopted a distinctive color for the housings of their horses and
+the liveries of their servants. It is noteworthy that the inns (equal as
+to considerations of dignity) took their places in the pageant by lot;
+and that the four grand masquers of each inn were seated in their
+chariot on seats so constructed that none of the four took precedence of
+the others. The inns, in days when questions of precedence received much
+attention, were very particular in asserting their equality, whenever
+two or more of them acted in co-operation. To mark this equality, the
+masque written by Beaumont and Fletcher in 1612 was described "The
+Masque of the Inner Temple and Grayes Inn; Grayes Inn and the Inner
+Temple:" and the dedication of the piece to Francis Bacon, reversing
+this transposition, mentions "the allied houses of Grayes Inn and the
+Inner Temple, and the Inner Temple and Grayes Inn," these changes being
+made to point the equal rank of the two fraternities.
+
+Through the illuminated streets this pageant marched to the sound of
+trumpets and drums, cymbals and fifes, amidst the deafening acclamations
+of the delighted town; and when the lawyers reached Whitehall, the king
+and queen were so delighted with the spectacle, that the procession was
+ordered to make the circuit of the tilt-yard for the gratification of
+their Majesties, who would fain see the sight once again from the
+windows of their palace. Is there need to speak of the manner in which
+the masque was acted, of the music and dances, of the properties and
+scenes, of the stately banquet after the play and the grand ball which
+began at a still later hour, of the king's urbanity and the graciousness
+of Henrietta, who "did the honor to some of the masquers to dance with
+them herself, and to judge them as good dancers as she ever saw!"
+
+Notwithstanding a few untoward broils and accidents, the entertainment
+passed off so satisfactorily that 'The Triumph of Peace' was acted for a
+second time in the presence of the king and queen, in the Merchant
+Taylors' Hall. Other diversions of the same kind followed with scarcely
+less _eclat_. At Whitehall the king himself and some of the choicest
+nobles of the land turned actors, and performed a grand masque, on which
+occasion the Templars were present as spectators in seats of honor.
+
+During the Shrovetide rejoicings of 1635, Henrietta even condescended to
+witness the performance of Davenant's 'Triumphs of the Prince d'Amour,'
+in the hall of the Middle Temple. Laying aside the garb of royalty, she
+went to the Temple, attended by a party of lords and ladies, and fine
+gentlemen who, like herself, assumed for the evening dresses suitable to
+persons of private station. The Marquis of Hamilton, the Countess of
+Denbigh, the Countess of Holland, and Lady Elizabeth Fielding were her
+companions; whilst the official attendants on her person were the Earl
+of Holland, Lord Goring, Mr. Percy, and Mr. Jermyn. Led to her place by
+"Mrs. Basse, the law-woman," Henrietta took a seat upon a scaffold fixed
+along the northern side of the hall, and amidst a crush of benchers'
+wives and daughters saw the play and heartily enjoyed it.
+
+Says Whitelock, at the conclusion of his account of the grand masque
+given by the four inns, "Thus these dreams past, and these pomps
+vanished." Scarcely had the frolic terminated when death laid a chill
+hand on the time-serving Noy, who in the consequences of his dishonest
+counsels left a cruel legacy to the master and the country whom he alike
+betrayed. A few more years--and John Finch, having lost the Great Seal,
+was an exile in a foreign land, destined to die in penury, without
+again setting foot on his native soil. The graceful Herbert, whose
+smooth cheek had flushed with joy at Henrietta's musical courtesies,
+became for a brief day the mock Lord Keeper of Charles II.'s mock court
+at Paris, and then, dishonored and disowned by his capricious master, he
+languished in poverty and disease, until he found an obscure grave in
+the French capital. More fortunate than his early rival, Edward Hyde
+outlived Charles Stuart's days of adverse fortune, and rose to a
+grievous greatness; but like that early rival, he, too, died in exile in
+France. Perhaps of all the managers of the grand masque the scholarly
+pedant, John Selden, had the greatest share of earthly satisfaction. Not
+the least fortunate of the party was the historian of "the pomp and
+glory, if not the vanity of the show," who having survived the
+Commonwealth and witnessed the Restoration, was permitted to retain his
+paternal estate, and in his last days could tell his numerous
+descendants how his old chum, Edward Hyde, had risen, fallen,
+and--passed to another world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+AN EMPTY GRATE.
+
+
+With the revival of gaiety which attended and followed the Restoration,
+revels and masques came once more into vogue at the Inns of Court,
+where, throughout the Commonwealth, plays had been prohibited, and
+festivals had been either abolished or deprived of their ancient
+hilarity. The caterers of amusement for the new king were not slow to
+suggest that he should honor the lawyers with a visit; and in accordance
+with their counsel, His Majesty took water on August 15, 1661, and went
+in the royal barge from Whitehall to the Temple to dine at the Reader's
+feast.
+
+Heneage Finch had been chosen Autumn Reader of that inn, and in
+accordance with ancient usage he demonstrated his ability to instruct
+young gentlemen in the principles of English law, by giving a series of
+costly banquets. From the days of the Tudors to the rise of Oliver
+Cromwell, the Reader's feasts had been amongst the most sumptuous and
+ostentatious entertainments of the town--the Sergeant's feasts scarcely
+surpassing them in splendor, the inaugural dinners of lord mayors often
+lagging behind them in expense. But Heneage Finch's lavish hospitality
+outstripped the doings of all previous Readers. His revel was protracted
+throughout six days, and on each of these days he received at his table
+the representative members of some high social order or learned body.
+Beginning with a dinner to the nobility and Privy Councillors, he
+finished with a banquet to the king; and on the intervening days he
+entertained the civic authorities, the College of Physicians, the civil
+lawyers, and the dignitaries of the Church.
+
+The king's visit was attended with imposing ceremony, and wanted no
+circumstance that could have rendered the occasion more honorable to the
+host or to the society of which he was a member. All the highest
+officers of the court accompanied the monarch, and when he stepped from
+his barge at the Temple Stairs, he spoke with jovial urbanity to his
+entertainer and the Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, who received
+him with tokens of loyal deference and attachment. "On each side," says
+Dugdale, "as His Majesty passed, stood the Reader's servants in scarlet
+cloaks and white tabba doublets; there being a way made through the wall
+into the Temple Gardens; and above them on each side the benchers,
+barristers, and other gentlemen of the society, all in their gowns and
+formalities, the loud music playing from the time of his landing till he
+entered the hall; where he was received with xx violins, which continued
+as long as his majesty stayed." Fifty chosen gentlemen of the inn,
+wearing their academic gowns, placed dinner on the table, and waited on
+the feasters--no other servants being permitted to enter the hall during
+the progress of the banquet. On the dais at the top of the hall, under a
+canopy of state, the king and his brother James sat apart from men of
+lower degree, whilst the nobles of Whitehall occupied one long table,
+under the presidency of the Lord Chancellor, and the chief personages of
+the inn dined at a corresponding long table, having the reader for their
+chairman.
+
+In the following January, Charles II. and the Duke of York honored
+Lincoln's Inn with a visit, whilst the mock Prince de la Grange held his
+court within the walls of that society. Nine years later--in the
+February of 1671--King Charles and his brother James again visited
+Lincoln's Inn, on which occasion they were entertained by Sir Francis
+Goodericke, Knt., the reader of the inn, who seems almost to have gone
+beyond Heneage Finch in sumptuous profusion of hospitality. Of this
+royal visit a particular account is to be seen in the Admittance Book of
+the Honorable Society, from which it appears that the royal brothers
+were attended by the Dukes of Monmouth and Richmond; the Earls of
+Manchester, Bath, and Anglesea; Viscount Halifax, the Bishop of Ely,
+Lord Newport, Lord Henry Howard, and "divers others of great qualitie."
+
+The entertainment in most respects was a repetition of Sir Heneage
+Finch's feast--the king, the Duke of York, and Prince Rupert dining on
+the dais at the top of the hall, whilst the persons of inferior though
+high quality were regaled at two long tables, set down the hall; and
+the gentlemen of the inn condescending to act as menial servants. The
+reader himself, dropping on his knee when he performed the servile
+office, proffered the towel with which the king prepared himself for the
+repast; and barristers of ancient lineage and professional eminence
+contended for the honor of serving His Majesty with surloin and
+cheesecake upon the knee, and hastened with the alacrity of well-trained
+lacqueys to do the bidding of "the lords att their table." Having eaten
+and drunk to his lively satisfaction, Charles called for the Admittance
+Book of the Inn, and placed his name on the roll of members, thereby
+conferring on the society an honor for which no previous king of England
+had furnished a precedent. Following their chief's example, the Duke of
+York and Prince Rupert and other nobles forthwith joined the fraternity
+of lawyers; and hastily donning students' gowns, they mingled with the
+troop of gowned servitors, and humbly waited on their liege lord.
+
+In like manner, twenty-one years since (July 29, 1845) when Queen
+Victoria and her lamented consort visited Lincoln's Inn, on the opening
+of the new hall, they condescended to enter their names in the Admission
+Book of the Inn, thereby making themselves students of the society. Her
+Majesty has not been called to the bar; but Prince Albert in due course
+became a barrister and bencher. Repeating the action of Charles II.'s
+courtiers, the great Duke of Wellington and the bevy of great nobles
+present at the celebration became fellow-students with the queen; and on
+leaving the table the prince walked down the hall, wearing a student's
+stuff gown (by no means the most picturesque of academic robes), over
+his field-marshal's uniform. Her Majesty forbore to disarrange her
+toilet--which consisted of a blue bonnet with blue feathers, a dress of
+Limerick lace, and a scarlet shawl, with a deep gold edging--by putting
+her arms through the sleeveless arm-holes of a bombazine frock.
+
+Grateful to the lawyers for the cordiality with which they welcomed him
+to the country, William III. accepted an invitation to the Middle
+Temple, and was entertained by that society with a banquet and a masque,
+of which notice has been taken in another chapter of this work; and in
+1697-8 Peter the Great was a guest at the Christmas revels of the
+Templars. On that occasion the Czar enjoyed a favorable opportunity for
+gratifying his love of strong drink, and for witnessing the ease with
+which our ancestors drank wine by the magnum and punch by the gallon,
+when they were bent on enjoyment.
+
+In the greater refinement and increasing delicacy of the eighteenth
+century, the Inns of Court revels, which had for so many generations
+been conspicuous amongst the gaieties of the town, became less and less
+magnificent; and they altogether died out under the second of those
+Georges who are thought by some persons to have corrupted public morals
+and lowered the tastes of society. In 1733-4, when Lord Chancellor
+Talbot's elevation to the woolsack was celebrated by a revel in the
+Inner Temple Hall, the dulness and disorder of the celebration convinced
+the lawyers that they had not acted wisely in attempting to revive
+usages that had fallen into desuetude because they were inconvenient to
+new arrangements or repugnant to modern taste. No attempt was made to
+prolong the festivity over a succession of days. It was a revel of one
+day; and no one wished to add another to the period of riot. At two
+o'clock on Feb. 2, 1733-4, the new Chancellor, the master of the revels,
+the benchers of the inns, and the guests (who were for the most part
+lawyers), sat down to dinner in the hall. The barristers and students
+had their ordinary fare, with the addition of a flask of claret to each
+mess; but a superior repast was served at the High Table where fourteen
+students (of whom the Chancellor's eldest son was one), served as
+waiters. Whilst the banquet was in progress, musicians stationed in the
+gallery at the upper end of the hall filled the room with deafening
+noise, and ladies looked down upon the feasters from a large gallery
+which had been fitted up for their reception over the screen. After
+dinner, as soon as the hall could be cleared of dishes and decanters,
+the company were entertained with 'Love for Love,' and 'The Devil to
+Pay,' performed by professional actors who "all came from the Haymarket
+in chairs, ready dressed, and (as it was said), refused any gratuity for
+their trouble, looking upon the honor of distinguishing themselves on
+this occasion as sufficient." The players having withdrawn, the judges,
+sergeants, benchers, and other dignitaries, danced 'round about the coal
+fire;' that is to say, they danced round about a stove in which there
+was not a single spark of fire. The congregation of many hundreds of
+persons, in a hall which had not comfortable room for half the number,
+rendered the air so oppressively hot that the master of the revels
+wisely resolved to lead his troop of revellers round an empty grate. The
+chronicler of this ridiculous mummery observes: "And all the time of the
+dance the ancient song, accompanied by music, was sung by one Toby
+Aston, dressed in a bar-gown, whose father had formerly been Master of
+the Plea Office in the King's Bench. When this was over, the ladies came
+down from the gallery, went into the parliament chamber, and stayed
+about a quarter of an hour, while the hall was being put in order. They
+then went into the hall and danced a few minuets. Country dances began
+at ten, and at twelve a Very fine cold collation was provided for the
+whole company, from which they returned to dancing, which they
+continued as long as they pleased, and the whole day's entertainment was
+generally thought to be very genteelly and liberally conducted. The
+Prince of Wales honored the performance with his company part of the
+time; he came into the music _incog._ about the middle of the play, and
+went away as soon as the farce of 'walking round the coal fire' was
+over."
+
+With this notable dance of lawyers round an empty grate, the old revels
+disappeared. In their Grand Days, equivalent to the gaudy days, or feast
+days, or audit days of the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, the Inns of
+Court still retain the last vestiges of their ancient jollifications,
+but the uproarious riot of the obsolete festivities is but faintly
+echoed by the songs and laughter of the junior barristers and students
+who in these degenerate times gladden their hearts and loosen their
+tongues with an extra glass of wine after grand dinners, and then hasten
+back to chambers for tobacco and tea.
+
+On the discontinuance of the revels the Inns of Court lost their chief
+attractions for the courtly pleasure-seekers of the town, and many a day
+passed before another royal visit was paid to any one of the societies.
+In 1734 George III.'s father stood amongst the musicians in the Inner
+Temple Hall; and after the lapse of one century and eleven years the
+present queen accepted the hospitality of Lincoln's Inn. No record
+exists of a royal visit made to an Inn of Court between those events.
+Only the other day, however, the Prince of Wales went eastwards and
+partook of a banquet in the hall of Middle Temple, of which society he
+is a barrister and a bencher.
+
+
+
+
+PART VII.
+
+LEGAL EDUCATION.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+INNS OF COURT AND INNS OF CHANCERY.
+
+
+Schools for the study of the Common Law, existed within the bounds of
+the city of London, at the commencement of the thirteenth century. No
+sooner had a permanent home been assigned to the Court of Common Pleas,
+than legal practitioners fixed themselves in the neighborhood of
+Westminster, or within the walls of London. A legal society speedily
+grew up in the city; and some of the older and more learned professors
+of the Common Law, devoting a portion of their time and energies to the
+labors of instruction, opened academies for the reception of students.
+Dugdale notices a tradition that in ancient times a law-school, called
+Johnson's Inn, stood in Dowgate, that another existed in Pewter Lane,
+and that Paternoster Row contained a third; and it is generally thought
+that these three inns were amongst the academies which sprung up as soon
+as the Common Pleas obtained a permanent abode.
+
+The schools thus established in the opening years of the thirteenth
+century, were not allowed to flourish for any great length of time; for
+in the nineteenth year of his reign, Henry III. suppressed them by a
+mandate addressed to the mayor and sheriffs of the city. But though this
+king broke up the schools, the scholars persevered in their study; and
+if the king's mandate aimed at a complete discontinuance of legal
+instruction, his policy was signally defeated.
+
+Successive writers have credited Edward III.'s reign with the
+establishment of Inns of Court; and it has been erroneously inferred
+that the study of the Common Law not only languished, but was altogether
+extinct during the period of nearly one hundred years that intervened
+between Henry III.'s dissolution of the city schools and Edward III.'s
+accession. Abundant evidence, however, exists that this was not the
+case. Edward I., in the twentieth year of his reign, ordered his judges
+of the Common Pleas to "provide and ordain, from every county, certain
+attorneys and lawyers" (in the original "atturnatus et _apprenticiis_")
+"of the best and most apt for their learning and skill, who might do
+service to his court and people; and those so chosen, and no other
+should follow his court, and transact affairs therein; the words of
+which order make it clear that the country contained a considerable body
+of persons who devoted themselves to the study and practice of the law."
+So also in the Year-book, 1 Ed. III., the words, "et puis une apprentise
+demand," show that lawyers holding legal degrees existed in the very
+first year of Edward III.'s reign; a fact which justifies the inference
+that in the previous reign England contained Common Law schools capable
+of granting the legal degree of apprentice. Again Dugdale remarks, "In
+20 Ed. III., in a _quod ei deforciat_ to an exception taken, it was
+answered by Sir Richard de Willoughby (then a learned justice of the
+_Common Pleas_) and William Skipwith, (afterwards also one of the
+justices of that court), that the same was no exception amongst the
+_Apprentices in Hostells or Inns_." Whence it is manifest that Inns of
+Court were institutions in full vigor at the time when they have been
+sometimes represented as originally established.
+
+But after their expulsion from the city, there is reason to think that
+the common lawyers made no attempt to reside in colleges within its
+boundaries. They preferred to establish themselves on spots where they
+could enjoy pure air and rural quietude, could surround themselves with
+trees and lawns, or refresh their eyes with the sight of the silver
+Thames. In the earliest part of the fourteenth century, they took
+possession of a great palace that stood on the western outskirt of the
+town, and looked westwards upon green fields, whilst its eastern wall
+abutted on New Street--a thoroughfare that was subsequently called
+Chancellor's Lane, and has for many years been known as Chancery Lane.
+This palace had been the residence of Henry Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, who
+conferred upon the building the name which it still bears. The earl died
+in 1310, some seventeen years before Edward III.'s accession; and
+Thynne, the antiquary, was of opinion that no considerable period
+intervened between Henry Lacy's death and the entry of the lawyers. In
+the same century, the lawyers took possession of the Temple. The exact
+date of their entry is unknown; but Chaucer's verse enables the student
+to fix, with sufficient preciseness, the period when the more noble
+apprentices of the law first occupied the Temple as tenants of the
+Knight's Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, who obtained a grant of
+the place from Edward III.[21] The absence of fuller particulars
+concerning the early history of the legal Templars, is ordinarily and
+with good reason attributed to Wat Tyler's rebels, who destroyed the
+records of the fraternity by fire. From roof to basement, beginning with
+the tiles, and working downwards, the mob destroyed the principal houses
+of the college; and when they had burnt all the archives on which they
+could lay hands, they went off and expended their remaining fury on
+other buildings, of which the Knights of St. John were proprietors.
+
+The same men who saw the lawyers take possession of the Temple on the
+northern banks of the Thames, and of the Earl of Lincoln's palace in New
+Street, saw them also make a third grand settlement. The manor of
+Portepoole, or Purpoole, became the property of the Grays of Wilton, in
+the twenty-second year of Edward I.; and on its green fields, lying
+north of Holborn, a society of lawyers established a college which still
+retains the name of the ancient proprietors of the soil. Concerning the
+exact date of its institution, the uncertainty is even greater than
+that which obscures the foundation of the Temple and Lincoln's Inn; but
+antiquaries have agreed to assign the creation of Gray's Inn, as an
+hospicium for the entertainment of lawyers, to the time of Edward III.
+
+The date at which the Temple lawyers split up into two separate
+societies, is also unknown; but assigning the division to some period
+posterior to Wat Tyler's insurrection, Dugdale says, "But,
+notwithstanding, this spoil by the rebels, those students so increased
+here, that at length they divided themselves into two bodies; the one
+commonly known by the Society of the Inner Temple, and the other of the
+Middle Temple, holding this mansion as tenants." But as both societies
+had a common origin in the migration of lawyers from Thavies Inn,
+Holborn, in the time of Edward III., it is usual to speak of the two
+Temples as instituted in that reign, and to regard all four Inns of
+Court as the work of the fourteenth century.
+
+The Inns of Chancery for many generations maintained towards the Inns of
+Court a position similar to that which Eton School maintains towards
+King's at Cambridge, or that which Winchester School holds to New
+College at Oxford. They were seminaries in which lads underwent
+preparation for the superior discipline and greater freedom of the four
+colleges. Each Inn of Court had its own Inns of Chancery, yearly
+receiving from them the pupils who had qualified themselves for
+promotion to the status of Inns-of-Court men. In course of time,
+students after receiving the preliminary education in an Inn of Chancery
+were permitted to enter an Inn of Court on which their Inn of Chancery
+was not dependent; but at every Inn of Court higher admission fees were
+charged to students coming from Inns of Chancery over which it had no
+control, than to students who came from its own primary schools. If the
+reader bears in mind the difference in respect to age, learning, and
+privileges between our modern public schoolboys and university
+undergraduates, he will realize with sufficient nearness to truth the
+differences which existed between the Inns of Chancery students and the
+Inns of Court students in the fifteenth century; and in the students,
+utter-barristers, and benchers of the Inns of Court at the same period
+he may see three distinct orders of academic persons closely resembling
+the undergraduates, bachelors of arts, and masters of arts in our
+universities.
+
+In the 'De Laudibus Legum Angliae,'[22] written in the latter part of the
+fifteenth century, Sir John Fortescue says--"But to the intent, most
+excellent Prince, yee may conceive a forme and an image of this study,
+as I am able, I wil describe it unto you. For there be in it ten lesser
+houses or innes, and sometimes moe, which are called Innes of the
+Chauncerye. And to every one of them belongeth an hundred students at
+least, and to some of them a much greater number, though they be not
+ever all together in the same."
+
+In Charles II.'s time there were eight Inns of Chancery; and of them
+three were subsidiary to the Inner Temple--viz., Clifford's Inn,
+Clement's Inn, and Lyon's Inn. Clifford's Inn (originally the town
+residence of the Barons Clifford) was first inhabited by law-students in
+the eighteenth year of Edward III. Clement's Inn (taking its name from
+the adjacent St. Clement's Well) was certainly inhabited by law-students
+as early as the nineteenth year of Edward IV. Lyon's Inn was an Inn of
+Chancery in the time of Henry V.
+
+One alone (New Inn) was attached to the Middle Temple. In the previous
+century, the Middle Temple had possessed another Inn of Chancery called
+Strand Inn; but in the third year of Edward VI. this nursery was pulled
+down by the Duke of Somerset, who required the ground on which it stood
+for the site of Somerset House.
+
+Lincoln's Inn had for dependent schools Furnival's Inn and Thavies
+Inn--the latter of which hostels was inhabited by law-students in Edward
+III.'s time. Of Furnival's Inn (originally Lord Furnival's town mansion,
+and converted into a law-school in Edward VI.'s reign) Dugdale says:
+"After which time the Principall and Fellows of this Inne have paid to
+the society of Lincoln's Inne the rent of iiil vis iiid as an yearly
+rent for the same, as may appear by the accompts of that house; and by
+speciall order there made, have had these following priviledges: first
+(viz. 10 Eliz.), that the utter-barristers of Furnivall's Inne, of a
+yeares continuance, and so certified and allowed by the Benchers of
+Lincoln's Inne, shall pay no more than four marks apiece for their
+admittance into that society. Next (viz. in Eliz.) that every fellow of
+this inne, who hath been allowed an utter-barrister here, and that hath
+mooted here two vacations at the Utter Bar, shall pay no more for their
+admission into the Society of Lincoln's Inne, than xiiis iiiid, though
+all utter-barristers of any other Inne of Chancery (excepting Thavyes
+Inne) should pay xxs, and that every inner-barrister of this house, who
+hath mooted here one vacation at the Inner Bar, should pay for his
+admission into this House but xxs, those of other houses (excepting
+Thavyes Inne) paying xxvis viiid."
+
+The subordinate seminaries of Gray's Inn, in Dugdale's time, were Staple
+Inn and Barnard's Inn. Originally the Exchange of the London woolen
+merchants, Staple Inn was a law-school as early as Henry V.'s time. It
+is probable that Bernard's Inn became an academy for law-students in
+the reign of Henry VI.
+
+[21] Chaucer mentions the Temple thus:--
+
+"A manciple there was of the Temple, Of which all catours might take
+ensemple For to be wise in buying of vitaile; For whether he pay'd or
+took by taile, Algate he wayted so in his ashate, That he was aye before
+in good estate. Now is not that of God a full faire grace, That such a
+leude man's wit shall pace The wisdome of an heape of learned men? Of
+masters had he more than thrice ten, That were of law expert and
+curious, Of which there was a dozen in that house, Worthy to been
+stewards of rent and land Of any lord that is in England; To maken him
+live by his proper good In honour debtless, but if he were wood; Or live
+as scarcely as him list desire, And able to helpen all a shire, In any
+case that might have fallen or hap, And yet the manciple set all her
+capp."
+
+[22] The 'De Laudibus' was written in Latin; but for the convenience of
+readers not familiar with that classic tongue, the quotations from the
+treatise are given from Robert Mulcaster's English version.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+LAWYERS AND GENTLEMEN.
+
+
+Thus planted in the fourteenth century beyond the confines of the city,
+and within easy access of Westminster Hall, the Inns of Court and
+Chancery formed an university, which soon became almost as powerful and
+famous as either Oxford or Cambridge. For generations they were spoken
+of collectively as the law-university, and though they were voluntary
+societies--in their nature akin to the club-houses of modern
+London--they adopted common rules of discipline, and an uniform system
+of instruction. Students flocked to them in abundance; and whereas the
+students of Oxford and Cambridge were drawn from the plebeian ranks of
+society, the scholars of the law-university were almost invariably the
+sons of wealthy men and had usually sprung from gentle families. To be a
+law-student was to be a stripling of quality. The law university enjoyed
+the same patrician _prestige_ and _eclat_ that now belong to the more
+aristocratic houses of the old universities.
+
+Noblemen sent their sons to it in order that they might acquire the
+style and learning and accomplishments of polite society. A proportion
+of the students were encouraged to devote themselves to the study of the
+law and to attend sedulously the sittings of Judges in Westminster Hall;
+but the majority of well-descended boys who inhabited the Inns of
+Chancery were heirs to good estates, and were trained to become their
+wealth rather than to increase it--to perfect themselves in graceful
+arts, rather than to qualify themselves to hold briefs. The same was the
+case in the Inns of Court, which were so designated--not because they
+prepared young men to rise in courts of law, but because they taught
+them to shine in the palaces of kings. It is a mistake to suppose that
+the Inns of Court contain at the present time a larger proportion of
+idle members, who have no intention to practise at the bar, than they
+contained under the Plantagenets and Tudors. On the contrary, in the
+fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the number of Templars who merely
+played at being lawyers, or were lawyers only in name, was actually as
+well as relatively greater than the merely _nominal_ lawyers of the
+Temple at the present time. For several generations, and for two
+centuries after Sir John Fortescue wrote the 'De Laudibus,' the
+Inns-of-Court man was more busied in learning to sing than in learning
+to argue a law cause, more desirous to fence with a sword than to fence
+with logic.
+
+"Notwithstanding," runs Mulcaster's translation of the 'De
+Laudibus,'[23] "the same lawes are taught and learned, in a certaine
+place of publique or common studie, more convenient and apt for
+attayninge to the knowledge of them, than any other university. For
+theyr place of studie is situate nigh to the Kinges Courts, where the
+same lawes are pleaded and argued, and judgements by the same given by
+judges, men of gravitie, auncient in yeares, perfit and graduate in the
+same lawes. Wherefore, euerie day in court, the students in those lawes
+resorte by great numbers into those courts wherein the same lawes are
+read and taught, as it were in common schooles. This place of studie is
+far betweene the place of the said courts and the cittie of London,
+which of all thinges necessarie is the plentifullest of all cities and
+townes of the realme. So that the said place of studie is not situate
+within the cittie, where the confluence of people might disturb the
+quietnes of the studentes, but somewhat severall in the suburbes of the
+same cittie, and nigher to the saide courts, that the studentes may
+dayelye at their pleasure have accesse and recourse thither without
+weariness."
+
+Setting forth the condition and pursuits of law-students in his day, Sir
+John Fortesque continues; "For in these greater inns, there can no
+student bee mayntayned for lesse expenses by the yeare than twentye
+markes. And if hee have a servaunt to wait uppon him, as most of them
+have, then so much the greater will his charges bee. Nowe, by reason of
+this charge, the children onely of noblemenne doo studye the lawes in
+those innes. For the poore and common sorte of the people are not able
+to bear so great charges for the exhibytion of theyr chyldren. And
+Marchaunt menne can seldome finde in theyr heartes to hynder theyr
+merchaundise with so greate yearly expenses. And it thus falleth out
+that there is scant anye man founde within the realme skilfull and
+cunning in the lawes, except he be a gentleman borne, and come of noble
+stocke. Wherefore they more than any other kinde of men have a speciall
+regarde to their nobility, and to the preservation of their honor and
+fame. And to speake upryghtlye, there is in these greater innes, yea,
+and in the lesser too, beside the studie of the lawes, as it were an
+university or schoole of all commendable qualities requisite for noble
+men. There they learn to sing, and to exercise themselves in all kinde
+of harmonye. There also they practice daunsing, and other noblemen's
+pastimes, as they use to do, which are brought up in the king's house.
+On the working dayes, the most of them apply themselves to the studye of
+the lawe, and on the holye dayes to the studye of holye Scripture;[24]
+and out of the tyme of divine service, to the reading of Chronicles. For
+there indeede are vertues studied, and vices exiled. So that, for the
+endowment of vertue, and abandoning of vice, Knights and Barrons, with
+other states and noblemen of the realme, place their children in those
+innes, though they desire not to have them learned in the lawes, nor to
+lieue by the practice thereof, but onely uppon their father's allowance.
+Scant at anye tyme is there heard among them any sedition, chyding, or
+grudging, and yet the offenders are punished with none other payne, but
+onely to bee amooved from the compayne of their fellowshippe. Which
+punishment they doo more feare than other criminall offendours doo feare
+imprisonment and yrons: For hee that is once expelled from anye of those
+fellowshippes is never received to bee a felowe in any of the other
+fellowshippes. And so by this means there is continuall peace; and their
+demeanor is lyke the behaviour of such as are coupled together in
+perfect amytie."
+
+Any person familiar with the Inns of Court at the present time will see
+how closely the law-colleges of Victoria's London resemble in many
+important particulars the law-colleges of Fortescue's period. After the
+fashion of four centuries since young men are still induced to enter
+them for the sake of honorable companionship, good society, and social
+prestige, rather than for the sake of legal education. After the remarks
+already made with regard to musical lawyers in a previous section of
+this work, it is needless to say that Inns of Court men are not
+remarkable for their application to vocal harmony; but the younger
+members are still remarkable for the zeal with which they endeavor to
+master the accomplishments which distinguish men of fashion and tone. If
+the nominal (sometimes they are called 'ornamental') barristers of the
+fifteenth century liked to read the Holy Scriptures, the young lawyers
+of the nineteenth century are no less disposed to read their Bibles
+critically, and argue as to the merits of Bishop Colenso and his
+opponents. Moreover, the discipline described by Fortescue is still
+found sufficient to maintain order in the inns.
+
+Writing more than a century after Fortescue, Sir John Ferne, in his
+'Blazon of Gentrie, the Glory of Generosity, and the Lacy's Nobility,'
+observes: "Nobleness of blood, joyned with virtue, compteth the person
+as most meet to the enterprize of any public service; and for that cause
+it was not for nought that our antient governors in this land, did with
+a special foresight and wisdom provide, that none should be admitted
+into the Houses of Court, being seminaries sending forth men apt to the
+government of justice, except he were a gentleman of blood. And that
+this may seem a truth, I myself have seen a kalendar of all those which
+were together in the society of one of the same houses, about the last
+year of King Henry the Fifth, with the armes of their House and family
+marshalled by their names; and I assure you, the self same monument doth
+both approve them all to be gentlemen of perfect descents and also the
+number of them much less than now it is, being at that time in one house
+scarcely three score."[25]
+
+This passage from an author who delighted to magnify the advantages of
+generous descent, has contributed to the very general and erroneous
+impression that until comparatively recent times the members of the
+English bar were necessarily drawn from the highest ranks of society;
+and several excellent writers on the antiquities of the law have laid
+aside their customary caution and strengthened Ferne's words with
+inaccurate comment.
+
+Thus Pearce says of the author of the 'Glory of Generositie'--"He was
+one of the advocates for excluding from the Inns of Court all who were
+not 'a gentleman by blood,' according to the ancient rule mentioned by
+Fortescue, which seems to have been disregarded in Elizabeth's time."
+Fortescue nowhere mentions any such rule, but attributes the
+aristocratic character of the law-colleges to the high cost of
+membership. Far from implying that men of mean extraction were excluded
+by an express prohibition, his words justify the inference that no such
+rule existed in his time.
+
+Though Inns-of-Court men were for many generations gentlemen by birth
+almost without a single exception, it yet remains to be proved that
+plebeian birth at any period disqualified persons for admission to the
+law-colleges. If such a restriction ever existed it had disappeared
+before the close of the fifteenth century--a period not favorable to the
+views of those who were most anxious to remove the barriers placed by
+feudal society between the gentle and the vulgar. Sir John More (the
+father of the famous Sir Thomas) was a Judge in the King's Bench,
+although his parentage was obscure; and it is worthy of notice that he
+was a successful lawyer of Fortescue's period. Lord Chancellor Audley
+was not entitled to bear arms by birth, but was merely the son of a
+prosperous yeoman. The lowliness of his extraction cannot have been any
+serious impediment to him, for before the end of his thirty-sixth year
+he was a sergeant. In the following century the inns received a steadily
+increasing number of students, who either lacked generous lineage or
+were the offspring of shameful love. For instance, Chief Justice Wray's
+birth was scandalous; and if Lord Ellesmere in his youth reflected with
+pride on the dignity of his father, Sir Richard Egerton, he had reason
+to blush for his mother. Ferne's lament over the loss of heraldric
+virtue and splendor, which the inns had sustained in his time, testifies
+to the presence of a considerable plebeian element amongst the members
+of the law-university. But that which was marked in the sixteenth was
+far more apparent in the seventeenth century. Scroggs's enemies were
+wrong in stigmatizing him as a butcher's son, for the odious chief
+justice was born and bred a gentleman, and Jeffreys could boast a decent
+extraction; but there is abundance of evidence that throughout the
+reigns of the Stuarts the inns swarmed with low-born adventurers. The
+career of Chief Justice Saunders, who, beginning as a "poor beggar boy,"
+of unknown parentage, raised himself to the Chiefship of the King's
+Bench, shows how low an origin a judge might have in the seventeenth
+century. To mention the names of such men as Parker, King, Yorke, Ryder,
+and the Scotts, without placing beside them the names of such men as
+Henley, Harcourt, Bathurst, Talbot, Murray, and Erskine, would tend to
+create an erroneous impression that in the eighteenth century the bar
+ceased to comprise amongst its industrious members a large aristocratic
+element.
+
+The number of barristers, however, who in that period brought themselves
+by talent and honorable perseverance into the foremost rank of the legal
+profession in spite of humble birth, unquestionably shows that ambitious
+men from the obscure middle classes were more frequently than in any
+previous century found pushing their fortunes in Westminster Hall. Lord
+Macclesfield was the son of an attorney whose parents were of lowly
+origin, and whose worldly means were even lower than their ancestral
+condition. Lord Chancellor King's father was a grocer and salter who
+carried on a retail business at Exeter; and in his youth the Chancellor
+himself had acted as his father's apprentice--standing behind the
+counter and wearing the apron and sleeves of a grocer's servitor. Philip
+Yorke was the son of a country attorney who could boast neither wealth
+nor gentle descent. Chief Justice Ryder was the son of a mercer whose
+shop stood in West Smithfield, and grandson of a dissenting minister,
+who, though he bore the name, is not known to have inherited the blood
+of the Yorkshire Ryders. Sir William Blackstone was the fourth son of a
+silkman and citizen of London. Lords Stowell and Eldon were the children
+of a provincial tradesman. The learned and good Sir Samuel Romilly's
+father was Peter Romilly, jeweller, of Frith Street, Soho. Such were the
+origins of some of the men who won the prizes of the law in
+comparatively recent times. The present century has produced an even
+greater number of barristers who have achieved eminence, and are able to
+say with honest pride that they are the _first_ gentlemen mentioned in
+their pedigrees; and so thoroughly has the bar become an open
+profession, accessible to all persons[26] who have the means of
+gentlemen, that no barrister at the present time would have the bad
+taste or foolish hardihood to express openly his regret that the members
+of a liberal profession should no longer pay a hurtful attention to
+illiberal distinctions.
+
+According to Fortescue, the law-students belonging at the same time to
+the Inns of Court and Chancery numbered _at least_ one thousand eight
+hundred in the fifteenth century; and it may be fairly inferred from his
+words that their number considerably exceeded two thousand. To each of
+the ten Inns of Chancery the author of the 'De Laudibus' assigns "an
+hundred students at the least, and to some of them a much greater
+number;" and he says that the least populous of the four Inns of Court
+contained "two hundred students or thereabouts." At the present time the
+number of barristers--together with Fellows of the College of Advocates,
+and certificated special pleaders and conveyancers not at the bar--is
+shown by the Law List for 1866 to be somewhat more than 4800.[27] Even
+when it is borne in mind how much the legal business of the whole nation
+has necessarily increased with the growth of our commercial
+prosperity--it being at the same time remembered, upon the other hand,
+how many times the population of the country has doubled itself since
+the wars of the Roses--few persons will be of opinion that the legal
+profession, either by the number of its practitioners or its command of
+employment, is a more conspicuous and prosperous power at the present
+time than it was in the fifteenth century.
+
+Ferne was by no means the only gentleman of Elizabethan London to
+deplore the rapid increase in the number of lawyers, and to regret the
+growing liberality which encouraged--or rather the national prosperity
+which enabled--men of inferior parentage to adopt the law as a
+profession. In his address on Mr. Clerke's elevation to the dignity of a
+sergeant, Lord Chancellor Hatton, echoing the common complaint
+concerning the degradation of the law through the swarms of plebeian
+students and practitioners, observed--"Let not the dignitie of the lawe
+be geven to men unmeete. And I do exhorte you all that are heare present
+not to call men to the barre or the benches that are so unmeete. I finde
+that there are now more at the barre in one house than there was in all
+the Innes of Court when I was a younge man." Notwithstanding the
+Chancellor's earnest statement of his personal recollection of the state
+of things when he was a young man, there is reason to think that he was
+quite in error in thinking that lawyers had increased so greatly in
+number. From a MS. in Lord Burleigh's collection, it appears that in
+1586 the number of law-students, resident during term, was only 1703--a
+smaller number than that which Fortescue computed the entire population
+of the London law-students, at a time when civil war had cruelly
+diminished the number of men likely to join an aristocratic university.
+Sir Edward Coke estimated the roll of Elizabethan law-students at one
+thousand, half their number in Fortescue's time. Coke, however, confined
+his attention in this matter to the Students of Inns of Court, and paid
+no attention to Inns of Chancery. Either Hatton greatly exaggerated the
+increase of the legal working profession; or in previous times the
+proportion of law-students who never became barristers greatly exceeded
+those who were ultimately called to the bar.
+
+Something more than a hundred years later, the old cry against the
+low-born adventurers, who, to the injury of the public and the
+degradation of the law, were said to overwhelm counsellors and
+solicitors of superior tone and pedigree, was still frequently heard in
+the coteries of disappointed candidates for employment in Westminster
+Hall, and on the lips of men whose hopes of achieving social distinction
+were likely to be frustrated so long as plebeian learning and energy
+were permitted to have free action. In his 'History of Hertfordshire'
+(published in 1700), Sir Henry Chauncey, Sergeant-at-Law, exclaims: "But
+now these mechanicks, ambitious of rule and government, often educate
+their sons in these seminaries of law, whereby they overstock the
+profession, and so make it contemptible; whilst the gentry, not sensible
+of the mischief they draw upon themselves, but also upon the nation,
+prefer them in their business before their own children, whom they
+bereave of their employment, formerly designed for their support;
+qualifying their servants, by the profit of this profession, to purchase
+their estates, and by this means make them their lords and masters,
+whilst they lessen the trade of the kingdom, and cause a scarcity of
+husbandmen, workmen, artificers, and servants in the nation."
+
+That the Inns of Court became less and less aristocratic throughout the
+seventeenth and eighteenth centuries there is no reason to doubt; but it
+may be questioned whether it was so overstocked with competent working
+members, as poor Sir Henry Chauncey imagined it. Describing the state of
+the inns some two generations later, Blackstone computed the number of
+law-students at about a thousand, perhaps slightly more; and he observes
+that in his time the merely _nominal_ law-students were comparatively
+few. "Wherefore," he says, "few gentlemen now resort to the Inns of
+Court, but such for whom the knowledge of practice is absolutely
+necessary; such, I mean, as are intended for the profession; the rest of
+our gentry, (not to say our nobility also) having usually retired to
+their estates, or visited foreign kingdoms, or entered upon public life,
+without any instruction in the laws of the land, and indeed with hardly
+any opportunity of gaining instruction, unless it can be afforded to
+them in the universities."
+
+The folly of those who lamented that men of plebeian rank were allowed
+to adopt the legal profession as a means of livelihood, was however
+exceeded by the folly of men of another sort, who endeavored to hide the
+humble extractions of eminent lawyers, under the ingenious falsehoods of
+fictitious pedigrees. In the last century, no sooner had a lawyer of
+humble birth risen to distinction, than he was pestered by fabricators
+of false genealogies, who implored him to accept their silly romances
+about his ancestry. In most cases, these ridiculous applicants hoped to
+receive money for their dishonest representations; but not seldom it
+happened that they were actuated by a sincere desire to protect the
+heraldic honor of the law from the aspersions of those who maintained
+that a man might fight his way to the woolsack, although his father had
+been a tender of swine. Sometimes these imaginative chroniclers, not
+content with fabricating a genealogical chart for a _parvenu_ Lord
+Chancellor, insisted that he should permit them to write their lives in
+such a fashion, that their earlier experiences should seem to be in
+harmony with their later fortunes. Lord Macclesfield (the son of a poor
+and ill-descended country attorney), was traced by officious adulators
+to Reginald Le Parker, who accompanied Edward I., while Prince of Wales,
+to the Holy Land. In like manner a manufacturer of genealogies traced
+Lord Eldon to Sir Michael Scott of Balwearie. When one of this servile
+school of worshippers approached Lord Thurlow with an assurance that he
+was of kin with Cromwell's secretary Thurloe, the Chancellor, with bluff
+honesty, responded, "Sir, as Mr. Secretary Thurloe was, like myself, a
+Suffolk man, you have an excuse for your mistake. In the seventeenth
+century two Thurlows, who were in no way related to each other,
+flourished in Suffolk. One was Cromwell's secretary Thurloe, the other
+was Thurlow, the Suffolk carrier. I am descended from the carrier."
+Notwithstanding Lord Thurlow's frequent and consistent disavowals of
+pretension to any heraldic pedigree, his collateral descendants are
+credited in the 'Peerages' with a descent from an ancient family.
+
+[23] This charming book was written during the author's exile, which
+began in 1463.
+
+[24] This passage is one of several passages in Pre-reformation English
+literature which certify that the Bible was much more widely and
+carefully read by lettered and studious layman, in times prior to the
+rupture between England and Rome, than many persons are aware, and some
+violent writers like to acknowledge.
+
+[25] Pathetically deploring the change wrought by time, Ferne also
+observes of the Inns of Court,--"Pity to see the same places, through
+the malignity of the times, and the negligence of those which should
+have had care to the same, been altered quite from their first
+institution."
+
+[26] It is not unusual now-a-days to see on the screened list of
+students about to be called to the bar the names of gentlemen who have
+caused themselves to be described in the quasi-public lists as the sons
+of tradesmen. Some few years since a gentleman who has already made his
+name known amongst juniors, was thus 'screened'in the four halls as the
+son of a petty tradesman in an obscure quarter of London; and assuming
+that his conduct was due to self-respect and affectionate regard for his
+parent, it seemed to most observers that the young lawyer, in thus
+frankly stating his lowly origin, acted with spirit and dignity. It may
+be that years hence this highly-accomplished gentleman will, like Lord
+Tenterden and Lord St. Leonards (both of whom were the sons of honest
+but humble tradesmen), see his name placed upon the roll of England's
+hereditary noblesse.
+
+[27] Of this number about 2500 reside in or near London and maintain
+some apparent connexion with the Inns of Court. Of the remainder, some
+reside in Scotland, some in Ireland, some in the English provinces, some
+in the colonies; whilst some of them, although their names are still on
+the Law List, have ceased to regard themselves as members of the legal
+profession.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+LAW-FRENCH AND LAW-LATIN.
+
+
+No circumstances of the Norman Conquest more forcibly illustrate the
+humiliation of the conquered people, than the measures by which the
+invaders imposed their language on the public courts of the country, and
+endeavored to make it permanently usurp the place of the mother-tongue
+of the despised multitude; and no fact more signally displays our
+conservative temper than the general reluctance of English society to
+relinquish the use of the French words and phrases which still tincture
+the language of parliament, and the procedures of Westminster Hall,
+recalling to our minds the insolent domination of a few powerful
+families who occupied our country by force, and ruled our forefathers
+with vigorous injustice.
+
+Frenchmen by birth, education, sympathy, William's barons did their
+utmost to make England a new France: and for several generations the
+descendants of the successful invaders were no less eager to abolish
+every usage which could remind the vanquished race of their lost
+supremacy. French became the language of parliament and the
+council-chamber. It was spoken by the judges who dispensed justice in
+the name of a French king, and by the lawyers who followed the royal
+court in the train of the French-speaking judges. In the hunting-field
+and the lists no gentleman entitled to bear coat-armour deigned to utter
+a word of English: it was the same in Fives' Court and at the
+gambling-table. Schoolmasters were ordered to teach their pupils to
+construe from Latin into French, instead of into English; and young men
+of Anglo-Saxon extraction, bent on rising in the world by native talent
+and Norman patronage, labored to acquire the language of the ruling
+class and forget the accents of their ancestors. The language and usages
+of modern England abound with traces of the French of this period. To
+every act that obtained the royal assent during last session of
+parliament, the queen said "La reyne le veult." Every bill which is sent
+up from the Commons to the Lords, an officer of the lower house endorses
+with "Soit baile aux Seigneurs;" and no bill is ever sent down from the
+Lords to the Commons until a corresponding officer of the upper house
+has written on its back, "Soit baile aux Communes."
+
+In like manner our parochial usages, local sports, and domestic games
+continually remind us of the obstinate tenacity with which the
+Anglo-Saxon race has preserved, and still preserves, the vestiges of its
+ancient subjection to a foreign yoke. The crier of a country town, in
+any of England's fertile provinces, never proclaims the loss of a
+yeoman's sporting-dog, the auction of a bankrupt dealer's
+stock-in-trade, or the impounding of a strayed cow, until he has
+commanded, in Norman-French, the attention of the sleepy rustics. The
+language of the stable and the kennel is rich in traces of Norman
+influence; and in backgammon, as played by orthodox players, we have a
+suggestive memorial of those Norman nobles, of whom Fortescue, in the
+'De Laudibus' observes: "Neither had they delyght to hunt, and to
+exercise other sportes and pastimes, as dyce-play and the hand-ball, but
+in their own proper tongue."
+
+In behalf of the Norman _noblesse_ it should be borne in mind that their
+policy in this matter was less intentionally vexatious and insolent than
+it has appeared to superficial observers. In the great majority of
+causes the suitors were Frenchmen; and it was just as reasonable that
+they should like to understand the arguments of their counsel and
+judges, as it is reasonable for suitors in the present day to require
+the proceedings in Westminster Hall to be clothed in the language most
+familiar to the majority of persons seeking justice in its courts. If
+the use of French pleadings was hard on the one Anglo-Saxon suitor who
+demanded justice in Henry I.'s time, the use of English pleadings would
+have been equally annoying to the nine French gentlemen who appeared for
+the same purpose in the king's court. It was greatly to be desired that
+the two races should have one common language; and common sense ordained
+that the tongue of the one or the other race should be adopted as the
+national language. Which side therefore was to be at the pains to learn
+a new tongue? Should the conquerors labor to acquire Anglo-Saxon? or
+should the conquered be required to learn French? In these days the
+cultivated Englishmen who hold India by military force, even as the
+Norman invaders held England, by the right of might, settle a similar
+question by taking upon themselves the trouble of learning as much of
+the Asiatic dialects as is necessary for purposes of business. But the
+Norman barons were not cultivated; and for many generations ignorance
+was with them an affair of pride no less than of constitutional
+inclination.
+
+Soon ambitious Englishmen acquired the new language, in order to use it
+as an instrument for personal advancement. The Saxon stripling who could
+keep accounts in Norman fashion, and speak French as fluently as his
+mother tongue, might hope to sell his knowledge in a good market. As the
+steward of a Norman baron he might negotiate between my lord and my
+lord's tenants, letting my lord know as much of his tenant's wishes, and
+revealing to the tenants as much of their lord's intentions as suited
+his purpose. Uniting in his own person the powers of interpreter,
+arbitrator, and steward, he possessed enviable opportunities and
+facilities for acquiring wealth. Not seldom, when he had grown rich, or
+whilst his fortunes were in the ascendant, he assumed a French name as
+well as a French accent; and having persuaded himself and his younger
+neighbors that he was a Frenchman, he in some cases bequeathed to his
+children an ample estate and a Norman pedigree. In certain causes in the
+law courts the agent (by whatever title known) who was a perfect master
+of the three languages (French, Latin, and English) had greatly the
+advantage over an opposing agent who could speak only French and Latin.
+
+From the Conquest till the latter half of the fourteenth century the
+pleadings in courts of justice were in Norman-French; but in the 36 Ed.
+III., it was ordained by the king "that all plees, which be to be pleded
+in any of his courts, before any of his justices; or in his other
+places; or before any of his other ministers; or in the courts and
+places of any other lords within the realm, shall be pleded, shewed, and
+defended, answered, debated, and judged in the English tongue, and that
+they be entred and enrolled in Latine. And that the laws and customs of
+the same realm, termes, and processes, be holden and kept as they be,
+and have been before this time; and that by the antient termes and forms
+of the declarations no man be prejudiced; so that the matter of the
+action be fully shewed in the demonstration and in the writ." Long
+before this wise measure of reform was obtained by the urgent wishes of
+the nation, the French of the law courts had become so corrupt and
+unlike the language of the invaders, that it was scarcely more
+intelligible to educated natives of France than to most Englishmen of
+the highest rank. A jargon compounded of French and Latin, none save
+professional lawyers could translate it with readiness or accuracy; and
+whilst it unquestionably kept suitors in ignorance of their own affairs,
+there is reason to believe that it often perplexed the most skilful of
+those official interpreters who were never weary of extolling his
+lucidity and precision.
+
+But though English lawyers were thus expressly forbidden in 1362 to
+plead in Law-French, they persisted in using the hybrid jargon for
+reports and treatises so late as George II.'s reign; and for an equal
+length of time they seized every occasion to introduce scraps of
+Law-French into their speeches at the bars of the different courts. It
+should be observed that these antiquarian advocates were enabled thus to
+display their useless erudition by the provisions of King Edward's act,
+which, while it forbade French _pleadings_, specially ordained the
+retention of French terms.
+
+Roger North's essay 'On the study of the Laws' contains amusing
+testimony to the affection with which the lawyers of his day regarded
+their Law-French, and also shows how largely it was used till the close
+of the seventeenth century by the orators of Westminster Hall. "Here I
+must stay to observe," says the author, enthusiastically, "the
+necessity of a student's early application to learn the old Law-French,
+for these books, and most others of considerable authority, are
+delivered in it. Some may think that because the Law-French is no better
+than the old Norman corrupted, and now a deformed hotch-potch of the
+English and Latin mixed together, it is not fit for a polite spark to
+foul himself with; but this nicety is so desperate a mistake, that
+lawyer and Law-French are coincident; one will not stand without the
+other." So enamored was he of the grace and excellence of law-reporters'
+French, that he regarded it as a delightful study for a man of fashion,
+and maintained that no barrister would do justice to the law and the
+interests of his clients who did not season his sentences with Norman
+verbiage. "The law," he held, "is scarcely expressible properly in
+English, and when it is done, it must be _Francoise_, or very uncouth."
+
+Edward III.'s measure prohibitory of French pleadings had therefore
+comparatively little influence on the educational course of
+law-students. The published reports of trials, known by the name of
+Year-Books, were composed in French, until the series terminated in the
+time of Henry VIII.; and so late as George II.'s reign, Chief Baron
+Comyn preferred such words as 'chemin,' 'dismes,' and 'baron and feme,'
+to such words as 'highway,' 'tithes,' 'husband and wife.' More liberal
+than the majority of his legal brethren, even as his enlightenment with
+regard to public affairs exceeded that of ordinary politicians of his
+time, Sir Edward Coke wrote his commentaries in English, but when he
+published them, he felt it right to soothe the alarm of lawyers by
+assuring them that his departure from ancient usage could have no
+disastrous consequences. "I cannot conjecture," he apologetically
+observes in his preface, "that the general communicating these laws in
+the English tongue can work any inconvenience."
+
+Some of the primary text-books of legal lore had been rendered into
+English, and some most valuable treatises had been written and published
+in the mother tongue of the country; but in the seventeenth century no
+Inns-of-Court man could acquire an adequate acquaintance with the usages
+and rules of our courts and the decisions of past judges, until he was
+able to study the Year-Books and read Littleton in the original. To
+acquire this singular language--a _dead_ tongue that cannot be said to
+have ever lived--was the first object of the law-student. He worked at
+it in his chamber, and with faltering and uncertain accents essayed to
+speak it at the periodic mootings in which he was required to take part
+before he could be called to the bar, and also after he had become an
+utter-barrister. In his 'Autobiography,' Sir Simonds D'Ewes makes
+mention in several places of his Law-French exercises (_temp._ James
+I.), and in one place of his personal story he observes, "I had twice
+mooted in Law-French before I was called to the bar, and several times
+after I was made an utter-barrister, in our open hall. Thrice also
+before I was of the bar, I argued the reader's cases at the Inns of
+Chancery publicly, and six times afterwards. And then also, being an
+utter-barrister, I had twice argued our Middle-Temple reader's case at
+the cupboard, and sat nine times in our hall at the bench, and argued
+such cases in English as had before been argued by young gentlemen or
+utter-barristers in Law-French bareheaded."
+
+Amongst the excellent changes by which the more enlightened of the
+Commonwealth lawyers sought to lessen the public clamor of law-reform
+was the resolution that all legal records should be kept, and all writs
+composed, in the language of the country. Hitherto the law records had
+been kept in a Latin that was quite as barbarous as the French used by
+the reporters; and the determination to abolish a custom which served
+only to obscure the operations of justice and to confound the illiterate
+was hailed by the more intelligent purchasers of law as a notable step
+in the right direction. But the reform was by no means acceptable to the
+majority of the bar, who did not hesitate to stigmatize the measure as a
+dangerous innovation--which would prove injurious to learned lawyers and
+peace-loving citizens, although it might possibly serve the purposes of
+ignorant counsel and litigious 'lay gents.'[28]The legal literature of
+three generations following Charles I.'s execution abounds with
+contemptuous allusions to the 'English times' of Cromwell; the
+old-fashioned reporters, hugging their Norman-French and looking with
+suspicion on popular intelligence, were vehement in expressing their
+contempt for the prevalent misuse of the mother tongue. "I have,"
+observes Styles, in the preface to his reports, "made these reports
+speak English; not that I believe that they will be thereby more
+generally useful, for I have always been and yet am of opinion, that
+that part of the Common Law which is in the English hath only occasioned
+the making of unquiet spirits contentiously knowing, and more apt to
+offend others than to defend themselves; but I have done it in obedience
+to authority, and to stop the mouths of such of this English age, who,
+though they be confessedly different in their minds and judgments, as
+the builders of Babel were in their language, yet do think it vain, if
+not impious, to speak or understand more than their own mother tongue."
+In like manner, Whitelock's uncle Bulstrode, the celebrated reporter,
+says of the second part of his reports, "that he had manny years since
+perfected the words in French, in which language he had desired it
+might have seen the light, being most proper for it, and most convenient
+for the professors of the law."
+
+The restorers who raised Charles II. to his father's throne, lost no
+time in recalling Latin to the records and writs; and so gladly did the
+reporters and the practising counsel avail themselves of the reaction in
+favor of discarded usages, that more Law-French was written and talked
+in Westminster Hall during the time of the restored king, than had been
+penned and spoken throughout the first fifty years of the seventeenth
+century.
+
+The vexatious and indescribably absurd use of Law-Latin in records,
+writs, and written pleadings, was finally put an end to by statute 4
+George II. c. 26; but this bill, which discarded for legal processes a
+cumbrous and harsh language, that was alike unmusical and inexact, and
+would have been utterly unintelligible to a Roman gentleman of the
+Augustan period, did not become law without much opposition from some of
+the authorities of Westminster Hall. Lord Raymond, Chief Justice of the
+King's Bench, spoke in accordance with opinions that had many supporters
+on the bench and at the bar, when he expressed his warm disapprobation
+of the proposed measure, and sarcastically observed "that if the bill
+paused, the law might likewise be translated into Welsh, since many in
+Wales understood not English." In the same spirit Sir Willian Blackstone
+and more recent authorities have lamented the loss of Law-Latin. Lord
+Campbell, in the 'Chancellors,' records that he "heard the late Lord
+Ellenborough from the bench regret the change, on the ground that it had
+had the tendency to make attorneys illiterate."
+
+The sneer by which Lord Raymond endeavored to cast discredit on the
+proposal to abolish Law-Latin, was recalled after the lapse of many
+years by Sergeant Heywood, who forthwith acted upon it as though it
+originated in serious thought. Whilst acting as Chief Justice of the
+Carmarthen Circuit, the sergeant was presiding over a trial of murder,
+when it was discovered that neither the prisoner, nor any member of the
+jury, could understand a word of English; under these circumstances it
+was suggested that the evidence and the charge should be explained
+_verbatim_, to the prisoner and his twelve triers by an interpreter. To
+this reasonable petition that the testimony should be presented in a
+Welsh dress, the judge replied that, "to accede to the request would be
+to repeal the act of parliament, which required that all proceedings in
+courts of justice should be in the English tongue, and that the case of
+a trial in Wales, in which the prisoner and jury should not understand
+English, was a case not provided for, although the attention of the
+legislature had been called to it by that great judge Lord Raymond." The
+judge having thus decided, the inquiry proceeded--without the help of an
+interpreter--the counsel for the prosecution favoring the jury with an
+eloquent harangue, no single sentence of which was intelligible to them;
+a series of witnesses proving to English auditors, beyond reach of
+doubt, that the prisoner had deliberately murdered his wife; and finally
+the judge instructing the jury, in language which was as insignificant
+to their minds as the same quantity of obsolete Law-French would have
+been, that it was their duty to return a verdict of 'Guilty.' Throwing
+themselves into the humor of the business, the Welsh jurymen, although
+they were quite familiar with the facts of the case, acquitted the
+murderer, much to the encouragement of many wretched Welsh husbands
+anxious for a termination of their matrimonial sufferings.
+
+[28] In the seventeenth century, lawyers usually called their clients
+and the non-legal public 'Lay Gents.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+STUDENT LIFE IN OLD TIME.
+
+
+From statements made in previous chapters, it may be seen that in
+ancient times the Law University was a far more conspicuous feature of
+the metropolis than it has been in more modern generations. In the
+fifteenth century the law students of the town numbered about two
+thousand; in Elizabethan London their number fluctuated between one
+thousand and two thousand; towards the close of Charles II.'s reign they
+were probably much less than fifteen hundred; in the middle of the
+eighteenth century they do not seem to have much exceeded one thousand.
+Thus at a time when the entire population of the capital was
+considerably less than the population of a third-rate provincial town of
+modern England, the Inns of Court and Chancery contained more
+undergraduates than would be found on the books of the Oxford Colleges
+at the present time.
+
+Henry VIII.'s London looked to the University for mirth, news, trade.
+During vacations there was but little stir in the taverns and shops of
+Fleet Street; haberdashers and vintners sate idle; musicians starved;
+and the streets of the capital were comparatively empty when the
+students had withdrawn to spend their holidays in the country. As soon
+as the gentlemen of the robe returned to town all was brisk and merry
+again. As the town grew in extent and population, the social influence
+of the university gradually decreased; but in Elizabethan London the
+_eclat_ of the inns was at its brightest, and during the reigns of
+Elizabeth's two nearest successors London submitted to the Inns-of-Court
+men as arbiters of all matters pertaining to taste--copying their dress,
+slang, amusements, and vices. The same may be said, with less emphasis,
+of Charles II.'s London. Under the 'Merry Monarch' theatrical managers
+were especially anxious to please the inns, for they knew that no play
+would succeed which the lawyers had resolved to damn--that no actor
+could achieve popularity if the gallants of the Temple combined to laugh
+him down--that no company of performers could retain public favor when
+they had lost the countenance of law-colleges. Something of this power
+the young lawyers retained beyond the middle of the last century.
+Fielding and Addison caught with nervous eagerness the critical gossip
+of the Temple and Chancery Lane, just as Congreve and Wycherly, Dryden
+and Cowley had caught it in previous generations. Fashionable tradesmen
+and caterers for the amusement of the public made their engagements and
+speculations with reference to the opening of term. New plays, new
+books, new toys were never offered for the first time to London
+purchasers when the lawyers were away. All that the 'season' is to
+modern London, the 'term' was to old London, from the accession of Henry
+VIII. to the death of George II., and many of the existing commercial
+and fashionable arrangements of a London 'season' maybe traced to the
+old-world 'term.'
+
+In olden time the influence of the law-colleges was as great upon
+politics as upon fashion. Sheltering members of every powerful family in
+the country they were centres of political agitation, and places for the
+secret discussion of public affairs. Whatever plot was in course of
+incubation, the inns invariably harbored persons who were cognisant of
+the conspiracy. When faction decided on open rebellion or hidden
+treason, the agents of the malcontent leaders gathered together in the
+inns, where, so long as they did not rouse the suspicions of the
+authorities and maintained the bearing of studious men, they could hire
+assassins, plan risings, hold interviews with fellow-conspirators, and
+nurse their nefarious projects into achievement. At periods of danger
+therefore spies were set to watch the gates of the hostels, and mark who
+entered them. Governments took great pains to ascertain the secret life
+of the collegians. A succession of royal directions for the discipline
+of the inns under the Tudors and Stuarts points to the jealousy and
+constant apprehensions with which the sovereigns of England long
+regarded those convenient lurking-places for restless spirits and
+dangerous adversaries. Just as the Student-quarter of Paris is still
+watched by a vigilant police, so the Inns of Court were closely watched
+by the agents of Wolsey and Thomas Cromwell, of Burleigh and Buckingham.
+During the troubles and contentions of Elizabeth's reign Lord Burleigh
+was regularly informed concerning the life of the inns, the number of
+students in and out of town, the parentage and demeanor of new members,
+the gossip of the halls, and the rumors of the cloisters. In proportion
+as the political temper and action of the lawyers were deemed matters of
+high importance, their political indiscretions and misdemeanors were
+promptly and sometimes ferociously punished. An idle joke over a pot of
+wine sometimes cost a witty barrister his social rank and his ears. To
+promote a wholesome fear of authority in the colleges, government every
+now and then flogged a student at the cart's tail in Holborn, or
+pilloried a sad apprentice of the law in Chancery Lane, or hung an
+ancient on a gibbet at the entrance of his inn.
+
+The anecdote-books abound with good stories that illustrate the
+political excitability of the inns in past times, and the energy with
+which ministers were wont to repress the first manifestations of
+insubordination. Rushworth records the adventure of four young men of
+Lincoln's Inn who throw aside prudence and sobriety in a tavern hard by
+their inn, and drank to "the confusion of the Archbishop of Canterbury."
+The next day, full of penitence and head-ache, the offenders were
+brought before the council, and called to account for their scandalous
+conduct; when they would have fared ill had not the Earl of Dorset done
+them good service, and privately instructed them to say in their
+defence, that they had not drunk confusion to the archbishop but to the
+archbishop's _foes_. On this ingenious representation, the council
+supposed that the drawer--on whose information the proceedings were
+taken--had failed to catch the last word of the toast; and consequently
+the young gentlemen were dismissed with a 'light admonition,' much to
+their own surprise and the informer's chagrin.
+
+Of the political explosiveness of the inns in Charles II.'s time
+Narcissus Luttrell gives the following illustration in his diary, under
+date June 15 and 16, 1681:--"The 15th was a project sett on foot in
+Grayes Inn for the carrying on an addresse for thankes to his majestie
+for his late declaration; and was moved that day in the hall by some at
+dinner, and being (as is usual) sent to the barre messe to be by them
+recommended to the bench, but was rejected both by bench and barr; but
+the other side seeing they could doe no good this way, they gott about
+forty together and went to the tavern, and there subscribed the said
+addresse in the name of the truelye loyall gentlemen of Grayes Inn. The
+chief sticklers for the said addition were Sir William Seroggs, Jun.,
+Robert Fairebeard, Capt. Stowe, Capt. Radcliffe, one Yalden, with
+others, to the number of 40 or thereabouts; many of them sharpers about
+town, with clerks not out of their time, and young men newly come from
+the university. And some of them went the 17th to Windsor, and presented
+the said addresse to his majesty: who was pleasd to give them his
+thanks and confer (it is said) knighthood on the said Mr. Fairebeard;
+this proves a mistake since. The 16th was much such another addresse
+carried on in the Middle Temple, where several Templars, meeting about
+one or two that afternoon in the hall for that purpose, they began to
+debate it, but they were opposed till the hall began to fill; and then
+the addressers called for Mr. Montague to take the chaire; on which a
+poll was demanded, but the addressers refused it, and carried Mr.
+Montague and sett him in the chaire, and the other part pulled him out,
+on which high words grew, and some blows were given; but the addressers
+seeing they could doe no good with it in the hall, adjourned to the
+Divill Tavern, and there signed the addresse; the other party kept in
+the hall, and fell to protesting against such illegall and arbitrary
+proceedings, subscribing their names to a greater number than the
+addressers were, and presented the same to the bench as a grievance."
+
+Like the King's Head Tavern, which stood in Chancery Lane, the Devil
+Tavern, in Fleet Street, was a favorite house with the Caroline Lawyers.
+Its proximity to the Temple secured the special patronage of the
+templars, whereas the King's Head was more frequented by Lincoln's-Inn
+men; and in the tavern-haunting days of the seventeenth century those
+two places of entertainment saw many a wild and dissolute scene. Unlike
+Chattelin, who endeavored to satisfy his guests with delicate repasts
+and light wines, the hosts of the Devil and the King's Head provided the
+more substantial fare of old England, and laid themselves out to please
+roysterers who liked pots of ale in the morning, and were wont to drink
+brandy by the pint as the clocks struck midnight. Nando's, the house
+where Thurlow in his student-period used to hold nightly disputations
+with all comers of suitable social rank, was an orderly place in
+comparison with these more venerable hostelries; and though the Mitre,
+Cock, and Rainbow have witnessed a good deal of deep drinking, it may be
+questioned if they, or any other ancient taverns of the legal quarter,
+encouraged a more boisterous and reckless revelry than that which
+constituted the ordinary course of business at the King's Head and the
+Devil.
+
+In his notes for Jan. 1681-2, Mr. Narcissus Luttrell observes--"The
+13th, at night, some young gentlemen of the Temple went to the King's
+Head Tavern, Chancery Lane, committing strange outrages there, breaking
+windowes, &c., which the watch hearing of came to disperse them; but
+they sending for severall of the watermen with halberts that attend
+their comptroller of the revells, were engaged in a desperate riott, in
+which one of the watchmen was run into the body and lies very ill; but
+the watchmen secured one or two of the watermen." Eleven years later the
+diarist records: "Jan. 5. One Batsill, a young gentleman of the Temple,
+was committed to Newgate for wounding a captain at the Devil Tavern in
+Fleet Street on Saturday last." Such ebullitions of manly
+spirit--ebullitions pleasant enough to the humorist, but occasionally
+productive of very disagreeable and embarrassing consequences--were not
+uncommon in the neighborhood of the Inns of Court whilst the Christmas
+revels were in progress.
+
+A tempestuous, hot-blooded, irascible set were these gentlemen of the
+law-colleges, more zealous for their own honor than careful for the
+feelings of their neighbors. Alternately warring with sharp tongues,
+sharp pens, and sharp swords they went on losing their tempers, friends,
+and lives in the most gallant and picturesque manner imaginable. Here is
+a nice little row which occurred in the Middle Temple Hall during the
+days of good Queen Bess! "The records of the society," says Mr. Foss,
+"preserve an account of the expulsion of a member, which is rendered
+peculiarly interesting in consequence of the eminence to which the
+delinquent afterwards attained as a statesman, a poet, and a lawyer.
+Whilst the masters of the bench and other members of the society were
+sitting quietly at dinner on February 9, 1597-8, John Davis came into
+the hall with his hat on his head, and attended by two persons armed
+with swords, and going up to the barrister's table, where Richard Martin
+was sitting, he pulled out from under his gown a cudgel 'quem vulgariter
+vocant a bastinado,' and struck him over the head repeatedly, and with
+so much violence that the bastinado was shivered into many pieces. Then
+retiring to the bottom of the hall, he drew one of his attendants'
+swords and flourished it over his head, turning his face towards Martin,
+and then turning away down the water steps of the Temple, threw himself
+into a boat. For this outrageous act he was immediately disbarred and
+expelled the house, and deprived for ever of all authority to speak or
+consult in law. After nearly four years' retirement he petitioned the
+benchers for his restoration, which they accorded on October 30, 1601,
+upon his making a public submission in the hall, and asking pardon of
+Mr. Martin, who at once generously forgave him." Both the principals in
+this scandalous outbreak and subsequent reconciliation became honorably
+known in their profession--Martin rising to be a Recorder of London and
+a member of parliament; and Davies acting as Attorney General of Ireland
+and Speaker of the Irish parliament, and achieving such a status in
+politics and law that he was appointed to the Chief Justiceship of
+England, an office, however, which sudden death prevented him from
+filling.
+
+Nor must it be imagined that gay manners and lax morals were less
+general amongst the veterans than amongst the youngsters of the bar.
+Judges and sergeants were quite as prone to levity and godless riot as
+students about to be called; and such was the freedom permitted by
+professional decorum that leading advocates habitually met their clients
+in taverns, and having talked themselves dry at the bars of Westminster
+Hall, drank themselves speechless at the bars of Strand taverns--ere
+they reeled again into their chambers. The same habits of uproarious
+self-indulgence were in vogue with the benchers of the inns, and the
+Doctors of Doctors' Commons. Hale's austerity was the exceptional
+demeanor of a pious man protesting against the wickedness of an impious
+age. Had it not been for the shortness of time that had elapsed since
+Algernon Sidney's trial and sentence, John Evelyn would have seen no
+reason for censuring the loud hilarity and drunkenness of Jeffreys and
+Withings at Mrs. Castle's wedding.
+
+In some respects, however, the social atmosphere of the inns was far
+more wholesome in the days of Elizabeth, and for the hundred years
+following her reign, than it is at present. Sprung in most cases from
+legal families, the students who were educated to be working members of
+the bar lived much more under the observation of their older relations,
+and in closer intercourse with their mothers and sisters than they do at
+present. Now-a-days young Templars, fresh from the universities, would
+be uneasy and irritable under strict domestic control; and as men with
+beards and five-and-twenty years' knowledge of the world, they would
+resent any attempt to draw them within the lines of domestic control.
+But in Elizabethan and also in Stuart London, law-students were
+considerably younger than they are under Victoria.
+
+Moreover, the usage of the period trained young men to submit with
+cheerfulness to a parental discipline that would be deemed intolerable
+by our own youngsters. During the first terms of their eight, seven, or
+at least six years of pupilage, until they could secure quarters within
+college walls, students frequently lodged in the houses or chambers of
+near relations who were established in the immediate vicinity of the
+inns. A judge with a house in Fleet Street, an eminent counsel with a
+family mansion in Holborn, or an office-holder with commodious chambers
+in Chancery Lane, usually numbered amongst the members of his family a
+son, or nephew, or cousin who was keeping terms for the bar. Thus placed
+under the immediate superintendence of an elder whom he regarded with
+affection and pride, and surrounded by the wholesome interests of a
+refined domestic circle, the raw student was preserved from much folly
+and ill-doing into which he would have fallen had he been thrown
+entirely on his own resources for amusement.
+
+The pecuniary means of Inns-of-Court students have not varied much
+throughout the last twelve generations. In days when money was scarce
+and very precious they of course lived on a smaller number of coins than
+they require in these days when gold and silver are comparatively
+abundant and cheap; but it is reasonable to suppose that in every period
+the allowances, on which the less affluent of them subsisted, represent
+the amounts on which young men of their respective times were just able
+to maintain the figure and style of independent gentlemen. The costly
+pageants and feasts of the inns in old days must not be taken as
+indicative of the pecuniary resources of the common run of students; for
+the splendor of those entertainments was mainly due to the munificence
+of those more wealthy members who by a liberal and even profuse
+expenditure purchased a right to control the diversions of the colleges.
+Fortescue, speaking of his own time, says: "There can no student bee
+mayntayned for lesse expenses by the yeare than twentye markes. And if
+hee haue a seruant to waite uppon him, as most of them haue, then so
+much the greater will his charges bee." Hence it appears that during the
+most patrician period of the law university, when wealthy persons were
+accustomed to maintain ostentatious retinues of servants, a law-student
+often had no private personal attendant. An ordinance shows that in
+Elizabethan London the Inns-of-Court men were waited upon by laundresses
+or bedmakers who served and took wages from several masters at the same
+time. It would be interesting to ascertain the exact time when the
+"laundress" was first introduced into the Temple. She certainly
+flourished in the days of Queen Bess; and Roger North's piquant
+description of his brother's laundress is applicable to many of her
+successors who are looking after their perquisites at the present date.
+"The housekeeper," says Roger, "had been formerly his lordship's
+laundress at the Temple, and knew well her master's brother so early as
+when he was at the writing-school. She _was a phthisical old woman, and
+could scarce crawl upstairs once a day_." This general employment of
+servants who were common to several masters would alone prove that the
+Inns-of-Court men in the seventeenth century felt it convenient to
+husband their resources, and exercise economy. Throughout that century
+sixty pounds was deemed a sufficient income for a Temple student; and
+though it was a scant allowance, some young fellows managed to push on
+with a still more modest revenue. Simonds D'Ewes had L60 per annum
+during his student course, and L100 a year on becoming an
+utter-barrister. "It pleased God also in mercy," he writes, "after this
+to ease me of that continual want or short stipend I had for about five
+years last past groaned under; for my father, immediately on my call to
+the bar, enlarged my former allowance with forty pounds more annually;
+so as, after this plentiful annuity of one hundred pounds was duly and
+quarterly paid me by him, I found myself easyd of so many cares and
+discontents as I may well account that the 27th day of June foregoing
+the first day of my outward happiness since the decease of my dearest
+mother." All things considered, a bachelor in James I.'s London with a
+clear income of L100 per annum was on the whole as well off for his time
+as a young barrister of the present day would be with an annual
+allowance of L250 or L300. Francis North, when a student, was allowed
+only L60 per annum; and as soon as he was called and began to earn a
+little money, his parsimonious father reduced the stipend by L10; but,
+adds Roger North, "to do right to his good father, he paid him that
+fifty pounds a year as long as he lived, saying he would not discourage
+industry by rewarding it, when successful, with less." George Jeffreys,
+in his student-days, smarted under a still more galling penury, for he
+was allowed only L50 a year, L10 being for his clothes, and L40 for the
+rest of his expenditure. In the following century the nominal incomes of
+law-students rose in proportion as the wealth of the country increased
+and the currency fell in value. In George II.'s time a young Templar
+expected his father to allow him L150 a year, and on encouragement would
+spend twice that amount in the same time. Henry Fielding's allowance
+from General Fielding was L200 per annum; but as he said, with a laugh,
+he had too feeling and dutiful a nature to press an affectionate father
+for money which he was totally unable to pay. At the present time L150
+per annum is about the smallest sum on which a law-student can live with
+outward decency; and L250 per annum the lowest amount on which a chamber
+barrister can live with suitable dignity and comfort. If he has to
+maintain the expenses of a distant circuit Mr. Briefless requires from
+L100 to L200 more. Alas! how many of Mr. Briefless's meritorious and
+most ornamental kind are compelled to shift on far less ample means!
+How many of them periodically repeat the jest of poor A----, who made
+this brief and suggestive official return to the Income Tax
+Commissioners--"I am totally dependent on my father, who allows
+me--nothing!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+READERS AND MOOTMEN.
+
+
+Romantic eulogists of the Inns of Court maintain that, as an instrument
+of education, the law-university was nearly perfect for many generations
+after its consolidation. That in modern time abuses have impaired its
+faculties and diminished its usefulness they admit. Some of them are
+candid enough to allow that, as a school for the systematic study of
+law, it is under existing circumstances a deplorably deficient machine;
+but they unite in declaring that there _was_ a time when the system of
+the combined Colleges was complete and thoroughly efficacious. The more
+cautious of these eulogists decline to state the exact limits of the
+period when the actual condition of the university merited their cordial
+approval, but they concur in pointing to the years between the accession
+of Henry VII. and the death of James I., as comprising the brightest
+days of its academical vigor and renown.
+
+It is however worthy of observation that throughout the times when the
+legal learning and discipline of the colleges are described to have been
+admirable, the system and the students by no means won the approbation
+of those critical authorities who were best able to see their failings
+and merits. Wolsey was so strongly impressed by the faulty education of
+the barristers who practised before him, and more especially by their
+total ignorance of the principles of jurisprudence, that he prepared a
+plan for a new university which should be established in London, and
+should impart a liberal and exact knowledge of law. Had he lived to
+carry out his scheme it is most probable that the Inns of Court and
+Chancery would have become subsidiary and subordinate establishments to
+the new foundation. In this matter, sympathizing with the more
+enlightened minds of his age, Sir Nicholas Bacon was no less desirous
+than the great cardinal that a new law university should be planted in
+town, and he urged on Henry VIII. the propriety of devoting a certain
+portion of the confiscated church property to the foundation and
+endowment of such an institution.
+
+On paper the scheme of the old exercises and degrees looks very
+imposing, and those who delight in painting fancy pictures may infer
+from them that the scholastic order of the colleges was perfect. Before
+a young man could be called to the bar, he had under ordinary
+circumstances to spend seven or eight years in arguing cases at the Inns
+of Chancery, in proving his knowledge of law and Law-French at moots, in
+sharpening his wits at case-putting, in patient study of the Year-Books,
+and in watching the trials of Westminster Hall. After his call he was
+required to spend another period in study and academic exercise before
+he presumed to raise his voice at the bar; and in his progress to the
+highest rank of his profession he was expected to labor in educating the
+students of his house as assistant-reader, single-reader, double-reader.
+The gravest lawyers of every inn were bound to aid in the task of
+teaching the mysteries of the law to the rising generation.
+
+The old ordinances assumed that the law-student was thirsting for a
+knowledge of law, and that the veterans were no less eager to impart
+it. During term law was talked in hall at dinner and supper, and after
+these meals the collegians argued points. "The cases were put" after the
+earlier repast, and twice or thrice a week moots were "brought in" after
+the later meal. The students were also encouraged to assemble towards
+the close of each day and practise 'case-putting' in their gardens and
+in the cloisters of the Temple or Lincoln's Inn. The 'great fire' of
+1678-9 having destroyed the Temple Cloisters, some of the benchers
+proposed to erect chambers on the ground, to and fro upon which
+law-students had for generations walked whilst they wrangled aloud; but
+the Earl of Nottingham, recalling the days when young Heneage Finch used
+to put cases with his contemporary students, strangled the proposal at
+its birth, and Sir Christopher Wren subsequently built the Cloisters
+which may be seen at the present day.
+
+But there is reason to fear that at a very early period in their history
+the Inns of Court began to pay more attention to certain outward forms
+of instruction than to instruction itself. The unbiassed inquirer is
+driven to suspect that 'case-putting' soon became an idle ceremony, and
+'mooting' a mere pastime. Gentlemen ate heartily in the sixteenth and
+seventeenth centuries; and it is not easy to believe that immediately
+after a twelve o'clock dinner benchers were in the best possible mood to
+teach, or students in the fittest condition for learning. It is credible
+that these post-prandial exercitations were often enlivened by sparkling
+quips and droll occurrences; but it is less easy to believe that they
+were characterised by severe thought and logical exactness. So also with
+the after-supper exercises. The six o'clock suppers of the lawyers were
+no light repasts, but hearty meals of meat and bread, washed down by
+'_green pots_' of ale and wine. When 'the horn' sounded for supper, the
+student was in most cases better able to see the truth of knotty points
+than when in compliance with etiquette he bowed to the benchers, and
+asked if it was their pleasure to hear a moot. It seems probable that
+long before 'case-puttings' and 'mootings' were altogether disused, the
+old benchers were wont to wink mischievously at each other when they
+prepared to teach the boys, and that sometimes they would turn away from
+the proceedings of a moot with an air of disdain or indifference. The
+inquirer is not induced to rate more highly the intellectual effort of
+such exercises because the teachers refreshed their exhausted powers
+with bread and beer as soon as the arguments were closed.
+
+When such men as Coke and Francis Bacon were the readers, the students
+were entertained with lectures of surpassing excellence; but it was
+seldom that such readers could be found. It seems also that at an early
+period men became readers, not because they had any especial aptitude
+for offices of instruction, or because they had some especial fund of
+information--but simply because it was their turn to read. Routine
+placed them in the pulpit for a certain number of weeks; and when they
+had done all that routine required of them, and had thereby qualified
+themselves for promotion to the rank of sergeant, they took their seats
+amongst the benchers and ancients with the resolution not to trouble
+themselves again about the intellectual progress of the boys.
+
+Soon also the chief teacher of an Inn of Court became its chief feaster
+and principal entertainer; and in like manner his subordinates in
+office, such as assistant readers and readers elect, were required to
+put their hands into their pockets, and feed their pupils with venison
+and wine as well as with law and equity. It is amusing to observe how
+little Dugdale has to say about the professional duties of readers--and
+how much about their hospitable functions and responsibilities. Philip
+and Mary ordered that no reader of the Middle Temple should give away
+more than fifteen bucks during his readings; but so greatly did the cost
+of readers' entertainments increase in the following century, that
+Dugdale observes--"But the times are altered; there being few summer
+readers who, in half the time that heretofore a reading was wont to
+continue, spent so little as threescore bucks, besides red deer; some
+have spent fourscore, some an hundred."
+
+Just as readers were required to spend more in hospitality, they were
+required to display less learning. Sound lawyers avoided election to the
+readers' chairs, leaving them to be filled by rich men who could afford
+to feast the nobility and gentry, or at least by men who were willing to
+purchase social _eclat_ with a lavish outlay of money. Under Charles II.
+the 'readings' were too often nothing better than scandalous exhibitions
+of mental incapacity: and having sunk into disrepute, they died out
+before the accession of James II.
+
+The scandalous and beastly disorder of the Grand Day Feasts at the
+Middle Temple, during Francis North's tenure of the reader's office, was
+one of the causes that led to the discontinuance of Reader's Banquets at
+that house; and the other inns gladly followed the example of the Middle
+Temple in putting an end to a custom which had ceased to promote the
+dignity of the law. Of this feast, and his brother's part in it, Roger
+North says: "He (_i.e._ Francis North) sent out the officers with white
+staves (for so the way was) and a long list to invite; but he went
+himself to wait upon the Archbishop of Canterbury, Sheldon; for so also
+the ceremony required. The archbishop received him very honorably and
+would not part with him at the stairshead, as usually had been done;
+but, telling him he was no ordinary reader, went down, and did not part
+till he saw him past at his outward gate I cannot much commend the
+extravagance of the feasting used at these readings; and that of his
+lordship's was so terrible an example, that I think none hath ventured
+since to read publicly; but the exercise is turned into a revenue, and a
+composition is paid into the treasury of the society. Therefore one may
+say, as was said of Cleomenes, that, in this respect, his lordship was
+_ultimus herorum_, the last of the heroes. And the profusion of the best
+provisions, and wine, was to the worst of purposes--debauchery,
+disorder, tumult, and waste. I will give but one instance; upon the
+grand day, as it was called, a banquet was provided to be set upon the
+table, composed of pyramids, and smaller services in form. The first
+pyramid was at least four feet high, with stages one above another. The
+conveying this up to the table, through a crowd, that were in full
+purpose to overturn it, was no small work: but, with the friendly
+assistance of the gentlemen, it was set whole upon the table. But, after
+it was looked upon a little, all went, hand over hand, among the rout in
+the hall, and for the most part was trod under foot. The entertainment
+the nobility had out of this was, after they had tossed away the dishes,
+a view of the crowd in confusion, wallowing one over another, and
+contending for a dirty share of it."
+
+It would, however, be unfair to the ancient exercises of 'case-putting'
+and 'mooting' not to bear in mind that by habituating successful
+barristers to take personal interest in the professional capabilities of
+students, they helped to maintain a salutary intercourse betwixt the
+younger and older members of the profession. So long as 'moots' lasted,
+it was the fashion with eminent counsel to accost students in
+Westminster Hall, and gossip with them about legal matters. In Charles
+II.'s time, such eminent barristers as Sir Geoffrey Palmer daily gave
+practical hints and valuable suggestions to students who courted their
+favor; find accurate legal scholars, such as old 'Index Waller,' would,
+under judicious treatment, exhibit their learning to boys ambitious of
+following in their steps. Chief Justice Saunders, during the days of his
+pre-eminence at the bar, never walked through Westminster Hall without a
+train of lads at his heels. "I have seen him," says Roger North, "for
+hours and half-hours together, before the court sat, stand at the bar,
+with an audience of students over against him, putting of cases, and
+debating so as suited their capacities, and encouraged their industry.
+And so in the Temple, he seldom moved without a parcel of youths hanging
+about him, and he merry and jesting with them."
+
+Long after 'moots' had fallen into disuse, their influence in this
+respect was visible in the readiness of wigged veterans to extend a
+kindly and useful patronage to students. Even so late as the close of
+the last century, great black-letter lawyers used to accost students in
+Westminster Hall, and give them fair words, in a manner that would be
+misunderstood in the present day. Sergeant Hill--whose reputation for
+recondite legal erudition, resembled that of '_Index_ Waller,' or
+Maynard, in the seventeenth century--once accosted John Scott, as the
+latter, in his student days, was crossing Westminster Hall. "Pray, young
+gentleman," said the black-letter lawyer, "do you think herbage and
+pannage rateable to the poor's rate?" "Sir," answered the future Lord
+Eldon, with a courteous bow to the lawyer, whom he knew only by sight,
+"I cannot presume to give any opinion, inexperienced and unlearned as I
+am, to a person of your great knowledge, and high character in the
+profession." "Upon my word," replied the sergeant, eyeing the young man
+with unaffected delight, "you are a pretty sensible young gentleman; I
+don't often meet with such. If I had asked Mr. Burgess, a young man upon
+our circuit, the question, he would have told me that I was an old
+fool. You are an extraordinary sensible young gentleman."
+
+The period when 'readings,' 'mooting,' and 'case-putting' fell into
+disuse or contempt, is known with sufficient accuracy. Having noticed
+the decay of readings, Sir John Bramston writes, in Charles II.'s reign,
+"At this tyme readings are totally in all the Inns of Court layd aside;
+and to speak truth, with great reason, for it was a step at once to the
+dignity of a sergeant, but not soe now." Marking the time when moots
+became farcical forms, Roger North having stated that his brother
+Francis, when a student, was "an attendant (as well as exerciser) at the
+ordinary moots in the Middle Temple and at New Inn," goes on to say, "In
+those days, the moots were carefully performed, and it is hard to give a
+good reason (bad ones are prompt enough) why they are not so now." But
+it should be observed, that though for all practical purposes 'moots'
+and 'case-puttings' ceased in Charles II.'s time, they were not formally
+abolished. Indeed, they lingered on throughout the eighteenth century,
+and to the present time--when vestiges of them may still be observed in
+the usages and discipline of the Inns. Before the writer of this page
+was called to the bar by the Masters of the Society of Lincoln's Inn,
+he, like all other students of his time, had to go through the form of
+putting a case on certain days in the hall after dinner. The ceremony
+appeared to him alike ludicrous and interesting. To put his case, he was
+conducted by the steward of the inn to the top of the senior bar table,
+when the steward placed an open MS. book before him, and said, "Read
+that, sir;" whereupon this deponent read aloud something about "a femme
+sole," or some such thing, and was still reading the rest of the MS.,
+kindly opened under his nose by the steward, when that worthy officer
+checked him suddenly, saying, "That will do, sir; you have _put_ your
+case--and can sign the book." The book duly signed, this deponent bowed
+to the assembled barristers, and walked out of the hall, smiling as he
+thought how, by an ingenious fiction, he was credited with having put an
+elaborate case to a college of profound jurists, with having argued it
+before an attentive audience, and with having borne away the laurels of
+triumph. Recently this pleasant mockery of case-putting has been swept
+away.
+
+In Roger North's 'Discourse on the Study of the Laws,' and 'Life of the
+Lord Keeper Guildford,' the reader may see with clearness the course of
+an industrious law-student during the latter half of the seventeenth
+century, and it differs less from the ordinary career of an industrious
+Temple-student in our time, than many recent writers on the subject
+think.
+
+Under Charles II., James II., and William III. the law-student was
+compelled to muster the barbarous Law-French; but the books which he was
+required to read were few in comparison with those of a modern
+Inns-of-Court man. Roger North mentions between twenty and thirty
+authors, which the student should read in addition to Year-Books and
+more recent reports; and it is clear that the man who knew with any
+degree of familiarity such a body of legal literature was a very erudite
+lawyer two hundred years since. But the student was advised to read this
+small library again and again, "common-placing" the contents of its
+volumes, and also "common-placing" all new legal facts. The utility and
+convenience of common-place books were more apparent two centuries
+since, than in our time, when books of reference are always published
+with good tables of contents and alphabetical indexes. Roger North held
+that no man could become a good lawyer who did not keep a common-place
+book. He instructs the student to buy for a common-place register "a
+good large paper book, as big as a church bible;" he instructs him how
+to classify the facts which should be entered in the work; and for a
+model of a lucid and thoroughly lawyer-like common-place book he refers
+"to Lincoln's Inn library, where the Lord Hale's common-place book is
+conserved, and that may be a pattern, _instar omnium_."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+PUPILS IN CHAMBERS.
+
+
+But the most important part of an industrious law-student's labors in
+olden time, was the work of watching the practice of Westminster Hall.
+In the seventeenth century, the constant succession of political trials
+made the King's Bench Court especially attractive to students who were
+more eager for gossip than advancement of learning; but it was always
+held that the student, who was desirous to learn the law rather than to
+catch exciting news or hear exciting speeches, ought to frequent the
+Common Pleas, in which court the common law was said to be at home. At
+the Common Pleas, a student might find a seat vacant in the students'
+benches so late as ten o'clock; but it was not unusual for every place
+devoted to the accommodation of students in the Court of King's Bench,
+to be occupied by six o'clock, A.M. By dawn, and even before the sun had
+begun to break, students bent on getting good seats at the hearing of an
+important cause would assemble, and patiently wait in court till the
+judges made their appearance.
+
+One prominent feature in the advocate's education must always be
+elocutionary practice. "Talk; if you can, to the point, but anyhow
+talk," has been the motto of Advocacy from time immemorial. Heneage
+Finch, who, like every member of his silver-tongued family, was an
+authority on matters pertaining to eloquence, is said to have advised a
+young student "to study all the morning and talk all the afternoon."
+Sergeant Maynard used to express his opinion of the importance of
+eloquence to a lawyer by calling law the "ars bablativa." Roger North
+observes--"He whose trade is speaking must not, whatever comes out, fail
+to speak, for that is a fault in the main much worse than impertinence."
+And at a recent address to the students of the London University, Lord
+Brougham urged those of his auditors, who intended to adopt the
+profession of the bar, to habituate themselves to talk about everything.
+
+In past times law-students were proverbial for their talkativeness; and
+though the present writer has never seen any records of a Carolinian
+law-debating society, it is matter of certainty that in the seventeenth
+century the young students and barristers formed themselves into
+coteries, or clubs, for the practice of elocution and for legal
+discussions. The continual debates on 'mootable days,' and the incessant
+wranglings of the Temple cloisters, encouraged them to pay especial
+attention to such exercises. In Charles II.'s reign Pool's company, was
+a coterie of students and young barristers, who used to meet
+periodically for congenial conversation and debate. "There is seldom a
+time," says Roger North, speaking of this coterie, "but in every Inn of
+Court there is a studious, sober company that are select to each other,
+and keep company at meals and refreshments. Such a company did Mr. Pool
+find out, whereof Sergeant Wild was one, and every one of them proved
+eminent, and most of them are now preferred in the law; and Mr. Pool, at
+the latter end of his life, took such a pride in his company that he
+affected to furnish his chambers with their pictures." Amongst the
+benefits to be derived from such a club as that of which Mr. Pool was
+president, Roger North mentions "Aptness to speak;" adding: "for a man
+may be possessed of a book-case, and think he has it _ad unguem_
+throughout, and when he offers at it shall find himself at a loss, and
+his words will not be right and proper, or perhaps too many, and his
+expressions confused: _when he has once talked his case over, and, his
+company have tossed it a little to and fro, then he shall utter it more
+readily, with fewer words and much more force_."
+
+These words make it clear that Mr. Pool's 'company' was a select
+'law-debating society.' Far smaller as to number of members, something
+more festive in its arrangements, but not less bent on furthering the
+professional progress of its members, it was, some two hundred years
+since, all that the 'Hardwicke' and other similar associations are at
+the present.[29]
+
+To such fraternities--of which the Inns of Court had several in the last
+century--Murray and Thurlow, Law and Erskine had recourse: and besides
+attending strictly professional clubs, it was usual for the students, of
+their respective times, to practise elocution at the coffee-houses and
+public spouting-rooms of the town. Murray used to argue as well as
+'drink champagne' with the wits; Thurlow was the irrepressible talker of
+Nando's; Erskine used to carry his scarlet uniform from Lincoln's Inn
+Hall, to the smoke-laden atmosphere of Coachmakers' Hall, at which
+memorable 'discussion forum' Edward Law is known to have spoken in the
+presence of a closely packed assembly of politicians, idlers upon town,
+shop-men, and drunkards. Thither also Horne Tooke and Dunning used to
+adjourn after dining with Taffy Kenyon at the Chancery Lane
+eating-house, where the three friends were wont to stay their hunger for
+sevenpence halfpenny each. "Dunning and myself," Horne Tooke said
+boastfully, when he recalled these economical repasts, "were generous,
+for we gave the girl who waited on us a penny apiece; but Kenyon, who
+always knew the value of money, rewarded her with a halfpenny, and
+sometimes with a _promise_."
+
+Notwithstanding the recent revival of lectures and the institution of
+examinations, the actual course of the law-student has changed little
+since the author of the 'Pleader's Guide,' in 1706, described the career
+of John Surrebutter, Esq., Special Pleader and Barrister-at-Law. The
+labors of 'pupils in chambers, are thus noticed by Mr. Surrebutter:--
+
+   "And, better to improve your taste,
+   Are by your parents' fondness plac'd
+   Amongst the blest, the chosen few
+   (Blest, if their happiness they knew),
+   Who for three hundred guineas paid
+   To some great master of the trade,
+   Have at his rooms by _special_ favor
+   His leave to use their best endeavor,
+   By drawing pleas from nine till four,
+   To earn him twice three hundred more;
+   And after dinner may repair
+   To 'foresaid rooms, and then and there
+   Have 'foresaid leave from five till ten,
+   To draw th' aforesaid pleas again."
+
+Continuing to describe his professional career, Mr. Surrebutter mentions
+certain facts which show that so late as the close of last century
+professional etiquette did not forbid special pleaders and barristers to
+curry favor with solicitors and solicitors' clerks by attentions which
+would now-a-days be deemed reprehensible. He says:--
+
+   "Whoe'er has drawn a special plea
+   Has heard of old Tom Tewkesbury,
+   Deaf as a post, and thick as mustard,
+   He aim'd at wit, and bawl'd and bluster'd
+   And died a Nisi Prius leader--
+   That genius was my special pleader--
+   That great man's office I attended,
+   By Hawk and Buzzard recommended
+   Attorneys both of wondrous skill,
+   To pluck the goose and drive the quill.
+   Three years I sat his smoky room in,
+   Pens, paper, ink, and pounce consuming;
+   The fourth, when Epsom Day begun,
+   Joyful I hailed th' auspicious sun,
+   Bade Tewkesbury and Clerk adieu;
+   (Purification, eighty-two)
+   Of both I wash'd my hands; and though
+   With nothing for my cash to show,
+   But precedents so scrawl'd and blurr'd,
+   I scarce could read a single word,
+   Nor in my books of common-place
+   One feature, of the law could trace,
+   Save Buzzard's nose and visage thin,
+   And Hawk's deficiency of chin,
+   Which I while lolling at my ease
+   Was wont to draw instead of pleas.
+   My chambers I equipt complete,
+   Made friends, hired books, and gave to eat;
+   If haply to regale my friends on,
+   My mother sent a haunch of ven'son,
+   I most respectfully entreated
+   The choicest company to eat it;
+   _To wit_, old Buzzard, Hawk, and Crow;
+   _Item_, Tom Thornback, Shark, and Co.
+   Attorneys all as keen and staunch
+   As e'er devoured a client's haunch.
+   And did I not their clerks invite
+   To taste said ven'son hash'd at night?
+   For well I knew that hopeful fry
+   My rising merit would descry,
+   The same litigious course pursue,
+   And when to fish of prey they grew,
+   By love of food and contest led,
+   Would haunt the spot where once they fed.
+   Thus having with due circumspection
+   Formed my professional connexion,
+   My desks with precedents I strew'd,
+   Turned critic, danc'd, or penn'd an ode,
+   Suited the _ton_, became a free
+   And easy man of gallantry;
+   But if while capering at my glass,
+   Or toying with a favorite lass,
+   I heard the aforesaid Hawk a-coming,
+   Or Buzzard on the staircase humming,
+   At once the fair angelic maid
+   Into my coal-hole I convey'd;
+   At once with serious look profound,
+   Mine eyes commencing with the ground,
+   I seem'd like one estranged to sleep,
+   'And fixed in cogitation deep,'
+   Sat motionless, and in my hand I
+   Held my 'Doctrina Placitandi,'
+   And though I never read a page in't,
+   Thanks to that shrewd, well-judging agent,
+   My sister's husband, Mr. Shark,
+   Soon got six pupils and a clerk.
+   Five pupils were my stint, the other
+   I took to compliment his mother."
+
+Having fleeced pupils, and worked as a special pleader for a time, Mr.
+Surrebutter is called to the bar; after which ceremony his action
+towards 'the inferior branch' of the profession is not more dignified
+than it was whilst he practised as a Special Pleader.
+
+It appears that in Mr. Surrebutter's time (_circa_ 1780) it was usual
+for a student to spend three whole years in the same pleader's chambers,
+paying three hundred guineas for the course of study. Not many years
+passed before students saw it was not to their advantage to spend so
+long a period with the same instructor, and by the end of the century
+the industrious student who could command the fees wherewith to pay for
+such special tuition, usually spent a year or two in a pleader's
+chambers, and another year or two in the chambers of an equity
+draughtsman, or conveyancer. Lord Campbell, at the opening of the
+present century, spent three years in the chambers of the eminent
+Special Pleader, Mr. Tidd, of whose learning and generosity the
+biographer of the Chancellors makes cordial and grateful acknowledgment.
+Finding that Campbell could not afford to pay a second hundred guineas
+for a second year's instruction, Tidd not only offered him the run of
+his chambers without payment, but made the young Scotchman take back the
+L105 which he had paid for the first twelve months.
+
+In his later years Lord Campbell delighted to trace his legal pedigree
+to the great pleader and 'pupillizer' of the last century, Tom Warren.
+The chart ran thus: "Tom Warren had for pupil Sergeant Runnington, who
+instructed in the mysteries of special pleading the learned Tidd, who
+was the teacher of John Campbell." With honest pride and pleasant vanity
+the literary Chancellor maintained that he had given the genealogical
+tree another generation of forensic honor, as Solicitor General Dundas
+and Vaughan Williams, of the Common Pleas Bench, were his pupils.
+
+Though Campbell speaks of _Tom Warren_ as "the greater founder of the
+special pleading race," and maintains that "the voluntary discipline of
+the special pleader's office" was unknown before the middle of the last
+century, it is certain that the voluntary discipline of a legal
+instructor's office or chambers was an affair of frequent occurrence
+long before Warren's rise. Roger North, in his 'Discourse on the Study
+of the Laws,' makes no allusion to any such voluntary discipline as an
+ordinary feature of a law-student's career; but in his 'Life of Lord
+Keeper Guildford' he expressly informs us that he was a pupil in his
+brother's chambers. "His lordship," writes the biographer, "having taken
+that advanced post, and designing to benefit a relation (the Honorable
+Roger North), who was a student in the law, and kept him company, caused
+his clerk to put into his hands all his draughts, such as he himself had
+corrected, and after which conveyances had been engrossed, that, by a
+perusal of them, he might get some light into the formal skill of
+conveyancing. And that young gentleman instantly went to work, and first
+numbered the draughts, and then made an index of all the clauses,
+referring to that number and folio; so that, in this strict perusal and
+digestion of the various matters, he acquired, not only a formal style,
+but also apt precedents, and a competent notion of instruments of all
+kinds. And to this great condescension was owing that little progress he
+made, which afterwards served to prepare some matters for his lordship's
+own perusal and settlement." Here then is a case of a pupil in a
+barrister's chambers in Charles II.'s reign; and it is a case that
+suffers nothing from the fact that the teacher took no fee.
+
+In like manner, John Trevor (subsequently Master of the Rolls and
+Speaker of the Commons) about the same time was "bred a sort of clerk in
+old Arthur Trevor's chamber, an eminent and worthy professor of the law
+in the Inner Temple." On being asked what might be the name of the boy
+with such a hideous squint who sate at a clerk's desk in the outer room,
+Arthur Trevor answered, "A kinsman of mine that I have allowed to sit
+here, to learn the knavish part of the law." It must be observed that
+John Trevor was not a clerk, but merely a "sort of a clerk" in his
+kinsman's chamber.
+
+In the latter half of the seventeenth century, and in the earlier half
+of the eighteenth century, students who wished to learn the practice of
+the law usually entered the offices of attorneys in large practice. At
+that period, the division between the two branches of the profession was
+much less wide than it subsequently became; and no rule or maxim of
+professional etiquette forbade Inns-of-Court men to act as the
+subordinates of attorneys and solicitors. Thus Philip Yorke (Lord
+Hardwicke) in Queen Anne's reign acted as clerk in the office of Mr.
+Salkeld, an attorney residing in Brook Street, Holborn, whilst he kept
+his terms at the Temple; and nearly fifty years later, Ned Thurlow (Lord
+Thurlow), on leaving Cambridge, and taking up his residence in the
+Temple, became a pupil in the office of Mr. Chapman, a solicitor, whose
+place of business was in Lincoln's Inn. There is no doubt that it was
+customary for young men destined the bar thus to work in attorneys'
+offices; and they continued to do so without any sense of humiliation or
+thought of condescension, until the special pleaders superseded the
+attorneys as instructors.
+
+[29] The mention of 'the Hardwicke' brings a droll story to the writer's
+mind. Some few years since the members of that learned fraternity
+assembled at their customary plate of meeting--a large room in
+Anderton's Hotel, Fleet Street--to discuss a knotty point of law about
+anent Uses. The master of young men was strong; and amongst
+them--conspicuous for his advanced years, jovial visage, red nose, and
+air of perplexity--sate an old gentleman who was evidently a stranger to
+every lawyer present. Who was he? Who brought him? Was there any one in
+the room who knew him? Such were the whispers that floated about,
+concerning the portly old man, arrayed in blue coat and drab breeches
+and gaiters, who took his snuff in silence, and watched the proceedings
+with evident surprise and dissatisfaction. After listening to three
+speeches this antique, jolly stranger rose, and with much embarrassment
+addressed the chair. "Mr. President," he said--"excuse me; but may I
+ask,--is this 'The Convivial Rabbits?'" A roar of laughter followed this
+enquiry from a 'convivial rabbit,' who having mistaken the evening of
+the week, had wandered into the room in which his convivial
+fellow-clubsters had held a meeting on the previous evening. On
+receiving the President's assurance that the learned members of a
+law-debating society were not 'convivial rabbits,' the elderly stranger
+buttoned his blue coat and beat a speedy retreat.
+
+
+
+
+PART VIII.
+
+MIRTH.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+WIT OF LAWYERS.
+
+
+No lawyer has given better witticisms to the jest-books than Sir Thomas
+More. Like all legal wits, he enjoyed a pun, as Sir Thomas Manners, the
+mushroom Earl of Rutland discovered, when he winced under the cutting
+reproof of his insolence, conveyed in the translation of 'Honores mutant
+mores'--_Honors change manners_. But though he would condescend to play
+with words as a child plays with shells on a sea-beach, he could at will
+command the laughter of his readers without having recourse to mere
+verbal antics. He delighted in what may be termed humorous
+mystification. Entering Bruges at a time when his leaving had gained
+European notoriety, he was met by the challenge of a noisy fellow who
+proclaimed himself ready to dispute with the whole world--or any other
+man--"in omni scibili et de quolibet ente." Accepting the invitation,
+and entering the lists in the presence of all the scholastic magnates of
+Bruges, More gravely inquired, "An averia carucae capta in vetitonamio
+sint irreplegibilia?" Not versed in the principles and terminology of
+the common law of England, the challenger could only stammer and
+blush--whilst More's eye twinkled maliciously, and his auditors were
+convulsed with laughter.
+
+Much of his humor was of the sort that is ordinarily called _quiet_
+humor, because its effect does not pass off in shouts of merriment. Of
+this kind of pleasantry he gave the Lieutenant of the Tower a specimen,
+when he said, with as much courtesy as irony, "Assure yourself I do not
+dislike my cheer; but whenever I do, then spare not to thrust me out of
+your doors!" Of the same sort were the pleasantries with which, on the
+morning of his execution, he with fine consideration for others strove
+to divert attention from the cruelty of his doom. "I see no danger," he
+observed, with a smile, to his friend Sir Thomas Pope, shaking his
+water-bottle as he spoke, "but that this man may live longer if it
+please the king." Finding in the craziness of the scaffold a good
+pretext for leaning in friendly fashion on his gaoler's arm, he extended
+his hand to Sir William Kingston, saying, "Master Lieutenant, I pray you
+see me safe up; for my coming down let me shift for myself." Even to the
+headsman he gave a gentle pleasantry and a smile from the block itself,
+as he put aside his beard so that the keen blade should not touch it.
+"Wait, my good friend, till I have removed my beard," he said, turning
+his eyes upwards to the official, "for it has never offended his
+highness."
+
+His wit was not less ready than brilliant, and on one occasion its
+readiness saved him from a sudden and horrible death. Sitting on the
+roof of his high gate-house at Chelsea, he was enjoying the beauties of
+the Thames and the sunny richness of the landscape, when his solitude
+was broken by the unlooked-for arrival of a wandering maniac. Wearing
+the horn and badge of a Bedlamite, the unfortunate creature showed the
+signs of his malady in his equipment as well as his countenance. Having
+cast his eye downwards from the parapet to the foot of the tower, he
+conceived a mad desire to hurl the Chancellor from the flat roof. "Leap,
+Tom! leap!" screamed the athletic fellow, laying a firm hand on More's
+shoulder. Fixing his attention with a steady look, More said, coolly,
+"Let us first throw my little dog down, and see what sport that will
+be." In a trice the dog was thrown into the air. "Good!" said More,
+feigning delight at the experiment: "now run down, fetch the dog, and
+we'll throw him off again." Obeying the command, the dangerous intruder
+left More free to secure himself by a bar, and to summon assistance with
+his voice.
+
+For a good end this wise and mirth-loving lawyer would play the part of
+a practical joker; and it is recorded that by a jest of the practical
+sort he gave a wholesome lesson to an old civic magistrate, who, at the
+Sessions of the Old Bailey, was continually telling the victims of
+cut-purses that they had only themselves to thank for their losses--that
+purses would never be cut if their wearers took proper care to retain
+them in their possession. These orations always terminated with, "I
+never lose _my_ purse; cut-purses never take _my_ purse; no, i'faith,
+because I take proper care of it." To teach his worship wisdom, and cure
+him of his self-sufficiency, More engaged a cut-purse to relieve the
+magistrate of his money-bag whilst he sat upon the bench. A story is
+recorded of another Old Bailey judge who became the victim of a thief
+under very ridiculous circumstances. Whilst he was presiding at the
+trial of a thief in the Old Bailey, Sir John Sylvester, Recorder of
+London, said incidentally that he had left his watch at home. The trial
+ended in an acquittal, the prisoner had no sooner gained his liberty
+than he hastened to the recorder's house, and sent in word to Lady
+Sylvester that he was a constable and had been sent from the Old Bailey
+to fetch her husband's watch. When the recorder returned home and found
+he had lost his watch, it is to be feared that Lady Sylvester lost her
+usual equanimity. _Apropos_ of these stories Lord Campbell tells--how,
+at the opening period of his professional career, soon after the
+publication of his 'Nisi Prius Reports,' he on circuit successfully
+defended a prisoner charged with a criminal offence; and how, whilst the
+success of his advocacy was still quickening his pulses, he discovered
+that his late client, with whom he held a confidential conversation, had
+contrived to relieve him of his pocket-book, full of bank-notes. As soon
+as the presiding judge, Lord Chief Baron Macdonald, heard of the mishap
+of the reporting barrister, he exclaimed, "What! does Mr. Campbell think
+that no one is entitled to _take notes_ in court except himself?"
+
+By the urbane placidity which marked the utterance of his happiest
+speeches, Sir Nicholas Bacon often recalled to his hearers the courteous
+easiness of More's _repartees_. Keeping his own pace in society, as well
+as in the Court of Chancery, neither satire nor importunity could ruffle
+or confuse him. When Elizabeth, looking disdainfully at his modest
+country mansion, told him that the place was too small, he answered with
+the flattery of gratitude, "Not so, madam, your highness has made me too
+great for my house." Leicester having suddenly asked him his opinion of
+two aspirants for court favor, he responded on the spur of the moment,
+"By my troth, my lord, the one is a grave councillor: the other is a
+proper young man, and so he will be as long as he lives." To the queen,
+who pressed him for his sentiments respecting the effect of
+monopolies--a delicate question for a subject to speak his mind
+upon--he answered, with conciliatory lightness, "Madam, will you have me
+speak the truth? _Licentia_ omnes deteriores sumus." In court he used to
+say, "Let us stay a little, that we may have done the sooner." But
+notwithstanding his deliberation and the stutter that hindered his
+utterances, he could be quicker than the quickest, and sharper than the
+most acrid, as the loquacious barrister discovered who was suddenly
+checked in a course of pert talkativeness by this tart remark from the
+stammering Lord Keeper: "There is a difference between you and me,--for
+me it is a pain to s-speak, for you a pain to hold your tongue." That
+the familiar story of his fatal attack of cold is altogether true one
+cannot well believe, for it seems highly improbable that the Lord
+Keeper, in his seventieth year, would have sat down to be shaved near an
+open window in the month of February. But though the anecdote may not be
+historically exact, it may be accepted as a faithful portraiture of his
+more stately and severely courteous humor. "Why did you suffer me to
+sleep thus exposed?" asked the Lord Keeper, waking in a fit of shivering
+from slumber into which his servant had allowed him to drop, as he sat
+to be shaved in a place where there was a sharp current of air. "Sir, I
+durst not disturb you," answered the punctilious valet, with a lowly
+obeisance. Having eyed him for a few seconds, Sir Nicholas rose and
+said, "By your civility I lose my life." Whereupon the Lord Keeper
+retired to the bed from which he never rose.
+
+Amongst Elizabethan Judges who aimed at sprightliness on the Bench,
+Hatton merits a place; but there is reason to think that the idlers, who
+crowded his court to admire the foppishness of his judicial costume, did
+not get one really good _mot_ from his lips to every ten bright sayings
+that came from the clever barristers practising before him. One of the
+best things attributed to him is a pun. In a case concerning the limits
+of certain land, the counsel on one side having remarked with
+explanatory emphasis, "We lie on this side, my Lord;" and the counsel on
+the other side having interposed with equal vehemence, "We lie on this
+side, my Lord,"--the Lord Chancellor leaned backwards, and dryly
+observed, "If you lie on both sides, whom am I to believe?" In
+Elizabethan England the pun was as great a power in the jocularity of
+the law-courts as it is at present; the few surviving witticisms that
+are supposed to exemplify Egerton's lighter mood on the bench, being for
+the most part feeble attempts at punning. For instance, when he was
+asked, during his tenure of the Mastership of the Rolls, to _commit_ a
+cause, _i.e._, to refer it to a Master in Chancery, he used to answer,
+"What has the cause done that it should be committed?" It is also
+recorded of him that, when he was asked for his signature to a petition
+of which he disapproved, he would tear it in pieces with both hands,
+saying, "You want my hand to this? You shall have it; aye, and both my
+hands, too."
+
+Of Egerton's student days a story is extant, which has merits,
+independent of its truth or want of truth. The hostess of a Smithfield
+tavern had received a sum of money from three graziers, in trust for
+them, and on engagement to restore it to them on their joint demand.
+Soon after this transfer, one of the co-depositors, fraudulently
+representing himself to be acting as the agent of the other two, induced
+the old lady to give him possession of the whole of the money--and
+thereupon absconded. Forthwith the other two depositors brought an
+action against the landlady, and were on the point of gaining a decision
+in their favor, when young Egerton, who had been taking notes of the
+trial, rose as _amicus curiae_, and argued, "This money, by the contract,
+was to be returned to _three_, but _two_ only sue;--where is the
+_third_? let him appear with the others; till then the money cannot be
+demanded from her." Nonsuit for the plaintiffs--for the young student a
+hum of commendation.
+
+Many of the pungent sayings current in Westminster Hall at the present
+time, and attributed to eminent advocates who either are still upon the
+forensic stage, or have recently withdrawn from it, were common jests
+amongst the lawyers of the seventeenth century. What law-student now
+eating dinners at the Temple has not heard the story of Sergeant
+Wilkins, who, on drinking a pot of stout in the middle of the day,
+explained that, as he was about to appear in court, he thought it right
+to fuddle his brain down to the intellectual standard of a British jury.
+This merry thought, two hundred and fifty years since, was currently
+attributed to Sir John Millicent, of Cambridgeshire, of whom it is
+recorded--"being asked how he did conforme himselfe to the grave
+justices his brothers, when they met, 'Why, in faithe,' sayes he, 'I
+have no way but to drinke myself downe to the capacitie of the Bench.'"
+
+Another witticism, currently attributed to various recent celebrities,
+but usually fathered upon Richard Brinsley Sheridan--on whose reputation
+have been heaped the brilliant _mots_ of many a speaker whom he never
+heard, and the indiscretions of many a sinner whom he never knew--is
+certainly as old as Shaftesbury's bright and unprincipled career. When
+Charles II. exclaimed, "Shaftesbury, you are the most profligate man in
+my dominions," the reckless Chancellor answered, "Of a subject, sir, I
+believe I am." It is likely enough that Shaftesbury merely repeated the
+witticism of a previous courtier; but it is certain that Sheridan was
+not the first to strike out the pun.
+
+In this place let a contradiction be given to a baseless story, which
+exalts Sir William Follett's reputation for intellectual readiness and
+argumentative ability. The story runs, that early in the January of
+1845, whilst George Stephenson, Dean Buckland, and Sir William Follett
+were Sir Robert Peel's guests at Drayton Manor, Dean Buckland vanquished
+the engineer in a discussion on a geological question. The next morning,
+George Stephenson was walking in the gardens of Drayton Manor before
+breakfast, when Sir William Follett accosted him, and sitting down in an
+arbor asked for the facts of the argument. Having quickly 'picked up the
+case,' the lawyer joined Sir Robert Peel's guests at breakfast, and
+amused them by leading the dean back to the dispute of the previous day,
+and overthrowing his fallacies by a skilful use of the same arguments
+which the self-taught engineer had employed with such ill effect. "What
+do you say, Mr. Stephenson?" asked Sir Robert Peel, enjoying the dean's
+discomfiture. "Why," returned George Stephenson, "I only say this, that
+of all the powers above and under earth, there seems to me no power so
+great as the gift of the gab." This is the story. But there are facts
+which contradict it. The only visit paid by George Stephenson to Drayton
+Manor was made in the December of 1844, not the January of 1845. The
+guests (invited for Dec. 14, 1844), were Lord Talbot, Lord Aylesford,
+the Bishop of Lichfield, Dr. Buckland, Dr. Lyon Playfair, Professor
+Owen, George Stephenson, Mr. Smith of Deanston, and Professor
+Wheatstone. Sir William Follett was not of the party, and did not set
+foot within Drayton Manor during George Stephenson's visit there. Of
+this, Professor Wheatstone (who furnished the present writer with these
+particulars), is certain. Moreover, it is not to be believed that Sir
+William Follett, an overworked invalid (who died in the June of 1845 of
+the pulmonary disease under which he had suffered for years), would sit
+in an arbor before breakfast on a winter's morning to hold debate with
+a companion on any subject. The story is a revival of an anecdote first
+told long before George Stephenson was born.
+
+In lists of legal _facetiae_ the habit of punning is not more noticeable
+than the prevalent unamiability of the jests. Advocates are intellectual
+gladiators, using their tongues as soldiers of fortune use their swords;
+and when they speak, it is to vanquish an adversary. Antagonism is an
+unavoidable condition of their existence; and this incessant warfare
+gives a merciless asperity to their language, even when it does not
+infuse their hearts with bitterness. Duty enjoins the barrister to leave
+no word unsaid that can help his client, and encourages him to perplex
+by satire, baffle by ridicule, or silence by sarcasm, all who may oppose
+him with statements that cannot be disproved, or arguments that cannot
+be upset by reason. That which duty bids him do, practice enables him to
+do with terrible precision and completeness; and in many a case the
+caustic tone, assumed at the outset as a professional weapon, becomes
+habitual, and, without the speaker's knowledge, gives more pain within
+his home than in Westminster Hall.
+
+Some of the well-known witticisms attributed to great lawyers are so
+brutally personal and malignant, that no man possessing any respect for
+human nature can read them without endeavoring to regard them as mere
+biographic fabrications. It is recorded of Charles Yorke that, after his
+election to serve as member for the University of Cambridge, he, in
+accordance with etiquette, made a round of calls on members of senate,
+giving them personal thanks for their votes; and that on coming to the
+presence of a supporter--an old 'fellow' known as the ugliest man in
+Cambridge--he addressed him thus, after smiling 'an aside' to a knot of
+bystanders--"Sir, I have reason to be thankful to my friends in
+general; but I confess myself under particular obligation to you for
+the very _remarkable countenance_ you have shown me on this occasion."
+There is no doubt that Charles Yorke could make himself unendurably
+offensive; it is just credible that without a thought of their double
+meaning he uttered the words attributed to him; but it is not to be
+believed that he--an English gentleman--thus intentionally insulted a
+man who had rendered him a service.
+
+A story far less offensive than the preceding anecdote, but in one point
+similar to it, is told of Judge Fortescue-Aland (subsequently Lord
+Fortescue), and a counsel. Sir John Fortescue-Aland was disfigured by a
+nose which was purple, and hideously misshapen by morbid growth. Having
+checked a ready counsel with the needlessly harsh observation, "Brother,
+brother, you are handling the case in a very lame manner," the angry
+advocate gave vent to his annoyance by saying, with a perfect appearance
+of _sang-froid_, "Pardon me, my lord; have patience with me, and I will
+do my best to make the case as plain as--as--the nose on your lordship's
+face." In this case the personality was uttered in hot blood, by a man
+who deemed himself to be striking the enemy of his professional
+reputation.
+
+If they were not supported by incontrovertible testimony, the admirers
+of the great Sir Edward Coke would reject as spurious many of the
+overbearing rejoinders which escaped his lips in courts of justice. His
+tone in his memorable altercation with Bacon at the bar of the Court of
+Exchequer speaks ill for the courtesy of English advocates in
+Elizabeth's reign; and to any student who can appreciate the dignified
+formality and punctilious politeness that characterized English
+gentlemen in the old time, it is matter of perplexity how a man of
+Coke's learning, capacity, and standing, could have marked his contempt
+for 'Cowells Interpreter,' by designating the author in open court Dr.
+Cowheel. Scarcely in better taste were the coarse personalities with
+which, as Attorney General, he deluged Garnet the Jesuit, whom he
+described as "a Doctor of Jesuits; that is, a Doctor of six D's--as
+Dissimulation, Deposing of princes, Disposing of kingdoms, Daunting and
+Deterring of Subjects, and Destruction."
+
+In comparatively recent times few judges surpassed Thurlow in
+overbearing insolence to the bar. To a few favorites, such as John Scott
+and Kenyon, he could be consistently indulgent, although even to them
+his patronage was often disagreeably contemptuous; but to those who
+provoked his displeasure by a perfectly independent and fearless bearing
+he was a malignant persecutor. For instance, in his animosity to Richard
+Pepper Arden (Lord Alvanley), he often forgot his duty as a judge and
+his manners as a gentleman. John Scott, on one occasion, rising in the
+Court of Chancery to address the court after Arden, who was his leader
+in the cause, and had made an unusually able speech, Lord Thurlow had
+the indecency to say, "Mr. Scott, I am glad to find that you are engaged
+in the cause, for I now stand some chance of knowing something about the
+matter." To the Chancellor's habitual incivility and insolence it is
+allowed that Arden always responded with dignity and self-command,
+humiliating his powerful and ungenerous adversary by invariable
+good-breeding. Once, through inadvertence, he showed disrespect to the
+surly Chancellor, and then he instantly gave utterance to a cordial
+apology, which Thurlow was not generous enough to accept with
+appropriate courtesy. In the excitement of professional altercation with
+counsel respecting the ages of certain persons concerned in a suit, he
+committed the indecorum of saying aloud, "I'll lay you a bottle of
+wine." Ever on the alert to catch his enemy tripping, Thurlow's eye
+brightened as his ear caught the careless words; and in another instant
+he assumed a look of indignant disgust. But before the irate judge could
+speak, Arden exclaimed, "My lord, I beg your lordship's pardon; I really
+forgot where I was." Had Thurlow bowed a grave acceptance of the
+apology, Arden would have suffered somewhat from the misadventure; but
+unable to keep his abusive tongue quiet, the 'Great Bear' growled out,
+in allusion to the offender's Welsh judgeship, "You thought you were in
+your own court, I presume."
+
+More laughable, but not more courteous, was the same Chancellor's speech
+to a solicitor who had made a series of statements in a vain endeavor to
+convince his lordship of a certain person's death. "Really, my lord," at
+last the solicitor exclaimed, goaded into a fury by Thurlow's repeated
+ejaculations of "That's no proof of the man's death;" "Really, my lord,
+it is very hard, and it is not right that you won't believe me. I saw
+the man dead in his coffin. My lord, I tell you he was my client, and he
+is dead." "No wonder," retorted Thurlow, with a grunt and a sneer,
+"_since he was your client_. Why did you not tell me that sooner? It
+would kill me to have such a fellow as you for my attorney." That this
+great lawyer could thus address a respectable gentleman is less
+astonishing when it is remembered, that he once horrified a party of
+aristocratic visitors at a country-house by replying to a lady who
+pressed him to take some grapes, "Grapes, madam, grapes! Did not I say a
+minute ago that I had the _gripes_!" Once this ungentle lawyer was
+fairly worsted in a verbal conflict by an Irish pavier. On crossing the
+threshold of his Ormond Street house one morning, the Chancellor was
+incensed at seeing a load of paving-stones placed before his door.
+Singling out the tallest of a score of Irish workmen who were repairing
+the thoroughfare, he poured upon him one of those torrents of curses
+with which his most insolent speeches were usually preluded, and then
+told the man to move the stones away instantly. "Where shall I take them
+to, your honor?" the pavier inquired. From the Chancellor another volley
+of blasphemous abuse, ending with, "You lousy scoundrel, take them to
+hell!--do you hear me?" "Have a care, your honor," answered the workman,
+with quiet drollery, "don't you think now that if I took 'em to the
+other place your honor would be less likely to fall over them?"
+
+Thurlow's incivility to the solicitor reminds us of the cruel answer
+given by another great lawyer to a country attorney, who, through fussy
+anxiety for a client's interests, committed a grave breach of
+professional etiquette. Let this attorney be called Mr. Smith, and let
+it be known that Mr. Smith, having come up to London from a secluded
+district of a remote country, was present at a consultation of
+counsellors learned in the law upon his client's cause. At this
+interview, the leading counsel in the cause, the Attorney General of the
+time, was present and delivered his final opinion with characteristic
+clearness and precision. The consultation over, the country attorney
+retreated to the Hummums Hotel, Covent Garden, and, instead of sleeping
+over the statements made at the conference, passed a wretched and
+wakeful night, harassed by distressing fears, and agitated by a
+conviction that the Attorney General had overlooked the most important
+point of the case. Early next day, Mr. Smith, without appointment, was
+at the great counsellor's chambers, and by vehement importunity, as well
+as a liberal donation to the clerk, succeeded in forcing his way to the
+advocate's presence. "Well, Mis-ter Smith," observed the Attorney
+General to his visitor, turning away from one of his devilling juniors,
+who chanced to be closeted with him at the moment of the intrusion,
+"what may you want to say? Be quick, for I am pressed for time."
+Notwithstanding the urgency of his engagements, he spoke with a slowness
+which, no less than the suspicious rattle of his voice, indicated the
+fervor of displeasure. "Sir Causticus Witherett, I trust you will excuse
+my troubling you; but, sir, after our yesterday's interview, I went to
+my hotel, the Hummums, in Covent Garden, and have spent the evening and
+all night turning over my client's case in my mind, and the more I turn
+the matter over in my mind, the more reason I see to fear that you have
+not given one point due consideration." A pause, during which Sir
+Causticus steadily eyed his visitor, who began to feel strangely
+embarrassed under the searching scrutiny: and then--"State the point,
+Mis-ter Smith, but be brief." Having heard the point stated, Sir
+Causticus Witherett inquired, "Is that all you wish to say?" "All,
+sir--all," replied Mr. Smith; adding nervously, "And I trust you will
+excuse me for troubling you about the matter; but, sir, I could not
+sleep a wink last night; all through the night I was turning this matter
+over in my mind." A glimpse of silence. Sir Causticus rose and standing
+over his victim made his final speech--"Mis-ter Smith, if you take my
+advice, given with sincere commiseration for your state, you will
+without delay return to the tranquil village in which you habitually
+reside. In the quietude of your accustomed scenes you will have leisure
+to _turn this matter over in what you are pleased to call your mind_.
+And I am willing to hope that _your mind_ will recover its usual
+serenity. Mr. Smith, I wish you a very good morning."
+
+Legal biography abounds with ghastly stories that illustrate the
+insensibility with which the hanging judges in past generations used to
+don the black cap jauntily, and smile at the wretched beings whom they
+sentenced to death. Perhaps of all such anecdotes the most thoroughly
+sickening is that which describes the conduct of Jeffreys, when, as
+Recorder of London, he passed sentence of death on his old and familiar
+friend, Richard Langhorn, the Catholic barrister--one of the victims of
+the Popish Plot phrensy. It is recorded that Jeffreys, not content with
+consigning his friend to a traitor's doom, malignantly reminded him of
+their former intercourse, and with devilish ridicule admonished him to
+prepare his soul for the next world. The authority which gives us this
+story adds, that by thus insulting a wretched gentleman and personal
+associate, Jeffreys, instead of rousing the disgust of his auditors,
+elicited their enthusiastic applause.
+
+In a note to a passage in one of the Waverley Novels, Scott tells a
+story of an old Scotch judge, who, as an enthusiastic chess-player, was
+much mortified by the success of an ancient friend, who invariably beat
+him when they tried their powers at the beloved game. After a time the
+humiliated chess-player had his day of triumph. His conqueror happened
+to commit murder, and it became the judge's not altogether painful duty
+to pass upon him the sentence of the law. Having in due form and with
+suitable solemnity commended his soul to the divine mercy, he, after a
+brief pause, assumed his ordinary colloquial tone of voice, and nodding
+humorously to his old friend, observed--"And noo, Jammie, I think ye'll
+alloo that I hae checkmated you for ance."
+
+Of all the bloodthirsty wearers of the ermine, no one, since the opening
+of the eighteenth century, has fared worse than Sir Francis Page--the
+virulence of whose tongue and the cruelty of whose nature were marks for
+successive satirists. In one of his Imitations of Horace, Pope says--
+
+   "Slanderer, poison dread from Delia's rage,
+   Hard words or hanging, if your judge be Page."
+
+In the same spirit the poet penned the lines of the 'Dunciad'--
+
+   "Mortality, by her false guardians drawn,
+   Chicane in furs, and Casuistry in lawn,
+   Gasps, as they straighten at each end the cord,
+   And dies, when Dulness gives her----the Sword."
+
+Powerless to feign insensibility to the blow, Sir Francis openly fitted
+this _black_ cap to his dishonored head by sending his clerk to
+expostulate with the poet. The ill-chosen ambassador performed his
+mission by showing that, in Sir Francis's opinion, the whole passage
+would be sheer nonsense, unless 'Page' were inserted in the vacant
+place. Johnson and Savage took vengeance on the judge for the judicial
+misconduct which branded the latter poet a murderer; and Fielding, in
+'Tom Jones,' illustrating by a current story the offensive levity of the
+judge's demeanor at capital trials, makes him thus retort on a
+horse-stealer: "Ay! thou art a lucky fellow; I have traveled the circuit
+these forty years, and never found a horse in my life; but I'll tell
+thee what, friend, thou wast more lucky than thou didst know of; for
+thou didst not only find a horse, but a halter too, I promise thee."
+This scandal to his professional order was permitted to insult the
+humane sentiments of the nation for a long period. Born in 1661, he died
+in 1741, whilst he was still occupying a judicial place; and it is said
+of him, that in his last year he pointed the ignominious story of his
+existence by a speech that soon ran the round of the courts. In answer
+to an inquiry for his health, the octogenarian judge observed, "My dear
+sir--you see how it fares with me; I just manage to keep _hanging on,
+hanging on_." This story is ordinarily told as though the old man did
+not see the unfavorable significance of his words; but it is probable
+that, he uttered them wittingly and with, a sneer--in the cynicism and
+shamelessness of old age.
+
+A man of finer stuff and of various merits, but still famous as a
+'hanging judge,' was Sir Francis Buller, who also made himself odious to
+the gentler sex by maintaining that husbands might flog their wives, if
+the chastisement were administered with a stick not thicker than the
+operator's thumb. But the severity to criminals, which gave him a place
+amongst hanging judges, was not a consequence of natural cruelty.
+Inability to devise a satisfactory system of secondary punishments, and
+a genuine conviction that ninety-nine out of every hundred culprits were
+incorrigible, caused him to maintain that the gallows-tree was the most
+efficacious as well as the cheapest instrument that could be invented
+for protecting society against malefactors. Another of his stern _dicta_
+was, that previous good character was a reason for increasing rather
+than a reason for lessening a culprit's punishment; "For," he argued,
+"the longer a prisoner has enjoyed the good opinion of the world, the
+less are the excuses for his misdeeds, and the more injurious is his
+conduct to public morality."
+
+In contrast to these odious stories of hanging judges are some anecdotes
+of great men, who abhorred the atrocities of our penal system, long
+before the worst of them were swept away by reform. Lord Mansfield has
+never been credited with lively sensibilities, but his humanity was so
+shocked by the bare thought of killing a man for committing a trifling
+theft, that he on one occasion ordered a jury to find that a stolen
+trinket was of less value than forty shillings--in order that the thief
+might escape the capital sentence. The prosecutor, a dealer in jewelry,
+was so mortified by the judge's leniency, that he exclaimed, "What, my
+lord, my golden trinket not worth forty shillings? Why, the fashion
+alone cost me twice the money!" Removing his glance from the vindictive
+tradesman, Lord Mansfield turned towards the jury, and said, with solemn
+gravity, "As we stand in need of God's mercy, gentlemen, let us not hang
+a man for fashion's sake."
+
+Tenderness of heart was even less notable in Kenyon than in Murray; but
+Lord Mansfield's successor was at least on one occasion stirred by
+apathetic consequence of the bloody law against persons found guilty of
+trivial theft. On the Home Circuit, having passed sentence of death on a
+poor woman who had stolen property to the value of forty shillings in a
+dwelling-house, Lord Kenyon saw the prisoner drop lifeless in the dock,
+just as he ceased to speak. Instantly the Chief Justice sprang to his
+feet, and screamed in a shrill tone, "I don't mean to hang you--do you
+hear!--don't you hear?--Good----will nobody tell her that I don't mean
+to hang her?"
+
+One of the humorous aspects of a repulsive subject is seen in the
+curiosity and fastidiousness of prisoners on trial for capital offences
+with regard to the professional _status_ of the judges who try them. A
+sheep-stealer of the old bloody days liked that sentence should be
+passed upon him by a Chief Justice; and in our own time murderers
+awaiting execution, sometimes grumble at the unfairness of their trials,
+because they have been tried by judges of inferior degree. Lord Campbell
+mentions the case of a sergeant, who, whilst acting as Chief Justice
+Abbott's deputy, on the Oxford circuit, was reminded that he was 'merely
+a temporary' by the prisoner in the dock. Being asked in the usual way
+if he had aught to say why sentence of death should not be passed upon
+him, the prisoner answered--"_Yes; I have been tried before a journeyman
+judge._"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+HUMOROUS STORIES.
+
+
+Alike commendable for its subtlety and inoffensive humor was the
+pleasantry with which young Philip Yorke (afterwards Lord Hardwicke),
+answered Sir Lyttleton Powys's banter on the Western Circuit. An amiable
+and upright, but far from brilliant judge, Sir Lyttleton had a few pet
+phrases---amongst them, "I humbly conceive," and "Look, do you
+see"--which he sprinkled over his judgments and colloquial talk with
+ridiculous profuseness. Surprised at Yorke's sudden rise into lucrative
+practice, this most gentlemanlike worthy was pleased to account for the
+unusual success by maintaining that young Mr. Yorke must have written a
+law-book, which had brought him early into favor with the inferior
+branch of the profession. "Mr. Yorke," said the venerable justice,
+whilst the barristers were sitting over their wine at a 'judges'
+dinner,' "I cannot well account for your having so much business,
+considering how short a time you have been at the bar: I humbly conceive
+you must have published something; for look you, do you see, there is
+scarcely a cause in court but you are employed in it on one side or the
+other. I should therefore be glad to know, Mr. Yorke, do you see,
+whether this be the case." Playfully denying that he possessed any
+celebrity as a writer on legal matters, Yorke, with an assumption of
+candor, admitted that he had some thoughts of lightening the labors of
+law-students by turning Coke upon Littleton into verse. Indeed, he
+confessed that he had already begun the work of versification. Not
+seeing the nature of the reply, Sir Lyttleton Powys treated the droll
+fancy as a serious project, and insisted that the author should give a
+specimen of the style of his contemplated work. Whereupon the young
+barrister--not pausing to remind a company of lawyers of the words of
+the original. "Tenant in fee simple is he which hath lands or tenements
+to hold to him and his heirs for ever"--recited the lines--
+
+   "He that holdeth his lands in fee
+     Need neither to quake nor quiver,
+   _I humbly conceive: for look, do you see_
+     They are his and his heirs' forever."
+
+The mimicry of voice being not less perfect than the verbal imitation,
+Yorke's hearers were convulsed with laughter, but so unconscious was Sir
+Lyttleton of the ridicule which he had incurred, that on subsequently
+encountering Yorke in London, he asked how "that translation of Coke
+upon Littleton was getting on." Sir Lyttleton died in 1732, and exactly
+ten years afterwards appeared the first edition of 'The Reports of Sir
+Edward Coke, Knt., in Verse'--a work which its author may have been
+inspired to undertake by Philip Yorke's proposal to versify 'Coke on
+Littleton.'
+
+Had Yorke's project been carried out, lawyers would have a large supply
+of that comic but sound literature of which Sir James Burrow's Reports
+contain a specimen in the following poetical version of Chief Justice
+Pratt's memorable decision with regard to a woman of English birth, who
+was the widow of a foreigner:
+
+   "A woman having settlement
+     Married a man with none,
+   The question was, he being dead,
+     If what she had was gone.
+
+   "Quoth Sir John Pratt, 'The settlement
+     Suspended did remain,
+   Living the husband; but him dead
+     It doth revive again.'
+
+   (_Chorus of Puisne Judges._)
+
+   "Living the husband; but him dead
+     It doth revive again."
+
+Chief Justice Pratt's decision on this point having been reversed by his
+successor, Chief Justice Ryder's judgment was thus reported:
+
+   "A woman having a settlement,
+     Married a man with none,
+   He flies and leaves her destitute;
+     What then is to be done?
+
+   "Quoth Ryder, the Chief Justice,
+     'In spite of Sir John Pratt,
+   You'll send her to the parish
+     In which she was a brat.
+
+   "'_Suspension of a settlement_
+     Is not to be maintained;
+   That which she had by birth subsists
+     Until another's gained.'
+
+   (_Chorus of Puisne Judges._)
+
+   "That which she had by birth subsists
+     Until another's gained."
+
+In the early months of his married life, whilst playing the part of an
+Oxford don, Lord Eldon was required to decide in an important action
+brought by two undergraduates against the cook of University College.
+The plaintiffs declared that the cook had "sent to their rooms an
+apple-pie _that could not be eaten_." The defendant pleaded that he had
+a remarkably fine fillet of veal in the kitchen. Having set aside this
+plea on grounds obvious to the legal mind, and not otherwise then
+manifest to unlearned laymen, Mr. John Scott ordered the apple-pie to be
+brought in court; but the messenger, dispatched to do the judge's
+bidding, returned with the astounding intelligence that during the
+progress of the litigation a party of undergraduates had actually
+devoured the pie--fruit and crust. Nothing but the pan was left.
+Judgment: "The charge here is, that the cook has sent up an apple-pie
+that cannot be eaten. Now that cannot be said to have been uneatable
+which has been eaten; and as this apple-pie has been eaten, it was
+eatable. Let the cook be absolved."
+
+But of all the judicial decisions on record, none was delivered with
+more comical effect than Lord Loughborough's decision not to hear a
+cause brought on a wager about a point in the game of 'Hazard.' A
+constant frequenter of Brookes's and White's, Lord Loughborough was well
+known by men of fashion to be fairly versed in the mysteries of
+gambling, though no evidence has ever been found in support of the
+charge that he was an habitual dicer. That he ever lost much by play is
+improbable; but the scandal-mongers of Westminster had some plausible
+reasons for laughing at the virtuous indignation of the spotless
+Alexander Wedderburn, who, whilst sitting at _Nisi Prius_, exclaimed,
+"Do not swear the jury in this case, but let it be struck out of the
+paper. I will not try it. The administration of justice is insulted by
+the proposal that I should try it. To my astonishment I find that the
+action is brought on a wager as to the mode of playing an illegal,
+disreputable, and mischievous game called 'Hazard;' whether, allowing
+seven to be the main, and eleven to be a nick to seven, there are more
+ways than six of nicking seven on the dice? Courts of justice are
+constituted to try rights and redress injuries, not to solve the
+problems of the gamesters. The gentlemen of the jury and I may have
+heard of 'Hazard' as a mode of dicing by which sharpers live, and young
+men of family and fortune are ruined; but what do any of us know of
+'seven being the main,' or 'eleven being the nick to seven?' Do we come
+here to be instructed in this lore, and are the unusual crowds (drawn
+hither, I suppose, by the novelty of the expected entertainment) to take
+a lesson with us in these unholy mysteries, which they are to practice
+in the evening in the low gaming-houses in St. James Street, pithily
+called by a name which should inspire a salutary terror of entering
+them? Again, I say, let the cause be struck out of the paper. Move the
+court, if you please, that it may be restored, and if my brethren think
+that I do wrong in the course that I now take, I hope that one of them
+will officiate for me here, and save me from the degradation of trying
+'whether there be more than six ways of nicking seven on the dice,
+allowing seven to be the main and eleven to be a nick to seven'--a
+question, after all, admitting of no doubt, and capable of mathematical
+demonstration."
+
+With equal fervor Lord Kenyon inveighed against the pernicious usage of
+gambling, urging that the hells of St. James's should, be indicted as
+common nuisances. The 'legal monk,' as Lord Carlisle stigmatized him for
+his violent denunciations of an amusement countenanced by women of the
+highest fashion, even went so far as to exclaim--"If any such
+prosecutions are fairly brought before me, and the guilty parties are
+convicted, whatever may be their rank or station in the country, though
+they may be the first ladies in the land, they shall certainly exhibit
+themselves in the pillory."
+
+The same considerations, which decided Lord Loughborough not to try an
+action brought by a wager concerning chicken-hazard, made Lord
+Ellenborough decline to hear a cause where the plaintiff sought to
+recover money wagered on a cock-fight. "There is likewise," said Lord
+Ellenborough, "another principle on which I think an action on such
+wagers cannot be maintained. They tend to the degradation of courts of
+justice. It is impossible to be engaged in ludicrous inquiries of this
+sort consistently with that dignity which it is essential to the public
+welfare that a court of justice should always preserve. I will not try
+the plaintiff's right to recover the four guineas, which might involve
+questions on the weight of the cocks and the construction of their steel
+spurs."
+
+It has already been remarked that in all ages the wits of Westminster
+Hall have delighted in puns; and it may be here added, with the
+exception of some twenty happy verbal freaks, the puns of lawyers have
+not been remarkable for their excellence. L'Estrange records that when a
+stone was hurled by a convict from the dock at Charles I.'s Chief
+Justice Richardson, and passed just over the head of the judge, who
+happened to be sitting at ease and lolling on his elbow, the learned man
+smiled, and observed to those who congratulated him on his escape, "You
+see now, if I had been an _upright judge_ I had been slaine." Under
+George III. Joseph Jekyll[30] was at the same time the brightest wit and
+most shameless punster of Westminster Hall; and such pride did he take
+in his reputation as a punster, that after the fashion of the wits of an
+earlier period he was often at considerable pains to give a pun a
+well-wrought epigrammatic setting. Bored with the long-winded speech of
+a prosy sergeant, he wrote on a slip of paper, which was in due course
+passed along the barristers' benches in the court where he was
+sitting--
+
+   "The sergeants are a grateful race,
+     Their dress and language show it;
+   Their purple garments come from _Tyre_,
+     Their arguments go to it."
+
+When Garrow, by a more skilful than successful cross-examination, was
+endeavoring to lure a witness (an unmarried lady of advanced years) into
+an acknowledgment that payment of certain money in dispute had been
+tendered, Jekyll threw him this couplet--
+
+   "Garrow, forbear; that tough old jade
+   Will never prove a _tender maid_."
+
+So also, when Lord Eldon and Sir Arthur Pigott each made a stand in
+court for his favorite pronunciation of the word 'lien;' Lord Eldon
+calling the word _lion_ and Sir Arthur maintaining that it was to be
+pronounced like _lean_, Jekyll, with an allusion to the parsimonious
+arrangements of the Chancellor's kitchen, perpetrated the _jeu
+d'esprit_--
+
+   "Sir Arthur, Sir Arthur, why what do you mean
+   By saying the Chancellor's _lion_ is _lean_?
+   D'ye think that his kitchen's so bad as all that,
+   That nothing within it can ever get fat?"
+
+By this difference concerning the pronunciation of a word the present
+writer is reminded of an amicable contest that occurred in Westminster
+Hall between Lord Campbell and a Q.C. who is still in the front rank of
+court-advocates. In an action brought to recover for damages done to a
+carriage, the learned counsel repeatedly called, the vehicle in question
+a broug-ham, pronouncing both syllables of the word _brougham_.
+Whereupon, Lord Campbell with considerable pomposity observed, "_Broom_
+is the more usual pronunciation; a carriage of the kind you mean is
+generally and not incorrectly called a _broom_--that pronunciation is
+open to no grave objection, and it has the great advantage of saving the
+time consumed by uttering an extra syllable." Half an hour later in the
+same trial Lord Campbell, alluding to a decision given in a similar
+action, said, "In that case the carriage which had sustained injury was
+an _omnibus_----" "Pardon me, my lord," interposed the Queen's Counsel,
+with such promptitude that his lordship was startled into silence, "a
+carriage of the kind, to which you draw attention is usually termed
+'bus;' that pronunciation is open to no grave objection, and it has the
+great advantage of saving the time consumed by uttering two extra
+syllables." The interruption was followed by a roar of laughter, in
+which Lord Campbell joined more heartily than any one else.
+
+One of Jekyll's happy sayings was spoken at Exeter, when he defended
+several needlemen who were charged with raising a riot for the purpose
+of forcing the master-tailors to give higher wages. Whilst Jekyll was
+examining a witness as to the number of tailors present at the alleged
+riot, Lord Eldon--then Chief Justice of the Common Pleas--reminded him
+that three persons can make that which the law regards as a riot;
+whereupon the witty advocate answered, "Yes, my lord, Hale and Hawkins
+lay down the law as your lordship states it, and I rely on their
+authority; for if there must be three men to make a riot, the rioters
+being _tailors_, there must be nine times three present, and unless the
+prosecutor make out that there were twenty-seven joining in this breach
+of the peace, my clients are entitled to an acquittal." On Lord Eldon
+enquiring whether he relied on common-law or statute-law, the counsel
+for the defence answered firmly, "My lord, I rely on a well-known maxim,
+as old as Magna Charta, _Nine Tailors make a Man_." Finding themselves
+unable to reward a lawyer for so excellent a jest with an adverse
+verdict, the jury acquitted the prisoners. Towards the close of his
+career Eldon made a still better jest than this of Jekyll's concerning
+tailors. In 1829, when Lyndhurst was occupying the woolsack for the
+first time, and Eldon was longing to recover the seals, the latter
+presented a petition from the Tailors' Company at Glasgow against
+Catholic Belief.
+
+"What!" asked Lord Lyndhurst from the woolsack, in a low voice, "do the
+_tailors_ trouble themselves about such _measures_?" Whereto, with
+unaccustomed quickness, the old Tory of the Tories retorted, "No wonder;
+you can't suppose that _tailors_ like _turncoats_."
+
+As specimens of a kind of pleasantry becoming more scarce every year,
+some of Sir George Rose's court witticisms are excellent. When Mr.
+Beams, the reporter, defended himself against the _friction_ of passing
+barristers by a wooden bar, the flimsiness of which was pointed out to
+Sir George (then Mr. Rose), the wit answered--
+
+   "Yes--the partition is certainly thin--
+   Yet thick enough, truly, the Beams within."
+
+The same originator of happy sayings pointed to Eldon's characteristic
+weakness in the lines--
+
+   "Mr. Leach made a speech,
+     Pithy, clear, and strong;
+   Mr. Hart, on the other part,
+     Was prosy, dull, and long;
+   Mr. Parker made that darker
+     Which was dark enough without;
+   Mr. Bell spoke so well,
+     That the Chancellor said--'I doubt.'"
+
+Far from being offended by this allusion to his notorious mental
+infirmity, Lord Eldon, shortly after the verses had floated into
+circulation, concluded one of his decisions by saying, with a
+significant smile, "And here _the Chancellor does not doubt_."
+
+Not less remarkable for precipitancy than Eldon for procrastination, Sir
+John Leach, Vice-Chancellor, was said to have done more mischief by
+excessive haste in a single term than Eldon in his whole life wrought
+through extreme caution. The holders of this opinion delighted to repeat
+the poor and not perspicuous lines--
+
+   "In equity's high court there are
+     Two sad extremes, 'tis clear;
+   Excessive slowness strikes us there,
+     Excessive quickness here.
+
+   "Their source, 'twixt good and evil, brings
+     A difficulty nice;
+   The first from Eldon's _virtue_, springs,
+     The latter from his _vice_."
+
+It is needless to remark that this attempt to gloss the Chancellor's
+shortcomings is an illustration of the readiness with which censors
+apologize for the misdeeds of eminently fortunate offenders. Whilst
+Eldon's procrastination and Leach's haste were thus put in contrast, an
+epigram also placed the Chancellor's frailty in comparison with the
+tedious prolixity of the Master of the Rolls--
+
+   "To cause delay in Lincoln's Inn
+     Two diff'rent methods tend:
+   His lordship's judgments ne'er begin,
+     His honors never end."
+
+A mirth-loving judge, Justice Powell, could be as thoroughly humorous in
+private life as he was fearless and just upon the bench. Swift describes
+him as a surpassingly merry old gentleman, laughing heartily at all
+comic things, and his own droll stories more than aught else. In court
+he could not always refrain from jocularity. For instance, when he
+tried Jane Wenham for witch-craft, and she assured him that she could
+fly, his eye twinkled as he answered, "Well, then you may; there is no
+law against flying." When Fowler, Bishop of Gloucester--a thorough
+believer in what is now-a-days called spiritualism--was persecuting his
+acquaintance with silly stories about ghosts, Powell gave him a telling
+reproof for his credulity by describing a horrible apparition which was
+represented as having disturbed the narrator's rest on the previous
+night. At the hour of midnight, as the clocks were striking twelve, the
+judge was roused from his first slumber by a hideous sound. Starting up,
+he saw at the foot of his uncompanioned bed a figure--dark, gloomy,
+terrible, holding before its grim and repulsive visage a lamp that shed
+an uncertain light. "May Heaven have mercy on us!" tremulously
+ejaculated the bishop at this point of the story. The judge continued
+his story: "Be calm, my lord bishop; be calm. The awful part of this
+mysterious interview has still to be told. Nerving myself to fashion the
+words of inquiry, I addressed the nocturnal visitor thus--'Strange
+being, why hast thou come at this still hour to perturb a sinful
+mortal?' You understand, my lord, I said this in hollow tones--in what I
+may almost term a sepulchral voice." "Ay--ay," responded the bishop,
+with intense excitement; "go on--I implore you to go on. What did _it_
+answer?" "It answered in a voice not greatly different from the voice of
+a human creature--'Please, sir, _I am the watchman on beat, and your
+street-door is open_.'" Readers will remember the use which Barham has
+made of this story in the Ingoldsby Legends.
+
+As a Justice of the King's Bench, Powell had in Chief Justice Holt an
+associate who could not only appreciate the wit of others, but could
+himself say smart things. When Lacy, the fanatic, forced his way into
+Holt's house in Bedford Row, the Chief Justice was equal to the
+occasion. "I come to you," said Lacy, "a prophet from the Lord God, who
+has sent me to thee and would have thee grant a _nolle prosequi_ for
+John Atkins, his servant, whom thou hast sent to prison." Whereto the
+judge answered, with proper emphasis, "Thou art a false prophet and a
+lying knave. If the Lord God had sent thee, it would have been to the
+Attorney General, for the Lord God knows that it belongeth not to the
+Chief Justice, to grant a _nolle prosequi_; but I, as Chief Justice, can
+grant a warrant to commit thee to John Atkins's company." Whereupon the
+false prophet, sharing the fate of many a true one, was forthwith
+clapped in prison.
+
+Now that so much has been said of Thurlow's brutal sarcasms, justice
+demands for his memory an acknowledgment that he possessed a vein of
+genuine humor that could make itself felt without wounding. In his
+undergraduate days at Cambridge he is said to have worried the tutors of
+Caius with a series of disorderly pranks and impudent _escapades_, but
+on one occasion he unquestionably displayed at the university the quick
+wit that in after life rescued him from many an embarrassing position.
+"Sir," observed a tutor, giving the unruly undergraduate a look of
+disapproval, "I never come to the window without seeing you idling in
+the court." "Sir," replied young Thurlow, imitating the don's tone, "I
+never come into the court without seeing you idling at the window."
+Years later, when he had become a great man, and John Scott was paying
+him assiduous court, Thurlow said, in ridicule of the mechanical
+awkwardness of many successful equity draughtsmen, "Jack Scott, don't
+you think we could invent a machine to draw bills and answers in
+Chancery?" Having laughed at the suggestion when it was made, Scott put
+away the droll thought in his memory; and when he had risen to be
+Attorney General reminded Lord Thurlow of it under rather awkward
+circumstances. Macnamara, the conveyancer, being concerned as one of the
+principals in a Chancery suit, Lord Thurlow advised him to submit the
+answer to the bill filed against him to the Attorney General. In due
+course the answer came under Scott's notice, when he found it so
+wretchedly drawn, that he advised Macnamara to have another answer drawn
+by some one who understood pleading. On the same day he was engaged at
+the bar of the House of Lords, when Lord Thurlow came to him, and said,
+"So I understand you don't think my friend Mac's answer will do?" "Do!"
+Scott replied, contemptuously. "My Lord, it won't do at all! it must
+have been drawn by that wooden machine which you once told me might be
+invented to draw bills and answers." "That's very unlucky," answered
+Thurlow, "and impudent too, if you had known--_that I drew the answer
+myself_."
+
+Lord Lyndhurst used to maintain that it was one of the chief duties of a
+judge to render it disagreeable to counsel to talk nonsense. Jeffreys in
+his milder moments no doubt salved his conscience with the same
+doctrine, when he recalled how, after elating him with a compliment, he
+struck down the rising junior with "Lord, sir! you must be cackling too.
+We told you, Mr. Bradbury, your objection was very ingenious; that must
+not make you troublesome: you cannot lay an egg, but you must be
+cackling over it." Doubtless, also, he felt it one of the chief duties
+of a judge to restrain attorneys from talking nonsense when--on hearing
+that the solicitor from whom he received his first brief had boastfully
+remarked, in allusion to past services, "My Lord Chancellor! I _made_
+him!"--he exclaimed, "Well, then, I'll lay my maker by the heels," and
+forthwith committed his former client and patron to the Fleet prison. If
+this bully of the bench actually, as he is said to have done,
+interrupted the venerable Maynard by saying, "You have lost your
+knowledge of law; your memory, I tell you, is failing through old age,"
+how must every hearer of the speech have exulted when Maynard quietly
+answered, "Yes, Sir George, I have forgotten more law than you ever
+learned; but allow me to say, I have not forgotten much."
+
+On the other hand it should be remembered that Maynard was a man
+eminently qualified to sow violent animosities, and that he was a
+perpetual thorn in the flesh of the political barristers, whose
+principles he abhorred. A subtle and tricky man, he was constantly
+misleading judges by citing fictitious authorities, and then smiling at
+their professional ignorance when they had swallowed his audacious
+fabrications. Moreover, the manner of his speech was sometimes as
+offensive as its substance was dishonest. Strafford spoke a bitter
+criticism not only with regard to Maynard and Glyn, but with regard to
+the prevailing tone of the bar, when, describing the conduct of the
+advocates who managed his prosecution, he said: "Glynne and Maynard used
+me _like advocates_, but Palmer and Whitelock _like gentlemen_; and yet
+the latter left out nothing against me that was material to be urged
+against me." As a Devonshire man Maynard is one of the many cases which
+may be cited against the smart saying of Sergeant Davy, who used to
+observe: "The further I journey toward the West, the more convinced I am
+that the wise men come from the East." But shrewd, observant, liberal
+though he was in most respects, he was on one matter so far behind the
+spirit of the age that, blinded and ruled by an unwise sentiment, he
+gave his parliamentary support to an abortive measure "to prevent
+further building in London and the neighborhood." In support of this
+measure he observed, "This building is the ruin of the gentry and ruin
+of religion, as leaving many good people without churches to go to.
+This enlarging of London makes it filled with lacqueys and pages. In St.
+Giles's parish scarce the fifth part come to church, and we shall have
+no religion at last."
+
+Whilst justice has suffered something in respect of dignity from the
+overbearing temper of judges to counsel, from collisions of the bench
+with the bar, and from the mutual hostility of rival advocates, she has
+at times sustained even greater injury from the jealousies and
+altercations of judges. Too often wearers of the ermine, sitting on the
+same bench, nominally for the purpose of assisting each other, have
+roused the laughter of the bar, and the indignation of suitors, by their
+petty squabbles. "It now comes to my turn," an Irish judge observed,
+when it devolved on him to support the decision of one or the other of
+two learned coadjutors, who had stated with more fervor than courtesy
+altogether irreconcilable opinions--"It now comes to my turn to declare
+my view of the case, and fortunately I can be brief. I agree with my
+brother A, from the irresistible force of my brother B's arguments."
+Extravagant as this case may appear, the King's Bench of Westminster
+Hall, under Mansfield and Kenyon, witnessed several not less scandalous
+and comical differences. Taking thorough pleasure in his work, Lord
+Mansfield was not less industrious than impartial in the discharge of
+his judicial functions; so long as there was anything for him to learn
+with regard to a cause, he not only sought for it with pains but with a
+manifest pleasure similar to that delight in judicial work which caused
+the French Advocate, Cottu, to say of Mr. Justice Bayley: "Il s'amuse a
+juger:" but notwithstanding these good qualities, he was often culpably
+deficient in respect for the opinions of his subordinate coadjutors. At
+times a vain desire to impress on the minds of spectators that his
+intellect was the paramount power of the bench; at other times a
+personal dislike to one of his _puisnes_ caused him to derogate from the
+dignity of his court, in cases where he was especially careful to
+protect the interests of suitors. With silence more disdainful than any
+words could have been, he used to turn away from Mr. Justice Willes, at
+the moment when the latter expected his chief to ask his opinion; and on
+such occasions the indignant _puisne_ seldom had the prudence and nerve
+to conceal his mortification. "I have not been consulted, and I will be
+heard!" he once shrieked forth in a paroxysm of rage caused by
+Mansfield's contemptuous treatment; and forty years afterwards Jeremy
+Bentham, who was a witness of the insult and its effect, observed: "At
+this distance of time--five-and-thirty or forty years--the feminine
+scream issuing out of his manly frame still tingles in my ears."
+Mansfield's overbearing demeanor to his _puisnes_ was reproduced with
+less dignity by his successor; but Buller, the judge who wore ermine
+whilst he was still in his thirty-third year, and who confessed that his
+"idea of heaven was to sit at Nisi Prius all day, and to play whist all
+night," seized the first opportunity to give Taffy Kenyon a lesson in
+good manners by stating, with impressive self-possession and convincing
+logic, the reasons which induced him to think the judgment delivered by
+his chief to be altogether bad in law and argument.
+
+[30] One of Jekyll's best displays of brilliant impudence was
+perpetrated on a Welsh judge, who was alike notorious for his greed of
+office and his want of personal cleanliness. "My dear sir," Jekyll
+observed in his most amiable manner to this most unamiable personage,
+"you have asked the minister for almost everything else, why _don't_ you
+ask him for a piece of soap and a nail-brush?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+WITS IN 'SILK' AND PUNSTERS IN 'ERMINE.'
+
+
+Whilst Lord Camden held the chiefship of the Common Pleas, he was
+walking with his friend Lord Dacre on the outskirts of an Essex village,
+when they passed the parish stocks. "I wonder," said the Chief Justice,
+"whether a man in the stocks endures a punishment that is physically
+painful? I am inclined to think that, apart from the sense of
+humiliation and other mental anguish, the prisoner suffers nothing,
+unless the populace express their satisfaction at his fate by pelting
+him with brick-bats." "Suppose you settle your doubts by putting your
+feet into the holes," rejoined Lord Dacre, carelessly. In a trice the
+Chief Justice was sitting on the ground with his feet some fifteen
+inches above the level of his seat, and his ankles encircled by hard
+wood. "Now, Dacre!" he exclaimed, enthusiastically, "fasten the bolts,
+and leave me for ten minutes." Like a courteous host Lord Dacre complied
+with the whim of his guest, and having placed it beyond his power to
+liberate himself bade him 'farewell' for ten minutes. Intending to
+saunter along the lane and return at the expiration of the stated
+period, Lord Dacre moved away, and falling into one of his customary
+fits of reverie, soon forgot all about the stocks, his friend's freak,
+and his friend. In the meantime the Chief Justice went through every
+torture of an agonizing punishment--acute shootings along the confined
+limbs, aching in the feet, angry pulsations under the toes, violent
+cramps in the muscles and thighs, gnawing pain at the point where his
+person came in immediate contact with the cold ground, pins-and-needles
+everywhere. Amongst the various forms of his physical discomfort,
+faintness, fever, giddiness, and raging thirst may be mentioned. He
+implored a peasant to liberate him, and the fellow answered with a shout
+of derision; he hailed a passing clergyman, and explained that he was
+not a culprit, but Lord Camden, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and
+one of Lord Dacre's guests. "Ah!" observed the man of cloth, not so much
+answering the wretched culprit as passing judgment on his case, "mad
+with liquor. Yes, drunkenness is sadly on the increase; 'tis droll,
+though, for a drunkard in the stocks to imagine himself a Chief
+Justice!" and on he passed. A farmer's wife jogged by on her pillion,
+and hearing the wretched man exclaim that he should die of thirst, the
+good creature gave him a juicy apple, and hoped that his punishment
+would prove for the good of his soul. Not ten minutes, but ten hours did
+the Chief Justice sit in the stocks, and when at length he was carried
+into Lord Dacre's house, he was in no humor to laugh at his own
+miserable plight. Not long afterwards he presided at a trial in which a
+workman brought an action against a magistrate who had wrongfully placed
+him in the stocks. The counsel for the defence happening to laugh at the
+statement of the plaintiff, who maintained that he had suffered intense
+pain during his confinement, Lord Camden leaned forwards and inquired in
+a whisper, "Brother were you ever in the stocks?" "Never, my lord,"
+answered the advocate, with a look of lively astonishment "I have been,"
+was the whispered reply; "and let me assure you that the agony inflicted
+by the stocks is--_awful_!"
+
+Of a different sort, but scarcely less intense, was the pain endured by
+Lord Mansfield whenever a barrister pronounced a Latin word with a false
+quantity. "My lords," said the Scotch advocate, Crosby, at the bar of
+the House of Lords, "I have the honor to appear before your lordships as
+counsel for the Curators." "Ugh!" groaned the Westminster Oxford
+law-lord, softening his reproof by an allusion to his Scotch
+nationality, "Curators, Mr. Crosby, Curators: I wish _our_ countrymen
+would pay a little more attention to prosody." "My Lord," replied Mr.
+Crosby, with delightful readiness and composure, "I can assure you that
+_our_ countrymen are very proud of your lordship as the greatest
+senator and orator of the present age." The barrister who made Baron
+Alderson shudder under his robes by applying for a 'nolle prosequi,' was
+not equally quick at self-defence, when that judge interposed, "Stop,
+sir--consider that this is the last day of term, and don't make things
+unnecessarily long." It was Baron Alderson who, in reply to the
+juryman's confession that he was deaf in one ear, observed, "Then leave
+the box before the trial begins; for it is necessary that jurymen should
+_hear both sides_."
+
+Amongst legal wits, Lord Ellenborough enjoys a high place; and though in
+dealing out satire upon barristers and witnesses, and even on his
+judicial coadjutors, he was often needlessly severe, he seldom
+perpetrated a jest the force of which lay solely in its cruelty. Perhaps
+the most harsh and reprehensible outburst of satiric humor recorded of
+him is the crushing speech by which he ruined a young man for life. "The
+_unfortunate_ client for whom it is my privilege to appear," said a
+young barrister, making his first essay in Westminster Hall--"the
+unfortunate client, my lord, for whom I appear--hem! hem!--I say, my
+lord, my _unfortunate client_----" Leaning forwards, and speaking in a
+soft, cooing voice, that was all the more derisive, because it was so
+gentle, Lord Ellenborough said, "you may go on, sir--so far the court is
+with you." One would have liked his lordship better had he sacrificed
+his jest to humanity, and acted as long afterwards that true gentleman,
+Mr. Justice Talfourd, acted, who, seeing a young barrister overpowered
+with nervousness, gave him time to recover himself by saying, in the
+kindest possible manner, "Excuse me for interrupting you--but for a
+minute I am not at liberty to pay you attention." Whereupon the Judge
+took up his pen and wrote a short note to a friend. Before the note was
+finished, the young barrister had completely recovered his
+self-possession, and by an admirable speech secured a verdict for his
+client. A highly nervous man, he might on that day have been broken for
+life, like Ellenborough's victim, by mockery; but fortunate in appearing
+before a judge whose witty tongue knew not how to fashion unkind words,
+he triumphed over his temporary weakness, and has since achieved well
+deserved success in his profession. Talfourd might have made a jest for
+the thoughtless to laugh at; but he preferred to do an act, on which
+those who loved him like to think.
+
+When Preston, the great conveyancer, gravely informed the judges of the
+King's Bench that "an estate in fee simple was the highest estate known
+to the law of England," Lord Ellenborough checked the great Chancery
+lawyer, and said with politest irony, "Stay, stay, Mr. Preston, let me
+take that down. An estate" (the judge writing as he spoke) "in fee
+simple is--the highest estate--known to--the law of England. Thank you,
+Mr. Preston! The court, sir, is much indebted to you for the
+information." Having inflicted on the court an unspeakably dreary
+oration, Preston, towards the close of the day, asked when it would be
+their lordship's pleasure to hear the remainder of his argument;
+whereupon Lord Ellenborough uttered a sigh of resignation, and answered,
+'We are bound to hear you, and we will endeavor to give you our
+undivided attention on Friday next; but as for _pleasure_, that, sir,
+has been long out of the question.'
+
+Probably mistelling an old story, and taking to himself the merit of
+Lord Ellenborough's reply to Preston, Sir Vicary Gibbs (Chief of the
+Common Pleas) used to tell his friends that Sergeant Vaughan--the
+sergeant who, on being subsequently raised to the bench through the
+influence of his elder brother, Sir Henry Halford, the court physician,
+was humorously described by the wits of Westminster Hall as a judge _by
+prescription_--once observed in a grandiose address to the Judges of the
+Common Pleas, "For though our law takes cognizance of divers different
+estates, I may be permitted to say, without reserve or qualification of
+any kind, that the highest estate known to the law of England is an
+estate in fee simple." Whereupon Sir Vicary, according to his own
+account, interrupted the sergeant with an air of incredulity and
+astonishment. "What is your proposition, brother Vaughan? Perhaps I did
+not hear you rightly!" Flustered by the interruption, which completely
+effected its object, the sergeant explained, "My lord, I mean to contend
+that an estate in fee simple is _one of the highest estates_ known to
+the law of England, that is, my lord, that it may be under certain
+circumstances--and sometimes is so."
+
+Notwithstanding his high reputation for wit, Lord Ellenborough would
+deign to use the oldest jests. Thus of Mr. Caldecott, who over and over
+again, with dull verbosity, had said that certain limestone quarries,
+like lead and copper mines, "were not rateable, because the limestone
+could only be reached by boring, which was matter of science," he
+gravely inquired, "Would you, Mr. Caldecott, have us believe that every
+kind of _boring_ is matter of science?" With finer humor he nipped in
+the bud one of Randle Jackson's flowery harangues. "My lords," said the
+orator, with nervous intonation, "in the book of nature it is
+written----" "Be kind enough, Mr. Jackson," interposed Lord
+Ellenborough, "to mention the page from which you are about to quote."
+This calls to mind the ridicule which, at an earlier period of his
+career, he cast on Sheridan for saying at the trial of Warren Hastings,
+"The treasures in the Zenana of the Begum are offerings laid by the
+hand of piety on the altar of a saint." To this not too rhetorical
+statement, Edward Law, as leading counsel for Warren Hastings, replied
+by asking, "how the lady was to be considered a saint, and how the
+camels were to be laid upon the altar?" With greater pungency, Sheridan
+defended himself by saying, "This is the first time in my life that I
+ever heard of special pleading on a metaphor, or a bill of indictment
+against a trope; but such is the turn of the learned gentleman's mind,
+that when he attempts to be humorous no jest can be found, and when
+serious no fact is visible."[31] To the last Law delighted to point the
+absurdities of orators who in aiming at the sublime only achieved the
+ridiculous. "My lords," said Mr. Gaselee, arguing that mourning coaches
+at a funeral were not liable to post-horse duty, "it never could have
+been the intention of a Christian legislature to aggravate the grief
+which mourners endure whilst following to the grave the remains of their
+dearest relatives, by compelling them at the same time to pay the
+horse-duty." Had Mr. Gaselee been a humorist, Lord Ellenborough would
+have laughed; but as the advocate was well known to have no turn for
+raillery, the Chief Justice gravely observed, "Mr. Gaselee, you incur
+danger by sailing in high sentimental latitudes."
+
+To the surgeon in the witness-box who said, "I employ myself as a
+surgeon," Lord Ellenborough retorted, "But does anybody else employ you
+as a surgeon?"
+
+The demand to be examined _on affirmation_ being preferred by a Quaker
+witness, whose dress was so much like the costume of an ordinary
+_conformist_ that the officer of the court had begun to administer the
+usual oath, Lord Ellenborough inquired of the 'friend,' "Do you really
+mean to impose upon the court by appearing here in the disguise of a
+reasonable being?" Very pungent was his ejaculation at a cabinet dinner
+when he heard that Lord Kenyon was about to close his penurious old age
+by dying. "Die!--why should he die?--what would he get by that?"
+interposed Lord Ellenborough, adding to the pile of jests by which men
+have endeavored to keep a grim, unpleasant subject out of sight--a pile
+to which the latest _mot_ was added the other day by Lord Palmerston,
+who during his last attack of gout exclaimed playfully. "_Die_, my dear
+doctor! That's the _last_ thing I think of doing." Having jested about
+Kenyon's parsimony, as the old man lay _in extremis_, Ellenborough
+placed another joke of the same kind upon his coffin. Hearing that
+through the blunder of an illiterate undertaker the motto on Kenyon's
+hatchment in Lincoln's Inn Fields had been painted '_Mors Janua Vita_,'
+instead of 'Mors Janua Vitae,' he exclaimed, "Bless you, there's no
+mistake; Kenyon's will directed that it should be 'Vita,' so that his
+estate might be saved the expense of _a diphthong._" Capital also was
+his reply when Erskine urged him to accept the Great Seal. "How can
+you," he asked, in a tone of solemn entreaty, "wish me to accept the
+office of Chancellor, when you know, Erskine, that I am as ignorant of
+its duties as you are yourself?" At the time of uttering these words,
+Ellenborough was well aware that if he declined them Erskine would take
+the seals. Some of his puns were very poor. For instance, his
+exclamation, "Cite to me the decisions of the judges of the land: not
+the judgments of the Chief Justice of Ely, who is fit only to _rule_ a
+copybook."
+
+One of the best 'legal' puns on record is unanimously attributed by the
+gossipers of Westminster Hall to Lord Chelmsford. As Sir Frederick
+Thesiger he was engaged in the conduct of a cause, and objected to the
+irregularity of a learned sergeant who in examining his witnesses
+repeatedly put leading questions. "I have a right," maintained the
+sergeant, doggedly, "to _deal_ with my witnesses as I please." "To that
+I offer no objection," retorted Sir Frederick; "you may _deal_ as you
+like, but you shan't _lead_." Of the same brilliant conversationalist
+Mr. Grantley Berkeley has recorded a good story in 'My Life and
+Recollections.' Walking down St. James's Street, Lord Chelmsford was
+accosted by a stranger, who exclaimed "Mr. Birch I believe?" "If you
+believe that, sir, you'll believe anything," replied the ex-Chancellor,
+as he passed on.
+
+When Thelwall, instead of regarding his advocate with grateful silence,
+insisted on interrupting him with vexatious remarks and impertinent
+criticisms, Erskine neither threw up his brief nor lost his temper, but
+retorted with an innocent flash of merriment. To a slip of paper on
+which the prisoner had written, "I'll be hanged if I don't plead my own
+cause," he contented himself with returning answer, "You'll be hanged if
+you do." His _mots_ were often excellent, but it was the tone and joyous
+animation of the speaker that gave them their charm. It is said that in
+his later years, when his habitual loquaciousness occasionally sank into
+garrulity, he used to repeat his jests with imprudent frequency,
+shamelessly giving his companions the same pun with each course of a
+long dinner. There is a story that after his retirement from public life
+he used morning after morning to waylay visitors on their road through
+the garden to his house, and, pointing to his horticultural attire and
+the spade in his hand assure them that he was 'enjoying his otium cum
+_digging a tatie_.' Indeed the tradition lives that before his fall from
+the woolsack, pert juniors used to lay bets as to the number of times he
+could fire off a favorite old pun in the course of a sitting in the
+Court of Chancery, and that wily leaders habitually strove to catch his
+favor by giving him opportunities for facetious interruptions during
+their arguments. If such traditions be truthful, it is no matter for
+surprise that Erskine's court-jokes have come down to us with so many
+variations. For instance, it is recorded with much circumstantiality
+that on circuit, accosting a junior who had lost his portmanteau from
+the back of a post-chaise, he said, with mock gravity, "Young gentlemen,
+henceforth imitate the elephant, the wisest of animals, who always
+_carries his trunk before him_;" and on equally good authority it is
+stated that when Polito, the keeper of the Exeter 'Change Menagerie, met
+with a similar accident and brought an action for damages against the
+proprietor of the coach from the hind-boot of which his property had
+disappeared, Erskine, speaking for the defence, told the jury that they
+would not be justified in giving a verdict favorable to the man, who,
+though he actually possessed an elephant, had neglected to imitate its
+prudent example and carry his trunk before him.
+
+As a _litterateur_ Erskine met with meagre success; but some of his
+squibs and epigrams are greatly above the ordinary level of '_vers de
+societe_.' For instance this is his:--
+
+   "DE QUODAM REGE.
+
+   "I may not do right, though I ne'er can do wrong;
+   I never can die, though I can not live long;
+   My jowl it is purple, my hand it is fat--
+   Come, riddle my riddle. What is it? _What? What?_"
+
+The liveliest illustrations of Erskine's proverbial egotism are the
+squibs of political caricaturists; and from their humorous
+exaggerations it is difficult to make a correct estimate of the lengths
+of absurdity to which his intellectual vanity and self-consciousness
+sometimes carried him. From what is known of his disposition it seems
+probable that the sarcasms aimed by public writers at his infirmity
+inclined him to justify their attacks rather than to disprove them by
+his subsequent demeanor, and that some of his most extravagant outbursts
+of self-assertion were designed in a spirit of bravado and reckless
+good-nature to increase the laughter which satirists had raised against
+him. However this may be, his conduct drew upon him blows that would
+have ruffled the composure of any less self-complacent or less amiable
+man. The Tory prints habitually spoke of him as Counsellor Ego whilst he
+was at the bar; and when it was known that he had accepted the seals,
+the opposition journals announced that he would enter the house as
+"Baron Ego, of Eye, in the county of Suffolk." Another of his nicknames
+was _Lord Clackmannan_; and Cobbett published the following notice of an
+harangue made by the fluent advocate in the House of Commons:--"Mr.
+Erskine delivered a most animated speech in the House of Commons on the
+causes and consequences of the late war, which lasted thirteen hours,
+eighteen minutes, and a second, by Mr. John Nichol's stop-watch. Mr.
+Erskine closed his speech with a dignified climax: 'I was born free,
+and, by G-d, I'll remain so!'--[A loud cry of '_Hear! hear_' in the
+gallery, in which were citizens Tallien and Barrere.] On Monday three
+weeks we shall have the extreme satisfaction of laying before the public
+a brief analysis of the above speech, our letter-founder having entered
+into an engagement to furnish a fresh font of I's."[32]
+
+From the days of Wriothesley, who may be regarded as the most
+conspicuous and unquestionable instance of judicial incompetency in the
+annals of English lawyers, the multitudes have always delighted in
+stories that illustrate the ignorance and incapacity of men who are
+presumed to possess, by right of their office, an extraordinary share of
+knowledge and wisdom. What law-student does not rub his hands as he
+reads of Lord St. John's trouble during term whilst he held the seals,
+and of the impatience with which he looked forward to the long vacation,
+when he would not be required to look wise and speak authoritatively
+about matters concerning which he was totally ignorant. Delicious are
+the stories of Francis Bacon's clerical successor, who endeavored to get
+up a _quantum suff_. of Chancery law by falling on his knees and asking
+enlightenment of Heaven. Gloomily comical are the anecdotes of Chief
+Justice Fleming, whose most famous and disastrous blunder was his
+judgment in Bates's case. Great fun may be gathered from the tales that
+exemplify the ignorance of law which characterized the military, and
+also the non-military laymen, who helped to take care of the seals
+during the civil troubles of the seventeenth century. Capital is Roger
+North's picture of Bob Wright's ludicrous shiftlessness whenever the
+influence of his powerful relations brought the loquacious, handsome,
+plausible fellow a piece of business. "He was a comely fellow," says
+Roger North, speaking of the Chief Justice Wright's earlier days, "airy
+and flourishing both in his habits and way of living; and his relation
+Wren (being a powerful man in those parts) set him in credit with the
+country; but withal, he was so poor a lawyer that he used to bring such
+cases as came to him to his friend Mr. North, and he wrote the opinion
+on the paper, and the lawyer copied it, and signed under the case as if
+it had been his own. It ran so low with him that when Mr. North was at
+London he sent up his cases to him, and had opinions returned by the
+post; and, in the meantime he put off his clients on pretence of taking
+the matter into serious consideration." Perhaps some readers of this
+page can point to juniors of the present date whose professional
+incapacity closely resembles the incompetence of this gay young
+barrister of Charles II.'s time. Laughter again rises at the thought of
+Lord Chancellor Bathurst and the judicial perplexities and blunders
+which caused Sir Charles Williams to class him with those who
+
+   "Were cursed and stigmatized by power,
+     And rais'd to be expos'd."
+
+Much more than an average or altogether desirable amount of amiability
+has fallen to the reader who can refrain from a malicious smile, when he
+is informed by reliable history that Lord Loughborough (no mean lawyer
+or inefficient judge), gave utterance to so much bad law, as Chairman of
+Quarter Sessions in canny Yorkshire, that when on appeal his decisions
+were reversed with many polite expressions of _sincere_ regret by the
+King's Bench, all Westminster Hall laughed in concert at the mistakes of
+the sagacious Chief of the Common Pleas.
+
+But no lawyer, brilliant or dull, has been more widely ridiculed for
+incompetence than Erskine. Sir Causticus Witherett, being asked some
+years since why a certain Chancellor, unjustly accused of intellectual
+dimness by his political adversaries and by the uninformed public,
+preferred his seat amongst the barons to his official place on the
+woolsack, is said to have replied: "The Lord Chancellor usually takes
+his seat amongst the peers whenever he can do so with propriety, because
+he is a highly nervous man, and when he is on the woolsack, he is apt to
+be frightened at finding himself all alone--_in the dark_." As soon as
+Erskine was mentioned as a likely person to be Lord Chancellor, rumors
+began to circulate concerning his total unfitness for the office; and no
+sooner had he mounted the woolsack than the wits declared him to be
+alone and in the dark. Lord Ellenborough's sarcasm was widely repeated,
+and gave the cue to the advocate's detractors, who had little difficulty
+in persuading the public that any intelligent law-clerk would make as
+good a Chancellor as Thomas Erskine. With less discretion than
+good-humor, Erskine gave countenance to the representations of his
+enemies by ridiculing his own unfitness for the office. During the
+interval between his appointment and his first appearance as judge in
+the Court of Chancery, he made a jocose pretence of 'reading up' for his
+new duties: and whimsically exaggerating his deficiencies, he
+represented himself as studying books with which raw students have some
+degree of familiarity. Caught with 'Cruise's Digest' of the laws
+relating to real property, open in his hand, he observed to the visitor
+who had interrupted his studies, "You see, I am taking a little from my
+_cruise_ daily, without any prospect of coming to the end of it."
+
+In the autumn of 1819 two gentlemen of the United States having differed
+in opinion concerning his incompetence in the Court of Chancery--the one
+of them maintaining that the greater number of his decrees had been
+reversed, and the other maintaining that so many of his decisions had
+not endured reversal--the dispute gave rise to a bet of three dozen of
+port. With comical bad taste one of the parties to the bet--the one who
+believed that the Chancellor's judgments had been thus frequently
+upset--wrote to Erskine for information on the point. Instead of giving
+the answer which his correspondent desired, Erskine informed him in the
+following terms that he had lost his wine:--
+
+   "Upper Berkley Street, Nov. 13, 1819.
+
+   "SIR:--I certainly was appointed Chancellor under the administration
+   in which Mr. Fox was Secretary of State, in 1806, and could have been
+   Chancellor under no administration in which he had not a post; nor
+   would have accepted without him any office whatsoever. I believe the
+   administration was said, by all the _Blockheads_, to be made up of
+   all the _Talents_ in the country.
+
+   "But you have certainly lost your bet on the subject of my decrees.
+   None of them were appealed against, except one, upon a branch of Mr.
+   Thellusson's will--but it was affirmed without a dissentient voice,
+   on the motion of Lord Eldon, then and now Lord Chancellor. If you
+   think I was no lawyer, you may continue to think so. It is plain you
+   are no lawyer yourself; but I wish every man to retain his opinion,
+   though at the cost of three dozen of port.
+
+   "Your humble servant,
+
+   "ERSKINE.
+
+   "To save you from spending your money on bets which you are sure to
+   lose, remember that no man can be a great advocate who is no lawyer.
+   The thing is impossible."
+
+Of the many good stories current about chiefs of the law who are still
+alive, the present writer, for obvious reasons, abstains from taking
+notice; but one humorous anecdote concerning a lively judge may with
+propriety be inserted in these pages, since it fell from his own lips
+when he was making a speech from the chair at a public dinner. Between
+sixty-five and seventy years from the present time, when Sir Frederick
+Pollock was a boy at St. Paul's school, he drew upon himself the
+displeasure of Dr. Roberts, the somewhat irascible head-master of the
+school, who frankly told Sir Frederick's father, "Sir, you'll live to
+see that boy of yours hanged." Years afterwards, when the boy of whom
+this dismal prophecy was made had distinguished himself at Cambridge and
+the bar, Dr. Roberts, meeting Sir Frederick's mother in society,
+overwhelmed her with congratulations upon her son's success, and
+fortunately oblivious of his former misunderstanding with his pupil,
+concluded his polite speeches by saying--"Ah! madam, I always said he'd
+fill an _elevated_ situation." Told by the venerable judge at a recent
+dinner of 'Old Paulines,' this story was not less effective than the
+best of those post-prandial sallies with which William St. Julien
+Arabin--the Assistant Judge of Old Bailey notoriety--used to convulse
+his auditors something more than thirty years since. In the 'Arabiniana'
+it is recorded how this judge, in sentencing an unfortunate woman to a
+long term of transportation, concluded his address with--"You must go
+out of the country. You have disgraced _even_ your own sex."
+
+Let this chapter close with a lawyer's testimony to the moral qualities
+of his brethren. In the garden of Clement's Inn may still be seen the
+statue of a negro, supporting a sun-dial, upon which a legal wit
+inscribed the following lines:--
+
+   "In vain, poor sable son of woe,
+     Thou seek'st the tender tear;
+   From thee in vain with pangs they flow,
+     For mercy dwells not here.
+   From cannibals thou fled'st in vain;
+     Lawyers less quarter give;
+   The _first_ won't eat you till you're _slain_,
+     The _last_ will do't _alive_."
+
+Unfortunately these lines have been obliterated.
+
+[31] Robert Dallas--one of Edward Law's coadjutors in the defence of
+Hastings--gave another 'manager' a more telling blow. Indignant with
+Burke for his implacable animosity to Hastings, Dallas (subsequently
+Chief Justice of the Common Pleas) wrote the stinging lines--
+
+"Oft have we wondered that on Irish ground No poisonous reptile has e'er
+yet been found; Reveal'd the secret stands of nature's work--She saved
+her venom to produce her Burke."
+
+[32] In the 'Anti-Jacobin,' Canning, in the mock report of an imaginary
+speech, represented Erskine as addressing the 'Whig Club' thus:--"For
+his part he should only say that, having been, as he had been, both a
+soldier and a sailor, if it had been his fortune to have stood in either
+of these relations to the Directory--as _a_ man and a major-general he
+should not have scrupled to direct his artillery against the national
+representatives:--as a naval officer he would undoubtedly have
+undertaken for the removal of the exiled deputies; admitting the
+exigency, under all its relations, as it appeared to him to exist, and
+the then circumstances of the times with all their bearings and
+dependencies, branching out into an infinity of collateral
+considerations and involving in each a variety of objects, political,
+physical, and moral; and these, again, under their distinct and separate
+heads, ramifying into endless subdivisions, which it was foreign to his
+purpose to consider, Mr. Erskine concluded by recapitulating, in a
+strain of agonizing and impressive eloquence, the several more prominent
+heads of his speech; he had been a soldier and a sailor, and had a son
+at Winchester school--he had been called by special retainers, during
+the summer, into many different and distant parts of the
+country--traveling chiefly in post-chaises. He felt himself called upon
+to declare that his poor faculties were at the service of his
+country--of the free and enlightened part of it at least. He stood there
+as a man--he stood in the eye, indeed, in the hand of God--to whom (in
+the presence of the company and the waiters), he solemnly appealed. He
+was of noble, perhaps royal, blood--he had a house at Hampsted--was
+convinced of the necessity of a thorough and radical reform. His
+pamphlets had gone through thirty editions, skipping alternately the odd
+and even numbers. He loved the Constitution, to which he would cling and
+grapple--and he was clothed with the infirmities of man's nature."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+WITNESSES.
+
+
+In the days when Mr. Davenport Hill, the Recorder of Birmingham, made a
+professional reputation for himself in the committee-rooms of the Houses
+of Parliament, he had many a sharp tussle with one of those venal
+witnesses who, during the period of excitement that terminated in the
+disastrous railway panic, were ready to give scientific evidence on
+engineering questions, with less regard to truth than to the interests
+of the persons who paid for their evidence. Having by mendacious
+evidence gravely injured a cause in which Mr. Hill was interested as
+counsel, and Mr. Tite, the eminent architect, and present member for
+Bath, was concerned as a projector, this witness was struck with
+apoplexy and died--before he could complete the mischief which he had so
+adroitly begun. Under the circumstances, his sudden withdrawal from the
+world was not an occasion for universal regret. "Well, Hill, have you
+heard the news?" inquired Mr. Tite of the barrister, whom he encountered
+in Middle Temple Lane on the morning after the engineer's death. "Have
+you heard that ---- died yesterday of apoplexy?" "I can't say," was the
+rejoinder, "that I shall shed many tears for his loss. He was an arrant
+scoundrel." "Come, come," replied the architect, charitably, "you have
+always been too hard on that man. He was by no means so bad a fellow as
+you would make him out. I do verily believe that in the whole course of
+his life that man never told a lie--_out of the witness-box_." Strange
+to say, this comical testimony to character was quite justified by the
+fact. This man, who lied in public as a matter of business, was
+punctiliously honorable in private life.
+
+Of the simplest method of tampering with witnesses an instance is found
+in a case which occurred while Sir Edward Coke was Chief Justice of the
+King's Bench. Loitering about Westminster Hall, one of the parties in an
+action stumbled upon the witness whose temporary withdrawal from the
+ways of men he was most anxious to effect. With a perfect perception of
+the proper use of hospitality, he accosted this witness (a staring,
+open-mouthed countryman), with suitable professions of friendliness, and
+carrying him into an adjacent tavern, set him down before a bottle of
+wine. As soon as the sack had begun to quicken his guest's circulation,
+the crafty fellow hastened into court with the intelligence that the
+witness, whom he had left drinking in a room not two hundred yards
+distant, was in a fit and lying at death's door. The court being asked
+to wait, the impudent rascal protested that to wait would be useless;
+and the Chief Justice, taking his view of the case, proceeded to give
+judgment without hearing the most important evidence in the cause.
+
+In badgering a witness with noisy derision, no barrister of Charles
+II.'s time could surpass George Jeffreys; but on more than one occasion
+that gentleman, in his most overbearing moments, met with his master in
+the witness whom he meant to brow-beat. "You fellow in the leathern
+doublet," he is said to have exclaimed to a countryman whom he was about
+to cross-examine, "Pray, what are you paid for swearing?" "God bless
+you, sir, and make you an honest man," answered the farmer, looking the
+barrister full in the face, and speaking with a voice of hearty
+good-humor; "if you had no more for lying than I have for swearing, you
+would wear a leather doublet as well as I."
+
+Sometimes Erskine's treatment of witnesses was very jocular, and
+sometimes very unfair; but his jocoseness was usually so distinct from
+mere flippant derisiveness, and his unfairness was redeemed by such
+delicacy of wit and courtesy of manner, that his most malicious _jeux
+d'esprit_ seldom raised the anger of the witnesses at whom they were
+aimed. A religious enthusiast objecting to be sworn in the usual manner,
+but stating that though he would not "kiss the book," he would "hold up
+his hand" and swear, Erskine asked him to give his reason for preferring
+so eccentric a way to the ordinary mode of giving testimony. "It is
+written in the book of Revelations," answered the man, "that the angel
+standing on the sea _held up his hand_." "But that does not apply to
+your case," urged the advocate; "for in the first place, you are no
+angel; secondly, you cannot tell how the angel would have sworn if he
+had stood on dry ground, as you do." Not shaken by this reply, which
+cannot be called unfair, and which, notwithstanding its jocoseness, was
+exactly the answer which the gravest divine would have made to such
+scruples, the witness persisted in his position; and on being permitted
+to give evidence in his own peculiar way, he had enough influence with
+the jury to induce them to give a verdict adverse to Erskine's wishes.
+
+Less fair but more successful was Erskine's treatment of the commercial
+traveller, who appeared in the witness box dressed in the height of
+fashion, and wearing a starched white necktie folded with the 'Brummel
+fold.' In an instant reading the character of the man, on whom he had
+never before set eyes, and knowing how necessary it was to put him in a
+state of extreme agitation and confusion, before touching on the facts
+concerning which he had come to give evidence, Erskine rose, surveyed
+the coxcomb, and said, with an air of careless amusement, "You were born
+and bred in Manchester, _I perceive_." Greatly astonished at this
+opening remark, the man answered, nervously, that he was "a Manchester
+man--born and bred in Manchester." "Exactly," observed Erskine, in a
+conversational tone, and as though he were imparting information to a
+personal friend--"exactly so; I knew it from the absurd tie of your
+neckcloth." The roars of laughter which followed this rejoinder so
+completely effected the speaker's purpose that the confounded bagman
+could not tell his right hand from his left. Equally effective was
+Erskine's sharp question, put quickly to the witness, who, in an action
+for payment of a tailor's bill, swore that a certain dress-coat was
+badly made--one of the sleeves being longer than the other. "You will,"
+said Erskine, slowly, having risen to cross-examine, "swear--that one of
+the sleeves was--longer--than the other?" _Witness._ "I do swear it."
+_Erskine_, quickly, and with a flash of indignation, "Then, sir, I am to
+understand that you positively deny that one of the sleeves was
+_shorter_ than the other?" Startled into a self-contradiction by the
+suddenness and impetuosity of this thrust, the witness said, "I do deny
+it." _Erskine_, raising his voice as the tumultuous laughter died away,
+"Thank you, sir; I don't want to trouble you with another question." One
+of Erskine's smartest puns referred to a question of evidence. "A case,"
+he observed, in a speech made during his latter years, "being laid
+before me by my veteran friend, the Duke of Queensbury--better known as
+'old Q'--as to whether he could sue a tradesman for breach of contract
+about the painting of his house; and the evidence being totally
+insufficient to support the case, I wrote thus: 'I am of opinion that
+this action will not _lie_ unless the witnesses _do_.'" It is worthy of
+notice that this witticism was but a revival (with a modification) of a
+pun attributed to Lord Chancellor Hatton in Bacon's 'Apophthegmes.'
+
+In this country many years have elapsed since duels have taken place
+betwixt gentlemen of the long robe, or between barristers and witnesses
+in consequence of words uttered in the heat of forensic strife; but in
+the last century, and in the opening years of the present, it was no
+very rare occurrence for a barrister to be called upon for
+'satisfaction' by a person whom he had insulted in the course of his
+professional duty. During George II.'s reign, young Robert Henley so
+mercilessly badgered one Zephaniah Reeve, whom he had occasion to
+cross-examine in a trial at Bristol, that the infuriated witness--Quaker
+and peace-loving merchant though he was--sent his persecutor a challenge
+immediately upon leaving court. Rather than incur the ridicule of 'going
+out with a Quaker,' and the sin of shooting at a man whom he had
+actually treated with unjustifiable freedom, Henley retreated from an
+embarrassing position by making a handsome apology; and years
+afterwards, when he had risen to the woolsack, he entertained his old
+acquaintance, Zephaniah Reeve, at a fashionable dinner-party, when he
+assembled guests were greatly amused by the Lord Chancellor's account of
+the commencement of his acquaintance with his Quaker friend.
+
+Between thirty and forty years later Thurlow was 'called out' by the
+Duke of Hamilton's agent, Mr. Andrew Stewart, whom he had grievously
+offended by his conduct of the Great Douglas Case. On Jan. 14,
+1769-1770, Thurlow and his adversary met in Hyde Park. On his way to the
+appointed place, the barrister stopped at a tavern near Hyde Park
+Corner, and "ate an enormous breakfast," after which preparation for
+business, he hastened to the field of action. Accounts agree in saying
+that he behaved well upon the ground. Long after the bloodless
+_rencontre_, the Scotch agent, not a little proud of his 'affair' with a
+future Lord Chancellor, said, "Mr. Thurlow advanced and stood up to me
+like an elephant." But the elephant and the mouse parted without hurting
+each other; the encounter being thus faithfully described in the 'Scots'
+Magazine:' "On Sunday morning, January 14, the parties met with swords
+and pistols, in Hyde Park, one of them having for his second his
+brother, Colonel S----, and the other having for his Mr. L----, member
+for a city in Kent. Having discharged pistols, at ten yards' distance,
+without effect, they drew their swords, but the seconds interposed, and
+put an end to the affair."
+
+One of the best 'Northern Circuit stories' pinned upon Lord Eldon
+relates to a challenge which an indignant suitor is said to have sent to
+Law and John Scott. In a trial at York that arose from a horse-race, it
+was stated in evidence that one of the conditions of the race required
+that "each horse should be ridden by a gentleman." The race having been
+run, the holders refused to pay the stakes to the winner on the ground
+that he was not a gentleman; whereupon the equestrian whose gentility
+was thus called in question brought an action for the money. After a
+very humorous inquiry, which terminated in a verdict for the defendants,
+the plaintiff _was said_ to have challenged the defendants' counsel.
+Messrs. Scott and Law, for maintaining that he was no gentleman; to
+which invitation, it also averred, reply was made that the challengees
+"could not think of fighting one who had been found _no gentleman_ by
+the solemn verdict of twelve of his countrymen." Inquiry, however, has
+deprived this delicious story of much of its piquancy. Eldon had no part
+in the offence; and Law, who was the sole utterer of the obnoxious
+words, received no invitation to fight. "No message was sent," says a
+writer, supposed to be Lord Brougham, in the 'Law Magazine,' "and no
+attempt was made to provoke a breach of the peace. It is very possible
+Lord Eldon may have said, and Lord Ellenborough too, that they were not
+bound to treat one in such a predicament as a gentleman, and hence the
+story has arisen in the lady's mind. The fact was as well known on the
+Northern Circuit as the answer of a witness to a question, whether the
+party had a right by his circumstances to keep a pack of fox-hounds; 'No
+more right than I to keep a pack of archbishops.'"
+
+Curran is said to have received a call, before he left his bed one
+morning, from a gentleman whom he had cross-examined with needless
+cruelty and unjustifiable insolence on the previous day. "Sir!" said
+this irate man, presenting himself in Curran's bedroom, and rousing the
+barrister from slumber to a consciousness that he was in a very awkward
+position, "I am the gintleman whom you insulted yesterday in His
+Majesty's court of justice, in the presence of the whole county, and I
+am here to thrash you soundly!" Thus speaking, the Herculean intruder
+waved a horsewhip over the recumbent lawyer. "You don't mean to strike a
+man when he is lying down?" inquired Curran. "No, bedad; I'll just wait
+till you've got out of bed and then I'll give it to you sharp and fast."
+Curran's eye twinkled mischievously as he rejoined: "If that's the case,
+by ---- I'll lie here all day." So tickled was the visitor with this
+humorous announcement, that he dropped his horsewhip, and dismissing
+anger with a hearty roar of laughter, asked the counsellor to shake
+hands with him.
+
+In the December of 1663, Pepys was present at a trial in Guildhall
+concerning the fraud of a merchant-adventurer, who having insured his
+vessel for L2400 when, together with her cargo, she was worth no more
+than L500, had endeavored to wreck her off the French coast. From
+Pepys's record it appears that this was a novel piece of rascality at
+that time, and consequently created lively sensation in general society,
+as well as in legal and commercial coteries. "All the great counsel in
+the kingdom" were employed in the cause; and though maritime causes
+then, as now, usually involved much hard swearing, the case was notable
+for the prodigious amount of perjury which it elicited. For the most
+part the witnesses were sailors, who, besides swearing with stolid
+indifference to truth, caused much amusement by the incoherence of their
+statements and by their free use of nautical expressions, which were
+quite unintelligible to Chief Justice (Sir Robert) Hyde. "It was," says
+Pepys, "pleasant to see what mad sort of testimonys the seamen did give,
+and could not be got to speak in order; and then their terms such as the
+judge could not understand, and to hear how sillily the counsel and
+judge would speak as to the terms necessary in the matter, would make
+one laugh; and above all a Frenchman, that was forced to speak in
+French, and took an English oath he did not understand, and had an
+interpreter sworn to tell us what he said, which was the best testimony
+of all." A century later Lord Mansfield was presiding at a trial
+consequent upon a collision of two ships at sea, when a common sailor,
+whilst giving testimony, said, "At the time I was standing abaft the
+binnacle;" whereupon his lordship, with a proper desire to master the
+facts of the case, observed, "Stay, stay a minute, witness: you say
+that at the time in question you were _standing abaft the binnacle_; now
+tell me, where is abaft the binnacle?" This was too much for the gravity
+of 'the salt,' who immediately before climbing into the witness-box had
+taken a copious draught of neat rum. Removing his eyes from the bench,
+and turning round upon the crowded court with an expression of intense
+amusement, he exclaimed at the top of his voice, "He's a pretty fellow
+for a judge! Bless my jolly old eyes!--[the reader may substitute a
+familiar form of 'imprecation on eye-sight']--you have got a pretty sort
+of a land-lubber for a judge! He wants me to tell him where _abaft the
+binnacle is_!" Not less amused than the witness, Lord Mansfield
+rejoined, "Well, my friend, you must fit me for my office by telling me
+where _abaft the binnacle_ is; you've already shown me the meaning of
+_half seas over_."
+
+With less good-humor the same Chief Justice revenged himself on Dr.
+Brocklesby, who, whilst standing in the witness-box of the Court of King's
+Bench, incurred the Chief Justice's displeasure by referring to their
+private intercourse. Some accounts say that the medical witness merely
+nodded to the Chief Justice, as he might have done with propriety had they
+been taking seats at a convivial table; other accounts, with less
+appearance of probability, maintain that in a voice audible to the bar, he
+reminded the Chief Justice of certain jolly hours which they had spent
+together during the previous evening. Anyhow, Lord Mansfield was hurt, and
+showed his resentment in his 'summing-up' by thus addressing the Jury:
+"The next witness is one _R_ocklesby, or _B_rocklesby--_B_rocklesby or
+_R_ocklesby, I am not sure which; and first, _he swears that he is a
+physician_."
+
+On one occasion Lord Mansfield covered his retreat from an untenable
+position with a sparkling pleasantry. An old witness named _Elm_ having
+given his evidence with remarkable clearness, although he was more than
+eighty years of age, Lord Mansfield examined him as to his habitual mode
+of living, and found that he had throughout life been an early riser and
+a singularly temperate man. "Ay," observed the Chief Justice, in a tone
+of approval, "I have always found that without temperance and early
+habits, longevity is never attained." The next witness, the _elder_
+brother of this model of temperance, was then called, and he almost
+surpassed his brother as an intelligent and clear-headed utterer of
+evidence. "I suppose," observed Lord Mansfield, "that you also are an
+early riser." "No, my lord," answered the veteran, stoutly; "I like my
+bed at all hours, and special-_lie_ I like it of a morning." "Ah; but,
+like your brother, you are a very temperate man?" quickly asked the
+judge, looking out anxiously for the safety of the more important part
+of his theory. "My lord," responded this ancient Elm, disdaining to
+plead guilty to a charge of habitual sobriety, "I am a very old man, and
+my memory is as clear as a bell, but I can't remember the night when
+I've gone to bed without being more or less drunk." Lord Mansfield was
+silent. "Ah, my lord," Mr. Dunning exclaimed, "this old man's case
+supports a theory upheld by many persons, that habitual intemperance is
+favorable to longevity." "No, no," replied the Chief Justice, with a
+smile, "this old man and his brother merely teach us what every
+carpenter knows--that Elm, whether it be wet or dry, is a very tough
+wood." Another version of this excellent story makes Lord Mansfield
+inquire of the elder Elm, "Then how do you account for your prolonged
+tenure of existence?" to which question Elm is made to respond, more
+like a lawyer than a simple witness, "I account for it by the terms of
+the original lease."
+
+Few stories relating to witnesses are more laughable than that which
+describes the arithmetical process by which Mr. Baron Perrot arrived at
+the value of certain conflicting evidence. "Gentlemen of the jury," this
+judge is reported to have said, in summing up the evidence in a trial
+where the witnesses had sworn with noble tenacity of purpose, "there are
+fifteen witnesses who swear that the watercourse used to flow in a ditch
+on the north side of the hedge. On the other hand, gentlemen, there are
+nine witnesses who swear that the watercourse used to flow on the south
+side of the hedge. Now, gentlemen, if you subtract nine from fifteen,
+there remain six witnesses wholly uncontradicted; and I recommend you to
+give your verdict for the party who called those six witnesses."
+
+Whichever of the half-dozen ways in which it is told be accepted as the
+right one, the following story exemplifies the difficulty which
+occasionally arises in courts of justice, when witnesses use provincial
+terms with which the judge is not familiar. Mr. William Russell, in past
+days deputy-surveyor of 'canny Newcastle,' and a genuine Northumbrian in
+dialect, brogue, and shrewdness, was giving his evidence at an important
+trial in the Newcastle court-house, when he said--"As I was going along
+the quay, I saw a hubbleshew coming out of a chare-foot." Not aware that
+on Tyne-side the word 'hubbleshew' meant 'a concourse of riotous
+persons;' that the narrow alleys or lanes of Newcastle 'old town' were
+called by their inhabitants 'chares;' and that the lower end of each
+alley, where it opened upon quay-side, was termed a 'chare-foot;' the
+judge, seeing only one part of the puzzle, inquired the meaning of the
+word 'hubbleshew.' "A crowd of disorderly persons," answered the
+deputy-surveyor. "And you mean to say," inquired the judge of assize,
+with a voice and look of surprise, "that you saw a crowd of people come
+out of a chair-foot?" "I do, my lord," responded the witness.
+"Gentlemen of the jury," said his lordship, turning to the 'twelve good
+men' in the box, "it must be needless for me to inform you--_that this
+witness is insane_!"
+
+The report of a trial which occurred at Newcastle Assizes towards the
+close of the last century gives the following succession of questions
+and answers:--_Barrister._--"What is your name?" _Witness._--"Adam,
+sir--Adam Thompson." _Barrister._--"Where do you live?" _Witness._--"In
+Paradise." _Barrister_ (with facetious tone).--"And pray, Mr. Adam, how
+long have you dwelt in Paradise?" _Witness._--"Ever since the flood."
+Paradise is the name of a village in the immediate vicinity of
+Newcastle; and 'the flood' referred to by the witness was the inundation
+(memorable in local annals) of the Tyne, which in the year 1771 swept
+away the old Tyne Bridge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+CIRCUITEERS.
+
+
+Exposed to some of the discomforts, if not all the dangers,[33] of
+travel; required to ride over black and cheerless tracts of moor and
+heath: now belated in marshy districts, and now exchanging shots with
+gentlemen of the road; sleeping, as luck favored them, in way-side
+taverns, country mansions, or the superior hotels of provincial
+towns--the circuiteers of olden time found their advantage in
+cultivating social hilarity and establishing an etiquette that
+encouraged good-fellowship in their itinerant societies. At an early
+date they are found varying the monotony of cross-country rides with
+racing-matches and drinking bouts, cock-fights and fox-hunting; and
+enlivening assize towns and country houses with balls and plays, frolic
+and song. A prodigious amount of feasting was perpetrated on an ordinary
+circuit-round of the seventeenth century; and at circuit-messes, judges'
+dinners, and sheriffs' banquets, saucy juniors were allowed a license of
+speech to staid leaders and grave dignitaries that was altogether
+exceptional to the prevailing tone of manners.
+
+In the days when Chief Justice Hyde, Clarendon's cousin, used to ride
+the Norfolk Circuit, old Sergeant Earl was the leader, or, to use the
+slang of the period, 'cock of the round'. A keen, close-fisted, tough
+practitioner, this sergeant used to ride from town to town, chuckling
+over the knowledge that he was earning more and spending less than any
+other member of the circuit. One biscuit was all the refreshment which
+he permitted himself on the road from Cambridge to Norwich; although he
+consented to dismount at the end of every ten miles to stretch his
+limbs. Sidling up to Sergeant Earl, as there was no greater man for him
+to toady, Francis North offered himself as the old man's travelling
+companion from the university to the manufacturing town; and when Earl
+with a grim smile accepted the courteous suggestion, the young man
+congratulated himself. On the following morning, however, he had reason
+to question his good fortune when the sergeant's clerk brought him a
+cake, and remarked, significantly, "Put it in your pocket, sir; you'll
+want it; for my master won't draw bit till he comes to Norwich." It was
+a hard day's work; but young Frank North was rewarded for his civility
+to the sergeant, who condescended to instruct his apt pupil in the
+tricks and chicaneries of their profession. "Sir," inquired North at the
+close of the excursion, emboldened by the rich man's affability, "by
+what system do you keep your accounts, which must be very complex, as
+you have lands, securities, and great comings-in of all kinds?"
+"Accounts! boy," answered the grey-headed curmudgeon; "I get as much as
+I can, and I spend as little as I can; that's how I keep my accounts."
+
+When North had raised himself to the Chiefship of the Common Pleas he
+chose the Western Circuit, "not for the common cause, it being a long
+circuit, and beneficial for the officers and servants, but because he
+knew the gentlemen to be loyal and conformable, and that he should have
+fair quarter amongst them;" and so much favor did he win amongst the
+loyal and conformable gentry that old Bishop Mew--the prelate of
+Winchester, popularly known as Bishop _Patch_, because he always wore a
+patch of black court-plaster over the scar of a wound which he received
+on one of his cheeks, whilst fighting as a trooper for Charles I.--used
+to term him the "Deliciae occidentis, or Darling of the West." On one
+occasion this Darling of the West was placed in a ludicrous position by
+the alacrity with which he accepted an invitation from "a busy fanatic,"
+a Devonshire gentleman, of good family, and estate, named Duke. This
+"busy fanatic" invited the judges on circuit and their officers to dine
+and sleep at his mansion on their way to Exeter, and subsequently
+scandalized his guests--all of them of course zealous defenders of the
+Established Church--by reading family-prayers before supper. "The
+gentleman," says the historian, "had not the manners to engage the
+parish minister to come and officiate with any part of the evening
+service before supper: but he himself got behind the table in his hall,
+and read a chapter, and then a long-winded prayer, after the
+Presbyterian way." Very displeased were the Chief Justice and the other
+Judge of Assize; and their dissatisfaction was not diminished on the
+following day when on entering Exeter a rumor met them, that "the judges
+had been at a conventicle, and the grand jury intended to present them
+and all their retinue for it."
+
+Not many years elapsed before this Darling of the West was replaced, by
+another Chief Justice who asserted the power of constituted authorities
+with an energy that roused more fear than gratitude in the breasts of
+local magistrates. That grim, ghastly, hideous progress, which Jeffreys
+made in the plenitude of civil and military power through the Western
+Counties, was not without its comic interludes; and of its less
+repulsive scenes none was more laughable than that which occurred in
+Bristol Courthouse when the terrible Chief Justice upbraided the Bristol
+magistrates for taking part in a slave-trade of the most odious sort.
+The mode in which the authorities of the western port carried on their
+iniquitous traffic deserves commemoration, for no student can understand
+the history of any period until he has acquainted himself with its
+prevailing morality. At a time when by the wealth of her merchants and
+the political influence of her inhabitants Bristol was the second city
+of England, her mayor and aldermen used daily to sit in judgment on
+young men and growing boys, who were brought before them and charged
+with trivial offences. Some of the prisoners had actually broken the
+law: but in a large proportion of the cases the accusations were totally
+fictitious--the arrests having been made in accordance with the
+directions of the magistrates, on charges which the magistrates
+themselves knew to be utterly without foundation. Every morning the
+Bristol tolsey or court-house saw a crowd of those wretched
+captives--clerks out of employment, unruly apprentices, street boys
+without parents, and occasionally children of honest birth, ay, of
+patrician lineage, whose prompt removal from their native land was
+desired by brutal fathers or vindictive guardians; and every morning a
+mockery of judicial investigation was perpetrated in the name of
+justice. Standing in a crowd the prisoners were informed of the offences
+charged against them; huddled together in the dock, like cattle in a
+pen, they caught stray sentences from the lips of the perjured rascals
+who had seized them in the public ways; and whilst they thus in a frenzy
+of surprise and fear listened to the statements of counsel for the
+prosecution, and to the fabrications of lying witnesses, agents of the
+court whispered to them that if they wished to save their lives they
+must instantly confess their guilt, and implore the justices to
+transport them to the plantations. Ignorant, alarmed, and powerless, the
+miserable victims invariably acted on this perfidious counsel; and
+forthwith the magistrates ordered their shipment to the West Indies,
+where they were sold as slaves--the money paid for them by West India
+planters in due course finding its way into the pockets of the Bristol
+justices. It is asserted that the wealthier aldermen, through caution,
+or those few grains of conscience which are often found in the breasts
+of consummate rogues, forbore to share in the gains of this abominable
+traffic; but it cannot be gainsaid that the least guilty magistrates
+winked at the atrocious conduct of their brother-justices.
+
+Vowing vengeance on the Bristol kidnappers Jeffreys entered their
+court-house, and opened proceedings by crying aloud that "he had brought
+a broom to sweep them with." The Mayor of Bristol was in those days no
+common mayor; in Assize Commissions his name was placed before the
+names of Judges of Assize; and even beyond the limits of his
+jurisdiction he was a man of mark and influence. Great therefore was
+this dignitary's astonishment when Jeffreys ordered him--clothed as he
+was in official scarlet and furs--to stand in the dock. For a few
+seconds the local potentate demurred; but when the Chief Justice poured
+upon him a cataract of blasphemy, and vowed to hang him instantly over
+the entrance to the tolsey unless he complied immediately, the
+humiliated chief magistrate of the ancient borough took his place at the
+felon's bar, and received such a rating as no thief, murderer or rebel
+had ever heard from George Jeffrey's abusive mouth. Unfortunately the
+affair ended with the storm. Until the arrival of William of Orange the
+guilty magistrates were kept in fear of criminal prosecution; but the
+matter was hushed up and covered with amnesty by the new government; so
+that "the fright only, which was no small one, was all the punishment
+which these judicial kidnappers underwent; and the gains," says Roger
+North, "acquired by so wicked a trade, rested peacefully in their
+pockets." It should be remembered that the kidnapping justices whom the
+odious Jeffreys so indignantly denounced were tolerated and courted by
+their respectable and prosperous neighbors; and some of the worst
+charges, by which the judge's fame has been rendered odious to
+posterity, depend upon the evidence of men who, if they were not
+kidnappers themselves, saw nothing peculiarly atrocious in the conduct
+of magistrates who systematically sold their fellow-countrymen into a
+most barbarous slavery.
+
+Amongst old circuit stories of questionable truthfulness there is a
+singular anecdote recorded by the biographers of Chief Justice Hale,
+who, whilst riding the Western Circuit, tried a half-starved lad on a
+charges of burglary. The prisoner had been shipwrecked upon the Cornish
+coast, and on his way through an inhospitable district had endured the
+pangs of extreme hunger. In his distress, the famished wanderer broke
+the window of a baker's shop and stole a loaf of bread. Under the
+circumstances, Hale directed the jury to acquit the prisoner: but, less
+merciful than the judge, the gentlemen of the box returned a verdict of
+'Guilty'--a verdict which the Chief Justice stoutly refused to act upon.
+After much resistance, the jurymen were starved into submission; and the
+youth was set at liberty. Several years elapsed; and Chief Justice Hale
+was riding the Northern Circuit, when he was received with such costly
+and excessive pomp by the sheriff of a northern county, that he
+expostulated with his entertainer on the lavish profuseness of his
+conduct. "My lord," answered the sheriff, with emotion, "don't blame me
+for showing my gratitude to the judge who saved my life when I was an
+outcast. Had it not been for you, I should have been hanged in Cornwall
+for stealing a loaf, instead of living to be the richest landowner of my
+native county."
+
+A sketch of circuit-life in the middle of the last century may be found
+in 'A Northern Circuit, Described in a Letter to a Friend: a Poetical
+Essay. By a Gentleman of the Middle Temple. 1751.'--a piece of doggrel
+that will meet with greater mercy from the antiquary than the poetical
+critic.
+
+In seeking to avoid the customary exactions of their office, the
+sheriffs of the present generation were only following in the steps of
+sheriffs who, more than a century past, exerted themselves to reduce the
+expenses of shrievalties, and whose economical reforms were defended by
+reference to the conduct of sheriffs under the last of the Tudors.--In
+the days of Elizabeth, the sheriffs demanded and obtained relief from an
+obligation to supply judges on circuit, with food and lodging; under
+Victoria they have recently exclaimed against the custom which required
+them to furnish guards of javelin-bearers for the protection of Her
+Majesty's representatives; when George II. was king, they grumbled
+against lighter burdens--for instance, the cost of white kid-gloves and
+payments to bell-ringers. The sheriff is still required by custom to
+present the judges with white gloves whenever an assize has been held
+without a single capital conviction; but in past times, on every
+_maiden_ assize, he was expected to give gloves not only to the judges,
+but to the entire body of circuiteers--barristers as well as officers of
+court.[34] Wishing to keep his official expenditure down to the lowest
+possible sum, a certain sheriff for Cumberland--called in 'A Northern
+Circuit,' Sir Frigid Gripus Knapper--directed his under-sheriff not to
+give white gloves on the occasion of a maiden assize at Carlisle, and
+also through the mouth of his subordinate, declined to pay the officers
+of the circuit certain customary fees. To put the innovator to shame,
+Sir William Gascoigne, the judge before whom the case was laid, observed
+in open court, "Though I can compel an immediate payment, it being a
+demand of right, and not a mere gift, yet I will set him an example by
+gifts which I might refuse, but will not, because they are customary,"
+and forthwith addressing the steward, added--"Call the sheriff's
+coachman, his pages, and musicians, singing-boys, and vergers, and give
+them the accustomed gifts as soon as the sheriff comes." From this
+direction, readers may see that under the old system of presents a judge
+was compelled to give away with his left hand much of that which he
+accepted with his right. It appears that Sir William Gascoigne's conduct
+had the desired effect; for as soon as the sheriff made his appearance,
+he repudiated the parsimonious conduct of the under-sheriff--though it
+is not credible that the subordinate acted without the direction or
+concurrence of his superior. "I think it," observed the sheriff, in
+reference to the sum of the customary payments, "as much for the honor
+of my office, and the country in general, as it is justice to those to
+whom it is payable; and if any sheriff has been of a different opinion
+it shall never bias me."
+
+From the days when Alexander Wedderburn, in his new silk gown, to the
+scandal of all sticklers for professional etiquette, made a daring but
+futile attempt to seize the lead of the circuit which seventeen years
+later he rode as judge, 'The Northern' had maintained the _prestige_ of
+being the most important of the English circuits. Its palmiest and most
+famous days belong to the times of Norton and Wallace, Jack Lee and John
+Scott, Edward Law and Robert Graham; but still amongst the wise white
+heads of the upper house may be seen at times the mobile features of an
+aged peer who, as Mr. Henry Brougham, surpassed in eloquence and
+intellectual brilliance the brightest and most celebrated of his
+precursors on the great northern round. But of all the great men whose
+names illustrate the annals of the circuit, Lord Eldon is the person
+most frequently remembered in connexion with the jovial ways of
+circuiteers in the old time. In his later years the port-loving earl
+delighted to recall the times when as Attorney General of the Circuit
+Grand Court he used to prosecute offenders 'against the peace of our
+Lord the Junior,' devise practical jokes for the diversion of the bar,
+and over bowls of punch at York, Lancaster, or Kirkby Lonsdale, argue
+perplexing questions about the morals of advocacy. Just as John
+Campbell, thirty years later, used to recount with glee how in the mock
+courts of the Oxford Circuit he used to officiate as crier, "holding a
+fire-shovel in his hand as the emblem of his office;" so did old Lord
+Eldon warm with mirth over recollections of his circuit revelries and
+escapades. Many of his stories were apocryphal, some of them
+unquestionably spurious; but the least truthful of them contained an
+element of pleasant reality. Of course Jemmy Boswell, a decent lawyer,
+though better biographer, was neither duped by the sham brief, nor
+induced to apply in court for the writ of 'quare adhaesit pavimento;'
+but it is quite credible that on the morning after his removal in a
+condition of vinous prostration from the Lancaster flagstones, his
+jocose friends concocted the brief, sent it to him with a bad guinea,
+and proclaimed the success of their device. When the chimney-sweeper's
+boy met his death by falling from a high gallery to the floor of the
+court-house at the York Assizes, whilst Sir Thomas Davenport was
+speaking, it was John Scott who--arguing that the orator's dullness had
+sent the boy to sleep, and so caused his fatal fall--prosecuted Sir
+Thomas for murder in the High Court, alleging in the indictment that the
+death was produced by a "certain blunt instrument of _no value_, called
+a _long speech_." The records of the Northern Circuit abound with
+testimony to the hearty zeal with which the future Chancellor took part
+in the proceedings of the Grand Court--paying fines and imposing them
+with equal readiness, now upholding with mock gravity the high and
+majestic character of the presiding judge, and at another time
+inveighing against the levity and indecorum of a learned brother who had
+maintained in conversation that "no man would be such a----fool as to go
+to a lawyer for advice who knew how to get on without it." The monstrous
+offender against religion and propriety who gave utterance to this
+execrable sentiment was Pepper Arden (subsequently Master of the Rolls
+and Lord Alvanley), and his punishment is thus recorded in the archives
+of the circuit:--"In this he was considered as doubly culpable, in the
+first place as having offended, against the laws of Almighty God by his
+profane cursing; for which, however, he made a very sufficient atonement
+by paying a bottle of claret; and secondly, as having made use of an
+expression which, if it should become a prevailing opinion, might have
+the most alarming consequences to the profession, and was therefore
+deservedly considered in a far more hideous light. For the last offence
+he was fin'd 3 bottles. Pd."
+
+One of the most ridiculous circumstances over which the Northern Circuit
+men of the last generation delighted to laugh occurred at Newcastle,
+when Baron Graham--the poor lawyer, but a singularly amiable and placid
+man, of whom Jeckyll observed, "no one but his sempstress could ruffle
+him"--rode the circuit, and was immortalized as 'My Lord 'Size,' in Mr.
+John Shield's capital song--
+
+   "The jailor, for trial had brought up a thief,
+     Whose looks seemed a passport for Botany Bay;
+   The lawyers, some with and some wanting a brief,
+     Around the green table were seated so gay;
+   Grave jurors and witnesses waiting a call;
+     Attorneys and clients, more angry than wise;
+   With strangers and town-people, throng'd the Guildhall,
+     All watching and gaping to see my Lord 'Size.
+
+   "Oft stretch'd were their necks, oft erected their ears,
+     Still fancying they heard of the trumpets the sound,
+   When tidings arriv'd, which dissolv'd them in tears,
+     That my lord at the dead-house was then lying drown'd.
+   Straight left _tete-a-tete_ were the jailor and thief;
+     The horror-struck crowd to the dead-house quick hies;
+   Ev'n the lawyers, forgetful of fee and of brief,
+     Set off helter-skelter to view my Lord 'Size.
+
+   "And now the Sandhill with the sad tidings rings,
+     And the tubs of the taties are left to take care;
+   Fishwomen desert their crabs, lobsters, and lings,
+     And each to the dead-house now runs like a hare;
+   The glassmen, some naked, some clad, heard the news,
+     And off they ran, smoking like hot mutton pies;
+   Whilst Castle Garth tailors, like wild kangaroos,
+     Came tail-on-end jumping to see my Lord 'Size.
+
+   "The dead-house they reach'd, where his lordship they found,
+     Pale, stretch'd on a plank, like themselves out of breath,
+   The coroner and jury were seated around,
+     Most gravely enquiring the cause of his death.
+   No haste did they seem in, their task to complete,
+     Aware that from hurry mistakes often rise;
+   Or wishful, perhaps, of prolonging the treat
+     Of thus sitting in judgment upon my Lord 'Size.
+
+   "Now the Mansion House butler, thus gravely deposed:--
+     'My lord on the terrace seem'd studying his charge
+   And when (as I thought) he had got it compos'd,
+     He went down the stairs and examined the barge;
+   First the stem he surveyed, then inspected the stern,
+     Then handled the tiller, and looked mighty wise;
+   But he made a false step when about to return,
+     And souse in the river straight tumbled Lord 'Size.'
+
+   "'Now his narrative ended, the butler retir'd,
+     Whilst Betty Watt, muttering half drunk through her teeth,
+   Declar'd 'in her breast great consarn it inspir'd,
+     That my lord should sae cullishly come by his death;'
+   Next a keelman was called on, Bold Airchy by name,
+     Who the book as he kissed showed the whites of his eyes,
+   Then he cut an odd caper attention to claim,
+     And this evidence gave them respecting Lord 'Size;--
+
+   "Aw was settin' the keel, wi' Dick Slavers an' Matt,
+     An' the Mansion House stairs we were just alongside,
+   When we a' three see'd somethin', but didn't ken what,
+     That was splashin' and labberin', aboot i' the tide.
+   'It's a fluiker,' ki Dick; 'No,' ki Matt, 'its owre big,
+     It luik'd mair like a skyet when aw furst seed it rise;'
+   Kiv aw--for aw'd getten a gliff o' the wig--
+     'Ods marcy! wey, marrows, becrike, it's Lord 'Size.
+
+   "'Sae aw huik'd him, an' haul'd him suin into the keel,
+     An' o' top o' the huddock aw rowl'd him aboot;
+   An' his belly aw rubb'd, an' aw skelp'd his back weel,
+     But the water he'd druck'n it wadn't run oot;
+   So aw brought him ashore here, an' doctor's, in vain,
+     Furst this way, then that, to recover him tries;
+   For ye see there he's lyin' as deed as a stane,
+     An' that's a' aw can tell ye aboot my Lord 'Size.'
+
+   "Now the jury for close consultation retir'd:
+     Some '_Death Accidental_' were willing to find;
+   'God's Visitation' most eager requir'd;
+     And some were for 'Fell in the River' inclin'd;
+   But ere on their verdict they all were agreed,
+     My Lord gave a groan, and wide opened his eyes;
+   Then the coach and the trumpeters came with great speed,
+     And back to the Mansion House carried Lord 'Size."
+
+Amongst memorable Northern Circuit worthies was George Wood, the
+celebrated Special Pleader, in whose chambers Law, Erskine, Abbott and a
+mob of eminent lawyers acquired a knowledge of their profession. It is
+on record that whilst he and Mr. Holroyde were posting the Northern
+round, they were accosted on a lonely heath by a well-mounted horseman,
+who reining in his steed asked the barrister "What o'clock it was?"
+Favorably impressed by the stranger's appearance and tone of voice, Wood
+pulled out his valuable gold repeater, when the highwayman presenting a
+pistol, and putting it on the cock, said coolly, "_As you have_ a watch,
+be kind enough to give it me, so that I may not have occasion to trouble
+you again about the time." To demur was impossible; the lawyer,
+therefore, who had met his disaster by _going to the country_, meekly
+submitted to circumstances and surrendered the watch. For the loss of an
+excellent gold repeater he cared little, but he winced under the banter
+of his professional brethren, who long after the occurrence used to
+smile with malicious significance as they accosted him with--"What's the
+time, Wood?"
+
+Another of the memorable Northern circuiteers was John Hullock, who,
+like George Wood, became a baron of the Exchequer, and of whom the
+following story is told on good authority. In an important cause tried
+upon the Northern Circuit, he was instructed by the attorney who
+retained him as leader on one side not to produce a certain deed unless
+circumstances made him think that without its production his client
+would lose the suit. On perusing the deed entrusted to him with this
+remarkable injunction, Hullock saw that it established his client's
+case, and wishing to dispatch the business with all possible
+promptitude, he produced the parchment before its exhibition was
+demanded by necessity. Examination instantly detected the spurious
+character of the deed, which had been fabricated by the attorney. Of
+course the presiding judge (Sir John Bayley) ordered the deed to be
+impounded; but before the order was carried out, Mr. Hullock obtained
+permission to inspect it again. Restored to his hands, the deed was
+forthwith replaced in his bag. "You must surrender that deed instantly,"
+exclaimed the judge, seeing Hullock's intention to keep it. "My lord,"
+returned the barrister, warmly, "no power on earth shall induce me to
+surrender it. I have incautiously put the life of a fellow-creature in
+peril; and though I acted to the best of my discretion, I should never
+be happy again were a fatal result to ensue." At a loss to decide on the
+proper course of action, Mr. Justice Bayley retired from court to
+consult with his learned brother. On his lordship's reappearance in
+court, Mr. Hullock--who had also left the court for a brief period--told
+him that during his absence the forged deed had been destroyed. The
+attorney escaped; the barrister became a judge.
+
+[33] Lord Eldon, when he was handsome Jack Scott of the Northern
+Circuit, was about to make a short cut over the sands from Ulverstone to
+Lancaster at the of the tide, when he was restrained from acting on his
+rash resolve by the representations of an hotel keeper. "Danger,
+danger," asked Scott, impatiently--"have you ever _lost_ anybody there?"
+Mine host answered slowly, "Nae, sir, nae body has been _lost_ on the
+sands, _the puir bodies have been found at low water_."
+
+[34] With regard to the customary gifts of white gloves Mr. Foss
+says:--"Gloves were presented to the judges on some occasions: viz.,
+when a man, convicted for murder, or manslaughter, came and pleaded the
+king's pardon; and, till the Act of 4 & 5 William and Mary c. 18, which
+rendered personal appearance unnecessary, an outlawry could not be
+reversed, unless the defendant came into court, and with a present of
+gloves to the judges implored their favor to reverse it. The custom of
+giving the judge a pair of white gloves upon a maiden assize has
+continued till the present time." An interesting chapter might be
+written on the ancient ceremonies and usages obsolete and extant, of our
+courts of law. Here are a few of the practices which such a chapter
+would properly notice:--The custom, still maintained, which forbids the
+Lord Chancellor to utter any word or make any sign, when on Lord Mayor's
+Day the Lord Mayor of London enters the Court of Chancery, and by the
+mouth of the Recorder prays his lordship to honor the Guildhall banquet
+with his presence; the custom--extant so late as Lord Brougham's
+Chancellorship--which required the Holder of the Seals, at the
+installation of a new Master of Chancery, to install the new master by
+placing a cap or hat on his head; the custom which in Charles II.'s
+time, on motion days at the Chancellor's, compelled all barristers
+making motions to contribute to his lordship's 'Poor's Box'--barristers
+within the bar paying two shillings, and outer barristers one
+shilling--the contents of which box were periodically given to
+magistrates, for distribution amongst the deserving poor of London; the
+custom which required a newly-created judge to present his colleagues
+with biscuits and wine; the barbarous custom which compelled prisoners
+to plead their defence, standing in fetters, a custom enforced by Chief
+Justice Pratt at the trial of the Jacobite against Christopher Layer,
+although at the of trial of Cranburne for complicity in the
+'Assassination Plot,' Holt had enunciated the merciful maxim, "When the
+prisoners are tried they should stand at ease;" the custom which--in
+days when forty persons died of gaol fever caught at the memorable Black
+Sessions (May, 1759) at the Old Bailey, when Captain Clark was tried for
+killing Captain Innes in a duel--strewed rue, fennel, and other herbs on
+the ledge of the dock, in the faith that the odor of the herbage would
+act as a barrier to the poisonous exhalations from prisoners sick of
+gaol distemper, and would protect the assembly in the body of the court
+from the contagion of the disease.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+LAWYERS AND SAINTS.
+
+
+Notwithstanding the close connexion which in old times existed between
+the Church and the Law, popular sentiment holds to the opinion that the
+ways of lawyers are far removed from the ways of holiness, and that the
+difficulties encountered by wealthy travellers on the road to heaven are
+far greater with rich lawyers than with any other class of rich men. An
+old proverb teaches that wearers of the long robe never reach paradise
+_per saltum_, but 'by slow degrees;' and an irreverent ballad supports
+the vulgar belief that the only attorney to be found on the celestial
+rolls gained admittance to the blissful abode more by artifice than
+desert. The ribald broadside runs in the following style:---
+
+   "Professions will abuse each other;
+   The priests won't call the lawyer brother;
+   While _Salkeld_ still beknaves the parson,
+   And says he cants to keep the farce on.
+   Yet will I readily suppose
+   They are not truly bitter foes,
+   But only have their pleasant jokes,
+   And banter, just like other folks.
+   And thus, for so they quiz the law,
+   Once on a time th' Attorney Flaw,
+   A man to tell you, as the fact is,
+   Of vast chicane, of course of practice;
+   (But what profession can we trace
+   Where none will not the corps disgrace?
+   Seduced, perhaps, by roguish client,
+   Who tempt him to become more pliant),
+   A notice had to quit the world,
+   And from his desk at once was hurled.
+   Observe, I pray, the plain narration:
+   'Twas in a hot and long vacation,
+   When time he had but no assistance.
+   Tho' great from courts of law the distance,
+   To reach the court of truth and justice
+   (Where I confess my only trust is);
+   Though here below the special pleader
+   Shows talents worthy of a leader,
+   Yet his own fame he must support,
+   Be sometimes witty with the court
+   Or word the passion of a jury
+   By tender strains, or full of fury;
+   Misleads them all, tho' twelve apostles,
+   While with the new law the judge he jostles,
+   And makes them all give up their powers
+   To speeches of at least three hours--
+   But we have left our little man,
+   And wandered from our purpos'd plan:
+   'Tis said (without ill-natured leaven)
+   "If ever lawyers get to heaven,
+   It surely is by slow degrees"
+   (Perhaps 'tis slow they take their fees).
+   The case, then, now I fairly state:
+   Flaw reached at last to heaven's high gate;
+   Quite short he rapped, none did it neater;
+   The gate was opened by St. Peter,
+   Who looked astonished when he saw,
+   All black, the little man of law;
+   But charity was Peter's guide.
+   For having once himself denied
+   His master, he would not o'erpass
+   The penitent of any class;
+   Yet never having heard there entered
+   A lawyer, nay, nor ever ventured
+   Within the realms of peace and love,
+   He told him mildly to remove,
+   And would have closed the gate of day,
+   Had not old Flaw, in suppliant way,
+   Demurring to so hard a fate,
+   Begg'd but a look, tho' through the gate.
+   St. Peter, rather off his guard,
+   Unwilling to be thought too hard,
+   Opens the gate to let him peep in.
+   What did the lawyer? Did he creep in?
+   Or dash at once to take possession?
+   Oh no, he knew his own profession:
+   He took his hat off with respect,
+   And would no gentle means neglect;
+   But finding it was all in vain
+   For him admittance to obtain,
+   Thought it were best, let come what will,
+   To gain an entry by his skill.
+   So while St. Peter stood aside,
+   To let the door be opened wide,
+   He skimmed his hat with all his strength
+   Within the gate to no small length.
+   St. Peter stared; the lawyer asked him
+   "Only to fetch his hat," and passed him;
+   But when he reached the jack he'd thrown,
+   Oh, then was all the lawyer shown;
+   He clapt it on, and arms akembo
+   (As if he had been the gallant Bembo),
+   Cry'd out--'What think you of my plan?
+   Eject me, Peter, if you can.'"
+
+The celestial courts having devised no process of ejectment that could
+be employed in this unlooked-for emergency, St. Peter hastily withdrew
+to take counsel's opinion; and during his absence Mr. Flaw firmly
+established himself in the realms of bliss, where he remains to this day
+the black sheep of the saintly family.
+
+But though a flippant humorist in these later times could deride the
+lawyer as a character who had better not force his way into heaven,
+since he would not find a single personal acquaintance amongst its
+inhabitants, in more remote days lawyers achieved the honors of
+canonization, and our forefathers sought their saintly intercession with
+devout fervor. Our calendars still regard the 15th of July as a sacred
+day, in memory of the holy Swithin, who was tutor to King Ethelwulf and
+King Alfred, and Chancellor of England, and who certainly deserved his
+elevation to the fellowship of saints, even had his title to the honor
+rested solely on a remarkable act which he performed in the exercise of
+his judicial functions. A familiar set of nursery rhymes sets forth the
+utter inability of all the King's horses and men to reform the shattered
+Humpty-Dumpty, when his rotund highness had fallen from a wall; but when
+a wretched market-woman, whose entire basketful of new-laid eggs had
+been wilfully smashed by an enemy, sought in her trouble the aid of
+Chancery, the holy Chancellor Swithin miraculously restored each broken
+shell to perfect shape, each yolk to soundness. Saith William of
+Malmesbury, recounting this marvellous achievement--"statimque porrecto
+crucis signo, fracturam omnium ovorum consolidat."
+
+Like Chancellor Swithin before him, and like Chancellor Wolsey in a
+later time, Chancellor Becket was a royal tutor;[35] and like Swithin,
+who still remains the pluvious saint of humid England, and unlike
+Wolsey, who just missed the glory of canonization, Becket became a
+widely venerated saint. But less kind to St. Thomas of Canterbury than
+to St. Swithin, the Reformation degraded Becket from the saintly rank by
+the decision which terminated the ridiculous legal proceedings
+instituted by Henry VIII. against the holy reputation of St. Thomas.
+After the saint's counsel had replied to the Attorney-General, who, of
+course, conducted the cause for the crown, the court declared that
+"Thomas, sometime Archbishop of Canterbury, had been guilty of
+contumacy, treason and rebellion; that his bones should be publicly
+burnt, to admonish the living of their duty by the punishment of the
+dead; and that the offerings made at his shrine should be forfeited to
+the crown."
+
+After the conclusion of the suit for the saint's degradation--a suit
+which was an extravagant parody of the process for establishing at Rome
+a holy man's title to the honors of canonization--proclamation was made
+that "forasmuch as it now clearly appeared that Thomas Becket had been
+killed in a riot excited by his own obstinacy and intemperate language,
+and had been afterwards canonized by the Bishop of Rome as the champion
+of his usurped authority, the king's majesty thought it expedient to
+declare to his loving subjects that he was no saint, but rather a rebel
+and traitor to his prince, and therefore strictly charged and commanded
+that he should not be esteemed or called a saint; that all images and
+pictures of him should be destroyed, the festivals in his honor be
+abolished, and his name and remembrance be erased out of all books,
+under pain of his majesty's indignation and imprisonment at his grace's
+pleasure."
+
+But neither St. Swithin nor St. Thomas of Canterbury, lawyers though
+they were, deigned to take the legal profession under especial
+protection, and to mediate with particular officiousness between the
+long robe and St. Peter. The peculiar saint of the profession was St.
+Evona, concerning whom Carr, in his 'Remarks of the Government of the
+Severall Parts of Germanie, Denmark, &c.,' has the following passage:
+And now because I am speaking of Petty-foggers, give me leave to tell
+you a story I mett with when I lived in Rome. Goeing with a Romane to
+see some antiquityes, he showed me a chapell dedicated to St. Evona, a
+lawyer of Brittanie, who, he said, came to Rome to entreat the Pope to
+give the lawyers of Brittanie a patron, to which the Pope replied, that
+he knew of no saint but what was disposed to other professions. At which
+Evona was very sad, and earnestly begd of the Pope to think of one for
+him. At last the Pope proposed to St. Evona that he should go round the
+church of St. John de Latera blindfold, and after he had said so many
+Ave Marias, that the first saint he laid hold of should be his patron,
+which the good old lawyer willingly undertook, and at the end of his Ave
+Maryes he stopt at St. Michael's altar, where he layed hold of the
+Divell, under St. Michael's feet, and cry'd out, this is our saint, let
+him be our patron. So being unblindfolded, and seeing what a patron he
+had chosen, he went to his lodgings so dejected, that a few moneths
+after he died, and coming to heaven's gates knockt hard. Whereupon St.
+Peter asked who it was that knockt so bouldly. He replied that he was
+St. Evona the advocate. Away, away, said St. Peter, here is but one
+advocate in Heaven; here is no room for you lawyers. O but, said St.
+Evona, I am that honest lawyer who never tooke fees on both sides, or
+pleaded in a bad cause, nor did I ever set my Naibours together by the
+ears, or lived by the sins of the People. Well, then, said St. Peter,
+come in. This newes coming down to Rome, a witty poet wrote on St.
+Evona's tomb these words:--
+
+   'St. Evona un Briton,
+   Advocat non Larron.
+             Hallelujah.'
+
+This story put me in mind of Ben Jonson goeing throw a church in Surrey,
+seeing poore people weeping over a grave, asked one of the women why
+they wept. Oh, said shee, we have lost our pretious lawyer, Justice
+Randall; he kept us all in peace, and always was so good as to keep us
+from goeing to law; the best man ever lived. Well, said Ben Jonson, I
+will send you an epitaph to write upon his tomb, which was--
+
+   'God works wonders now and then,
+   Here lies a lawyer an honest man.'
+
+An important vestige of the close relations which formerly existed
+between the Law and the Church is still found in the ecclesiastical
+patronage of the Lord Chancellor; and many are the good stories told of
+interviews that took place between our more recent chancellors and
+clergymen suing for preferment. "Who sent you, sir?" Thurlow asked
+savagely of a country curate, who had boldly forced his way into the
+Chancellor's library in Great Ormond Street, in the hope of winning the
+presentation to a vacant living. "In whose _name_ do you come, that you
+venture to pester me about your private affairs? I say, sir--what great
+lords sent you to bother me in my house?" "My Lord," answered the
+applicant, with a happy combination of dignity and humor, "no great man
+supports my entreaty; but I may say with honesty, that I come to you in
+the name of the Lord of Hosts." Pleased by the spirit and wit of the
+reply, Thurlow exclaimed, "The Lord of Hosts! the Lord of Hosts! you are
+the first parson that ever applied to me in that Lord's name; and though
+his title can't be found in the Peerage, by ---- you shall have the
+living." On another occasion the same Chancellor was less benign, but
+not less just to a clerical applicant. Sustained by Queen Charlotte's
+personal favor and intercession with Thurlow, the clergyman in question
+felt so sure of obtaining the valuable living which was the object of
+his ambition, that he regarded his interview with the Chancellor as a
+purely formal affair. "I have, sir," observed Lord Thurlow, "received a
+letter from the curate of the parish to which it is my intention to
+prefer you, and on inquiry I find him to be a very worthy man. The
+father of a large family, and a priest who has labored zealously in the
+parish for many years, he has written to me--not asking for the living,
+but modestly entreating me to ask the new rector to retain him as
+curate. Now, sir, you would oblige me by promising me to employ the poor
+man in that capacity." "My lord," replied Queen Charlotte's pastor, "it
+would give me great pleasure to oblige your lordship in this matter, but
+unfortunately I have arranged to take a personal friend for my curate."
+His eyes flashing angrily, Thurlow answered, "Sir, I cannot force you to
+take this worthy man for your curate, but I can make him the rector; and
+by ---- he shall have the living, and be in a position to offer you the
+curacy."
+
+Of Lord Loughborough a reliable biographer records a pleasant and
+singular story. Having pronounced a decision in the House of Lords,
+which deprived an excellent clergyman of a considerable estate and
+reduced him to actual indigence, the Chancellor, before quitting the
+woolsack, addressed the unfortunate suitor thus:--"As a judge I have
+decided against you, whose virtues are not unknown to me; and in
+acknowledgment of those virtues I beg you to accept from me a
+presentation to a living now vacant, and worth L600 per annum."
+
+Capital also are the best of many anecdotes concerning Eldon and his
+ecclesiastical patronage. Dating the letter from No. 2, Charlotte
+Street, Pimlico, the Chancellor's eldest son sent his father the
+following anonymous epistle:--
+
+   "Hear, generous lawyer! hear my prayer,
+   Nor let my freedom make, you stare,
+             In hailing you Jack Scott!
+   Tho' now upon the woolsack placed,
+   With wealth, with power, with title graced,
+             _Once_ nearer was our lot.
+
+   "Say by what name the hapless bard
+   May best attract your kind regard--
+             Plain Jack?--Sir John?--or Eldon?
+   Give from your ample store of giving,
+   A starving priest some little living--
+             The world will cry out 'Well done.'
+
+   "In vain, without a patron's aid,
+   I've prayed and preached, and preached and prayed--
+             _Applauded_ but _ill-fed_.
+   Such vain _eclat_ let others share;
+   Alas, I cannot feed on air--
+             I ask not _praise_, but _bread_."
+
+Satisfactorily hoaxed by the rhymer, the Chancellor went to Pimlico in
+search of the clerical poetaster, and found him not.
+
+Prettier and less comic is the story of Miss Bridge's morning call upon
+Lord Eldon. The Chancellor was sitting in his study over a table of
+papers when a young and lovely girl--slightly rustic in her attire,
+slightly embarrassed by the novelty of her position, but thoroughly in
+command of her wits--entered the room, and walked up to the lawyer's
+chair. "My dear," said the Chancellor, rising and bowing with old-world
+courtesy, "who _are_ you?" "Lord Eldon," answered the blushing maiden,
+"I am Bessie Bridge of Weobly, the daughter of the Vicar of Weobly, and
+papa has sent me to remind you of a promise which you made him when I
+was a little baby, and you were a guest in his house on the occasion of
+your first election as member of Parliament for Weobly." "A promise, my
+dear young lady?" interposed the Chancellor, trying to recall how he had
+pledged himself. "Yea, Lord Eldon, a promise. You were standing over my
+cradle when papa said to you, 'Mr. Scott, promise me that if ever you
+are Lord Chancellor, when my little girl is a poor clergyman's wife, you
+will give her husband a living;' and you answered, 'Mr. Bridge, my
+promise is not worth half-a-crown, but I give it to you, wishing it were
+worth more.'" Enthusiastically the Chancellor exclaimed, "You are quite
+right. I admit the obligation. I remember all about it;" and, then,
+after a pause, archly surveying the damsel, whose graces were the
+reverse of matronly, he added, "But surely the time for keeping my
+promise has not yet arrived? You cannot be any one's wife at present?"
+For a few seconds Bessie hesitated for an answer, and then, with a blush
+and a ripple of silver laughter she replied, "No, but I do so wish to be
+_somebody's_ wife. I am engaged to a young clergyman; and there's a
+living in Herefordshire near my old home that has recently fallen
+vacant, and if you'll give it to Alfred, why then, Lord Eldon, we shall
+marry before the end of the year." Is there need to say that the
+Chancellor forthwith summoned his Secretary, that the secretary
+forthwith made out the presentation to Bessie's lover, and that having
+given the Chancellor a kiss of gratitude, Bessie made good speed back to
+Herefordshire, hugging the precious document the whole way home?
+
+A bad but eager sportsman, Lord Eldon used to blaze away at his
+partridges and pheasants with such uniform want of success that Lord
+Stowell had truth as well as humor on his side when he observed, "My
+brother has done much execution this shooting season; with his gun he
+has _killed a great deal of time_." Having ineffectually discharged two
+barrels at a covey of partridges, the Chancellor was slowly walking to
+the gate of one of his Encome turnip-fields when a stranger of clerical
+garb and aspect hailed him from a distance, asking, "Where is Lord
+Eldon?" Not anxious to declare himself to the witness of his ludicrously
+bad shot, the Chancellor answered evasively, and with scant courtesy,
+"Not far off." Displeased with the tone of this curt reply, the
+clergyman rejoined, "I wish you'd use your tongue to better purpose than
+you do your gun, and tell me civily where I can find the Chancellor."
+"Well," responded the sportsman, when he had slowly approached his
+questioner, "here you see the Chancellor--I am Lord Eldon." It was an
+untoward introduction to the Chancellor for the strange clergyman who
+had traveled from the North of Lancashire to ask for the presentation to
+a vacant living. Partly out of humorous compassion for the applicant who
+had offered rudeness, if not insult to the person whom he was most
+anxious to propitiate; partly because on inquiry he ascertained the
+respectability of the applicant; and partly because he wished to seal by
+kindness the lips of a man who could report on the authority of his own
+eyes that the best lawyer was also the worst shot in all England, Eldon
+gave the petitioner the desired preferment. "But now," the old
+Chancellor used to add in conclusion, whenever he told the story, "see
+the ingratitude of mankind. It was not long before a large present of
+game reached me, with a letter from my new-made rector, purporting that
+he had sent it to me, because _from what he had seen of my shooting he_
+supposed I must be badly off for game. Think of turning upon me in this
+way, and wounding me in my tenderest point."
+
+Amongst Eldon's humorous answers to applications for preferment should
+be remembered his letter to Dr. Fisher of the Charterhouse: on one side
+of a sheet of paper, "Dear Fisher, I cannot, to-day, give you the
+preferment for which you ask.--I remain your sincere friend,
+ELDON.--_Turn over_;" and on the other side, "I gave it to you
+yesterday." This note reminds us of Erskine's reply to Sir John
+Sinclair's solicitation for a subscription to the testimonial which Sir
+John invited the nation to present to himself. On the one side of a
+sheet of paper it ran, "My dear Sir John, I am certain there are few in
+this kingdom who set a higher value on your services than myself, and I
+have the honor to subscribe," and on the other side it concluded,
+"myself your obedient faithful servant, ERSKINE."
+
+[35] Swithin was tutor to Ethelwulf and Alfred. Becket was tutor to
+Henry II.'s eldest son. Wolsey--who took delight in discharging
+scholastic functions from the days when he birched schoolboys at
+Magdalen College, Oxford, till the time when in the plenitude of his
+grandeur he framed regulations for Dean Colet's school of St. Paul's and
+wrote an introduction to a Latin Grammar for the use of children--acted
+as educational director to the Princess Mary, and superintended the
+studies of Henry VIII.'s natural son, the Earl of Richmond. Amongst
+pedagogue-chancellors, by license of fancy, may be included the Earl of
+Clarendon, whose enemies used to charge him with 'playing the
+schoolmaster to his king,' and in their desire to bring him into
+disfavor at court used to announce his approach to Charles II. by
+saying, "Here comes your schoolmaster."
+
+
+
+
+PART IX.
+
+AT HOME: IN COURT: AND IN SOCIETY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV.
+
+LAWYERS AT THEIR OWN TABLES.
+
+
+A long list, indeed, might be made of abstemious lawyers; but their
+temperance is almost invariably mentioned by biographers as matter for
+regret and apology, and is even made an occasion for reproach in cases
+where it has not been palliated by habits of munificent hospitality. In
+the catalogue of Chancellor Warham's virtues and laudable usages,
+Erasmus takes care to mention that the primate was accustomed to
+entertain his friends, to the number of two hundred at a time: and when
+the man of letters notices the archbishop's moderation with respect to
+wines and dishes--a moderation that caused his grace to eschew suppers,
+and never to sit more than an hour at dinner--he does not omit to
+observe that though the great man "made it a rule to abstain entirely
+from supper, yet if his friends were assembled at that meal he would sit
+down along with them and promote their conviviality."
+
+Splendid in all things, Wolsey astounded envious nobles by the
+magnificence of his banquets, and the lavish expenses of his kitchens,
+wherein his master-cooks wore raiment of richest materials--the _chef_
+of his private kitchen daily arraying himself in a damask-satin or
+velvet, and wearing on his neck a chain of gold. Of a far other kind
+were the tastes of Wolsey's successor, who, in the warmest sunshine of
+his power, preferred a quiet dinner with Erasmus to the pompous display
+of state banquets, and who wore a gleeful light in his countenance when,
+after his fall, he called his children and grandchildren about him, and
+said: "I have been brought up at Oxford, at an Inn of Chancery, at
+Lincoln's Inn, and in the King's Court--from the lowest degree to the
+highest, and yet have I in yearly revenues at this present, little left
+me above a hundred pounds by the year; so that now, if we wish to live
+together, you must be content to be contributaries together. But my
+counsel is that we fall not to the lowest fare first; we will not,
+therefore, descend to Oxford fare, nor to the fare of New Inn, but we
+will begin with Lincoln's Inn diet, where many right worshipful men of
+great account and good years do live full well; which if we find
+ourselves the first year not able to maintain, then will we in the next
+year come down to Oxford fare, where many great, learned, and ancient
+fathers and doctors are continually conversant; which if our purses
+stretch not to maintain neither, then may we after, with bag and wallet,
+go a-begging together, hoping that for pity some good folks will give us
+their charity and at every man's door to sing a _Salve Regina_, whereby
+we shall keep company and be merry together."
+
+Students recalling the social life of England should bear in mind the
+hours kept by our ancestors in the fourteenth and two following
+centuries. Under the Plantagenets noblemen used to sup at five P.M., and
+dine somewhere about the breakfast hour of Mayfair in a modern London
+season. Gradually hours became later; but under the Tudors the ordinary
+dinner hour for gentlepeople was somewhere about eleven A.M., and their
+usual time for supping was between five P.M. and six P.M., tradesmen,
+merchants and farmers dining and supping at later hours than their
+social superiors. "With us," says Hall the chronicler, "the nobility,
+gentry, and students, do ordinarily go to dinner at eleven before noon,
+and to supper at five, or between five and six, at afternoon. The
+merchants dine and sup seldom before twelve at noon and six at night.
+The husbandmen also dine at high noon as they call it, and sup at seven
+or eight; but out of term in our universities the scholars dine at ten."
+Thus whilst the idlers of society made haste to eat and drink, the
+workers postponed the pleasures of the table until they had made a good
+morning's work. In the days of morning dinners and afternoon suppers,
+the law-courts used to be at the height of their daily business at an
+hour when Templars of the present generation have seldom risen from bed.
+Chancellors were accustomed to commence their daily sittings in
+Westminster at seven A.M. in summer, and at eight A.M. in winter months.
+Lord Keeper Williams, who endeavored to atone for want of law by
+extraordinarily assiduous attention to the duties of his office, used
+indeed to open his winter sittings by candlelight between six and seven
+o'clock.
+
+Many were the costly banquets of which successive Chancellors invited
+the nobility, the judges, and the bar, to partake at old York House; but
+of all the holders of the Great Seal who exercised pompous hospitality
+in that picturesque palace, Francis Bacon was the most liberal,
+gracious, and delightful entertainer. Where is the student of English
+history who has not often endeavored to imagine the scene when Ben
+Jonson sat amongst the honored guests of
+
+   "England's high Chancellor, the destin'd heir,
+   In his soft cradle, to his father's chair,"
+
+and little prescient of the coming storm, spoke of his host as one
+
+   "Whose even thread the Fates spin round and full,
+   Out of their choicest and their whitest wool."
+
+Even at the present day lawyers have reason to be grateful to Bacon for
+the promptitude with which, on taking possession of the Marble Chair, he
+revived the ancient usages of earlier holders of the seal, and set an
+example of courteous hospitality to the bar, which no subsequent
+Chancellor has been able to disregard without loss of respect and
+_prestige_. Though a short attack of gout qualified the new pleasure of
+his elevation--an attack attributed by the sufferer to his removal "from
+a field air to a Thames air," _i.e._, from Gray's Inn to the south side
+of the Strand--Lord Keeper Bacon lost no time in summoning the judges
+and most eminent barristers to his table; and though the gravity of his
+indisposition, or the dignity of his office, forbade him to join in the
+feast, he sat and spoke pleasantly with them when the dishes had been
+removed. "Yesterday," he wrote to Buckingham, "which was my weary day, I
+bid all the judges to dinner, which was not used to be, and entertained
+them in a private withdrawing chamber with the learned counsel. When the
+feast was past I came amongst them and sat me down at the end of the
+table, and prayed them to think I was one of them, and but a foreman."
+Nor let us, whilst recalling Bacon's bounteous hospitalities, fail in
+justice to his great rival, Sir Edward Coke---who, though he usually
+held himself aloof from frivolous amusements, and cared but little for
+expensive repasts, would with a liberal hand place lordly dishes before
+lordly guests; and of whom it is recorded in the 'Apophthegmes,' that
+when any great visitor dropped in upon him for pot-luck without notice
+he was wont to say, "Sir, since you sent me no notice of your coming,
+you must dine with me; but if I had known of it in due time I would have
+dined with you."
+
+From such great men as Lord Nottingham and Lord Guildford, who
+successively kept high state in Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, to
+fat _puisnes_ occupying snug houses in close proximity to the Inns of
+Court, and lower downwards to leaders of the bar and juniors sleeping as
+well as working in chambers, the Restoration lawyers were conspicuous
+promoters of the hilarity which was one of the most prominent and least
+offensive characteristics of Charles II.'s London. Lord Nottingham's
+sumptuous hospitalities were the more creditable, because he voluntarily
+relinquished his claim to L4000 per annum, which the royal bounty had
+assigned him as a fund to be expended in official entertainments.
+Similar praise cannot be awarded to Lord Guildford; but justice compels
+the admission that, notwithstanding his love of money, he maintained the
+_prestige_ of his place, so far as a hospitable table and profuse
+domestic expenditure could support it.
+
+Contrasting strongly with the lawyers of this period, who copied in
+miniature the impressive state of Clarendon's princely establishments,
+were the jovial, catch-singing, three-bottle lawyers--who preferred
+drunkenness to pomp; an oaken table, surrounded by jolly fellows, to
+ante-rooms crowded with obsequious courtiers; a hunting song with a
+brave chorus to the less stormy diversion of polite conversation. Of
+these free-living lawyers, George Jeffreys was a conspicuous leader. Not
+averse to display, and not incapable of shining in refined society, this
+notorious man loved good cheer and jolly companions beyond all other
+sources of excitement; and during his tenure of the seals, he was never
+more happy than when he was presiding over a company of sharp-witted
+men-about-town whom he had invited to indulge in wild talk and choice
+wine at his mansion that overlooked the lawns, the water, and the trees
+of St. James's Park. On such occasions his lordship's most valued boon
+companion was Mountfort, the comedian, whom he had taken from the stage
+and made a permanent officer of the Duke Street household. Whether the
+actor was required to discharge any graver functions in the Chancellor's
+establishment is unknown; but we have Sir John Reresby's testimony that
+the clever mimic and brilliant libertine was employed to amuse his
+lordship's guests by ridiculing the personal and mental peculiarities of
+the judges and most eminent barristers. "I dined," records Sir John,
+"with the Lord Chancellor, where the Lord Mayor of London was a guest,
+and some other gentlemen. His lordship having, according to custom,
+drunk deep at dinner, called for one Mountfort, a gentleman of his, who
+had been a comedian, an excellent mimic; and to divert the company, as
+he was pleased to term it, he made him plead before him in a feigned
+cause, during which he aped the judges, and all the great lawyers of the
+age, in tone of voice and in action and gesture of body, to the very
+great ridicule, not only of the lawyers, but of the law itself, which to
+me did not seem altogether prudent in a man in his lofty station in the
+law; diverting it certainly was, but prudent in the Lord Chancellor I
+shall never think it." The fun of Mountfort's imitations was often
+heightened by the presence of the persons whom they held up to
+derision--some of whom would see and express natural displeasure at the
+affront; whilst others, quite unconscious of their own peculiarities,
+joined loudly in the laughter that was directed against themselves.
+
+As pet buffoon of the tories about town, Mountfort was followed, at a
+considerable distance of time, by Estcourt--an actor who united wit and
+fine humor with irresistible powers of mimicry; and who contrived to
+acquire the respect and affectionate regard of many of those famous
+Whigs whom it was alike his pleasure and his business to render
+ridiculous. In the _Spectator_ Steele paid him a tribute of cordial
+admiration; and Cibber, noticing the marvellous fidelity of his
+imitations, has recorded, "This man was so amazing and extraordinary a
+mimic, that no man or woman, from the coquette to the privy counsellor,
+ever moved or spoke before him, but he could carry their voice, look,
+mien, and motion instantly into another company. I have heard him make
+long harangues, and form various arguments, even in the manner of
+thinking of an eminent pleader at the bar, with every the least article
+and singularity of his utterance so perfectly imitated, that he was the
+very _alter ipse_, scarce to be distinguished from the original."
+
+With the exception of Kenyon and Eldon, and one or two less conspicuous
+instances of judicial penuriousness, the judges of the Georgian period
+were hospitable entertainers. Chief Justice Lee, who died in 1754,
+gained credit for an adequate knowledge of law by the sumptuousness and
+frequency of the dinners with which he regaled his brothers of the bench
+and learned counsellors. Chief Justice Mansfield's habitual temperance
+and comparative indifference to the pleasures of the table did not cause
+him to be neglectful of hospitable duties. Notwithstanding the cold
+formality of Lord Hardwicke's entertainments, and the charges of
+niggardliness preferred against Lady Hardwicke's domestic system by
+Opposition satirists, Philip Yorke used to entertain the chiefs of his
+profession with pomp, if not with affability. Thurlow entertained a
+somewhat too limited circle of friends with English fare and a
+superabundance of choice port in Great Ormond Street. Throughout his
+public career, Alexander Wedderburn was a lavish and delightful host,
+amply atoning in the opinion of frivolous society for his political
+falsity by the excellence and number of his grand dinners. On entering
+the place of Solicitor-General, he spent L8000 on a service of plate;
+and as Lord Loughborough he gratified the bar and dazzled the
+fashionable world by hospitality alike sumptuous and brilliant.
+
+Several of the Georgian lawyers had strong predilections for particular
+dishes or articles of diet. Thurlow was very fanciful about his fruit;
+and in his later years he would give way to ludicrous irritability, if
+inferior grapes or faulty peaches were placed before him. At Brighton,
+in his declining years, the ex-Chancellor's indignation at a dish of
+defective wall-fruit was so lively that--to the inexpressible
+astonishment of Horne Tooke and other guests--he caused the whole of a
+very fine dessert to be thrown out of the window upon the Marine Parade.
+Baron Graham's weakness was for oysters, eaten as a preparatory whet to
+the appetite before dinner; and it is recorded of him that on a certain
+occasion, when he had been indulging in this favorite pre-prandial
+exercise, he observed with pleasant humor--"Oysters taken before dinner
+are said to sharpen the appetite; but I have just consumed half-a-barrel
+of fine natives--and speaking honestly, I am bound to say that I don't
+feel quite as hungry as when I began." Thomas Manners Button's peculiar
+_penchant_ was for salads; and in a moment of impulsive kindness he gave
+Lady Morgan the recipe for his favorite salad--a compound of rare merit
+and mysterious properties. Bitterly did the old lawyer repent his unwise
+munificence when he read 'O'Donnell.' Warmly displeased with the
+political sentiments of the novel, he ordered it to be burnt in the
+servants' hall, and exclaimed, peevishly, to Lady Manners, "I wish I
+had not given her the secret of my salad." In no culinary product did
+Lord Ellenborough find greater delight than lobster-sauce; and he gave
+expression to his high regard for that soothing and delicate compound
+when he decided that persons engaged in lobster-fishery were exempt from
+legal liability to impressment. "Then is not," inquired his lordship,
+with solemn pathos, "the lobster-fishery a fishery, and a most important
+fishery, of this kingdom, though carried on in shallow water? The
+framers of the law well knew that the produce of the deep sea, without
+the produce of the shallow water, would be of comparatively small value,
+and intended that turbot, when placed upon our tables, should be flanked
+by good lobster-sauce." Eldon's singular passion for fried 'liver and
+bacon' was amongst his most notorious and least pleasant peculiarities.
+Even the Prince Regent condescended to humor this remarkable taste by
+ordering a dish of liver and bacon to be placed on the table when the
+Chancellor dined with him at Brighton. Sir John Leach, Master of the
+Rolls, was however less ready to pander to a depraved appetite. Lord
+Eldon said, "It will give me great pleasure to dine with you, and since
+you are good enough to ask me to order a dish that shall test your new
+_chef's_ powers--I wish you'd tell your Frenchman to fry some liver and
+bacon for me." "Are you laughing at me or my cook?" asked Sir John
+Leach, stiffly, thinking that the Chancellor was bent on ridiculing his
+luxurious mode of living. "At neither," answered Eldon, with equal
+simplicity and truth; "I was only ordering the dish which I enjoy beyond
+all other dishes."
+
+Although Eldon's penuriousness was grossly exaggerated by his
+detractors, it cannot be questioned that either through indolence, or
+love of money, or some other kind of selfishness, he was very neglectful
+of his hospitable duties to the bench and the bar. "Verily he is
+working off the arrears of the Lord Chancellor," said Romilly, when Sir
+Thomas Plummer, the Master of the Rolls, gave a succession of dinners to
+the bar; and such a remark would not have escaped the lips of the
+decorous and amiable Romilly had not circumstances fully justified it.
+Still it is unquestionable that Eldon's Cabinet dinners were suitably
+expensive; and that he never grudged his choicest port to the old
+attorneys and subordinate placemen who were his obsequious companions
+towards the close of his career. For the charges of sordid parsimony so
+frequently preferred against Kenyon it is to be feared there were better
+grounds. Under the steadily strengthening spell of avarice he ceased to
+invite even old friends to his table; and it was rumored that in course
+of time his domestic servants complained with reason that they were
+required to consume the same fare as their master deemed sufficient for
+himself. "In Lord Kenyon's house," a wit exclaimed, "all the year
+through it is Lent in the kitchen, and Passion Week in the Parlor."
+Another caustic quidnunc remarked, "In his lordship's kitchen the fire
+is dull, but the spits are always bright;" whereupon Jekyll interposed
+with an assumption of testiness, "Spits! in the name of common sense I
+order you not to talk about _his_ spits, for nothing turns upon them."
+
+Very different was the temper of Erskine, who spent money faster than
+Kenyon saved it, and who died in indigence after holding the Great Seal
+of England, and making for many years a finer income at the bar than any
+of his contemporaries not enjoying crown patronage. Many are the bright
+pictures preserved to us of his hospitality to politicians and lawyers,
+wits, and people of fashion; but none of the scenes is more
+characteristic than the dinner described by Sir Samuel Romilly, when
+that good man met at Erskine's Hampstead villa the chiefs of the
+opposition and Mr. Pinkney, the American Minister. "Among the light,
+trifling topics of conversation after dinner," says Sir Samuel Romilly,
+"it may be worth while to mention one, as it strongly characterizes Lord
+Erskine. He has always expressed and felt a strong sympathy with
+animals. He has talked for years of a bill he was to bring into
+parliament to prevent cruelty towards them. He has always had some
+favorite animals to whom he has been much attached, and of whom all his
+acquaintance have a number of anecdotes to relate; a favorite dog which
+he used to bring, when he was at the bar, to all his consultations;
+another favorite dog, which, at the time when he was Lord Chancellor, he
+himself rescued in the street from some boys who were about to kill it
+under the pretence of its being mad; a favorite goose, which followed
+him wherever he walked about his grounds; a favorite macaw, and other
+dumb favorites without number. He told us now that he had got two
+favorite leeches. He had been blooded by them last autumn when he had
+been taken dangerously ill at Portsmouth; they had saved his life, and
+he had brought them with him to town, had ever since kept them in a
+glass, had himself every day given them fresh water, and had formed a
+friendship for them. He said he was sure they both knew him and were
+grateful to him. He had given them different names, 'Home' and 'Cline'
+(the names of two celebrated surgeons), their dispositions being quite
+different. After a good deal of conversation about them, he went
+himself, brought them out of his library, and placed them in their glass
+upon the table. It is impossible, however, without the vivacity, the
+tones, the details, and the gestures of Lord Erskine, to give an
+adequate idea of this singular scene." Amongst the listeners to Erskine,
+whilst he spoke eloquently and with fervor of the virtues of his two
+leeches, were the Duke of Norfolk, Lord Grenville, Lord Grey, Lord
+Holland, Lord Ellenborough, Lord Lauderdale, Lord Henry Petty, and
+Thomas Grenville.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI.
+
+WINE.
+
+
+From the time when Francis Bacon attributed a sharp attack of gout to
+his removal from Gray's Inn Fields to the river side, to a time not many
+years distant when Sir Herbert Jenner Fust[36] used to be brought into
+his court in Doctors' Commons and placed in the judicial seat by two
+liveried porters, lawyers were not remarkable for abstinence from the
+pleasures to which our ancestors were indebted for the joint-fixing,
+picturesque gout that has already become an affair of the past.
+Throughout the long period that lies between Charles II.'s restoration
+and George III.'s death, an English judge without a symptom of gout was
+so exceptional a character that people talked of him as an interesting
+social curiosity. The Merry Monarch made Clarendon's bedroom his
+council-chamber when the Chancellor was confined to his couch by
+_podagra_. Lord Nottingham was so disabled by gout, and what the old
+physicians were pleased to call a 'perversity of the humors,' that his
+duties in the House of Lords were often discharged by Francis North,
+then Chief Justice of the Common Pleas; and though he persevered in
+attending to the business of his court, a man of less resolution would
+have altogether succumbed to the agony of his disease and the burden of
+his infirmities. "I have known him," says Roger North, "sit to hear
+petitions in great pain, and say that his servants had let him out,
+though he was fitter for his chamber." Prudence saved Lord Guildford
+from excessive intemperance; but he lived with a freedom that would be
+remarkable in the present age. Chief Justice Saunders was a confirmed
+sot, taking nips of brandy with his breakfast, and seldom appearing in
+public "without a pot of ale at his nose or near him." Sir Robert Wright
+was notoriously addicted to wine; and George Jeffreys drank, as he
+swore, like a trooper. "My lord," said King Charles, in a significant
+tone, when he gave Jeffreys the _blood-stone_ ring, "as it is a hot
+summer, and you are going the circuit, I desire you will not drink too
+much."
+
+Amongst the reeling judges of the Restoration, however, there moved one
+venerable lawyer, who, in an age when moralists hesitated to call
+drunkenness a vice, was remarkable for sobriety. In his youth, whilst he
+was indulging with natural ardor in youthful pleasures, Chief Justice
+Hale was so struck with horror at seeing an intimate friend drop
+senseless, and apparently lifeless, at a student's drinking-bout, that
+he made a sudden but enduring resolution to conquer his ebrious
+propensities, and withdraw himself from the dangerous allurements of
+ungodly company. Falling upon his knees he prayed the Almighty to
+rescue his friend from the jaws of death, and also to strengthen him to
+keep his newly-formed resolution. He rose an altered man. But in an age
+when the barbarous usage of toast-drinking was in full force, he felt
+that he could not be an habitually sober man if he mingled in society,
+and obeyed a rule which required the man of delicate and excitable
+nerves to drink as much, bumper for bumper, as the man whose sluggish
+system could receive a quart of spirits at a sitting and yet scarcely
+experience a change of sensation. At that time it was customary with
+prudent men to protect themselves against a pernicious and tyrannous
+custom, by taking a vow to abstain from toast-drinking, or even from
+drinking wine at all, for a certain stated period. Readers do not need
+to be reminded how often young Pepys was under a vow not to drink; and
+the device by which the jovial admiralty clerk strengthened an infirm
+will and defended himself against temptation was frequently employed by
+right-minded young men of his date. In some cases, instead of _vowing_
+not to drink, they _bound_ themselves not to drink within a certain
+period; two persons, that is to say, agreeing that they would abstain
+from wine and spirits for a certain period, and each _binding_ himself
+in case he broke the compact to pay over a certain sum of money to his
+partner in the bond. Young Hale saw that to effect a complete
+reformation of his life it was needful for him to abjure the practice of
+drinking healths. He therefore vowed _never again_ to drink a health;
+and he kept his vow. Never again did he brim his bumper and drain it at
+the command of a toast-master, although his abstinence exposed him to
+much annoyance; and in his old age he thus urged his grandchildren to
+follow his example--"I will not have you begin or pledge any health, for
+it is become one of the greatest artifices of drinking, and occasions of
+quarrelling in the kingdom. If you pledge one health you oblige
+yourself to pledge another, and a third, and so onwards; and if you
+pledge as many as will be drunk, you must be debauched and drunk. If
+they will needs know the reason of your refusal, it is a fair answer,
+'that your grandfather that brought you up, from whom, under God, you
+have the estate you enjoy or expect, left this in command with you, that
+you should never begin or pledge a health.'"
+
+Jeffrey's _protege_, John Trevor, liked good wine himself, but emulated
+the virtuous Hale in the pains which he took to place the treacherous
+drink beyond the reach of others--whenever they showed a desire to drink
+it at his expense. After his expulsion from the House of Commons, Sir
+John Trevor was sitting alone over a choice bottle of claret, when his
+needy kinsman, Roderic Lloyd, was announced. "You rascal," exclaimed the
+Master of the Rolls, springing to his feet, and attacking his footman
+with furious language, "you have brought my cousin, Roderic Lloyd,
+Esquire, Prothonotary of North Wales, Marshal to Baron Price, up my back
+stairs. You scoundrel, hear ye, I order you to take him this instant
+down my _back stairs_, and bring him up my _front stairs_." Sir John
+made such a point of showing his visitor this mark of respect, that the
+young barrister was forced to descend and enter the room by the state
+staircase; but he saw no reason to think himself honored by his cousin's
+punctilious courtesy, when on entering the room a second time he looked
+in vain for the claret bottle.
+
+On another occasion Sir John Trevor's official residence afforded
+shelter to the same poor relation when the latter was in great mental
+trouble. "Roderic," saith the chronicler, "was returning rather elevated
+from his club one night, and ran against the pump in Chancery Lane.
+Conceiving somebody had struck him, he drew and made a lunge at the
+pump. The sword entered the spout, and the pump, being crazy, fell
+down. Roderic concluded he had killed his man, left, his sword in the
+pump, and retreated to his old friend's house at the Rolls. There he was
+concealed by the servants for the night. In the morning his Honor,
+having heard the story, came himself to deliver him from his
+consternation and confinement in the coal-hole."
+
+Amongst the eighteenth century lawyers there was considerable difference
+of taste and opinion on questions relating to the use and abuse of wine.
+Though he never, or very seldom, exceeded the limits of sobriety, Somers
+enjoyed a bottle in congenial society; and though wine never betrayed
+him into reckless hilarity, it gave gentleness and comity to his
+habitually severe countenance and solemn deportment--if reliance may be
+placed on Swift's couplet--
+
+   "By force of wine even Scarborough is brave,
+   Hall grows more pert, and Somers not so grave."
+
+A familiar quotation that alludes to Murray's early intercourse with the
+wits warrants an inference that in opening manhood he preferred
+champagne to every other wine; but as Lord Mansfield he steadily adhered
+to claret, though fashion had taken into favor the fuller wine
+stigmatized as poison by John Home's famous epigram--
+
+   "Bold and erect the Caledonian stood;
+   Old was his mutton, and his claret good.
+   'Let him drink port,' an English statesman cried:
+   He drunk the poison and his spirit died."
+
+Unlike his father, who never sinned against moderation in his cups,
+Charles Yorke was a deep drinker as well as a gourmand. Hardwicke's
+successor, Lord Northington, was the first of a line of
+port-wine-drinking judges that may at the present time be fairly said
+to have come to an end--although a few reverend fathers of the law yet
+remain, who drink with relish the Methuen drink when age has deprived it
+of body and strength. Until Robert Henley held the seals, Chancellors
+continued to hold after-dinner sittings in the Court of Chancery on
+certain days of the week throughout term. Hardwicke, throughout his long
+official career, sat on the evenings of Wednesdays and Fridays hearing
+causes, while men of pleasure were fuddling themselves with fruity
+vintages. Lord Northington, however, prevailed on George III. to let him
+discontinue these evening attendances in court. "But why," asked the
+monarch, "do you wish for a change?" "Sir," the Chancellor answered,
+with delightful frankness, "I want the change in order that I may finish
+my bottle of port at my ease; and your majesty, in your parental care
+for the happiness of your subjects, will, I trust, think this a
+sufficient reason." Of course the king's laughter ended in a favorable
+answer to the petition for reform, and from that time the Chancellor's
+evening sittings were discontinued. But ere he died, the jovial
+Chancellor paid the penalty which port exacts from all her fervent
+worshippers, and he suffered the acutest pangs of gout. It is recorded
+that as he limped from the woolsack to the bar of the House of Lords, he
+once muttered to a young peer, who watched his distress with evident
+sympathy--"Ah, my young friend, if I had known that these legs would one
+day carry a Chancellor, I would have taken better care of them when I
+was at your age." Unto this had come the handsome legs of young
+Counsellor Henley, who, in his dancing days, stepped minuets to the
+enthusiastic admiration of the _belles_ of Bath.
+
+Some light is thrown on the manners of lawyers in the eighteenth century
+by an order made by the authorities of Barnard's Inn, who, in November,
+1706, named two quarts as the allowance of wine to be given to each
+mess of four men by two gentlemen on going through the ceremony of
+'initiation.' Of course, this amount of wine was an 'extra' allowance,
+in addition to the ale and sherry assigned to members by the regular
+dietary of the house. Even Sheridan, who boasted that he could drink any
+_given_ quantity of wine, would have thought twice before he drank so
+large a given quantity, in addition to a liberal allowance of stimulant.
+Anyhow, the quantity was fixed--a fact that would have elicited an
+expression of approval from Chief Baron Thompson, who, loving port wine
+wisely, though too well, expressed at the same time his concurrence with
+the words, and his dissent from the opinion of a barrister, who
+observed--"I hold, my lord, that after a good dinner a certain quantity
+of wine does no harm." With a smile, the Chief Baron rejoined--"True,
+sir; it is the _uncertain_ quantity that does the mischief."
+
+The most temperate of the eighteenth-century Chancellors was Lord
+Camden, who required no more generous beverage than sound malt liquor,
+as he candidly declared, in a letter to the Duke of Grafton, wherein he
+says--"I am, thank God, remarkably well, but your grace must not seduce
+me into my former intemperance. A plain dish and a draught of porter
+(which last is indispensable), are the very extent of my luxury." For
+porter, Edward Thurlow, in his student days, had high respect and keen
+relish; but in his mature years, as well as still older age, full-bodied
+port was his favorite drink, and under its influence were seen to the
+best advantage those colloquial powers which caused Samuel Johnson to
+exclaim--"Depend upon it, sir, it is when you come close to a man in
+conversation that you discover what his real abilities are; to make a
+speech in a public assembly is a knack. Now, I honor Thurlow, sir;
+Thurlow is a fine fellow: he fairly puts his mind to yours." Of
+Thurlow, when he had mounted the woolsack, Johnson also observed--"I
+would prepare myself for no man in England but Lord Thurlow. When I am
+to meet him, I would wish to know a day before." From the many stories
+told of Thurlow and ebriosity, one may be here taken and brought under
+the reader's notice--not because it has wit or humor to recommend it,
+but because it presents the Chancellor in company with another
+port-loving lawyer, William Pitt, from whose fame, by-the-by, Lord
+Stanhope has recently removed the old disfiguring imputations of
+sottishness. "Returning," says Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, a poor authority,
+but piquant gossip-monger, "by way of frolic, very late at night, on
+horseback, to Wimbledon, from Addiscombe, the seat of Mr. Jenkinson,
+near Croydon, where the party had dined, Lord Thurlow, the Chancellor,
+Pitt, and Dundas, found the turnpike gate, situate between Tooting and
+Streatham, thrown open. Being elevated above their usual prudence, and
+having no servant near them, they passed through the gate at a brisk
+pace, without stopping to pay the toll, regardless of the remonstrances
+and threats of the turnpike man, who running after them, and believing
+them to belong to some highwaymen who had recently committed some
+depredation on that road, discharged the contents of his blunderbuss at
+their backs. Happily he did no injury."
+
+Throughout their long lives the brothers Scott were steady, and,
+according to the rules of the present day, inordinate drinkers of port
+wine. As a young barrister, John Scott could carry more port with
+decorum than any other man of his inn; and in the days when he is
+generally supposed to have lived on sprats and table-beer, he seldom
+passed twenty-four hours without a bottle of his favorite wine.
+Prudence, however, made him careful to avoid intoxication, and when he
+found that a friendship often betrayed him into what he thought
+excessive drinking, he withdrew from the dangerous connexion. "I see
+your friend Bowes very often," he wrote in May, 1778, a time when Mr.
+Bowes was his most valuable client; "but I dare not dine with him above
+once in three months, as there is no getting away before midnight; and,
+indeed, one is sure to be in a condition in which no man would wish to
+be in the streets at any other season." Of the quantities imbibed at
+these three-monthly dinners, an estimate may be formed from the
+following story. Bringing from Oxford to London that fine sense of the
+merits of port wine which characterized the thorough Oxonion of a
+century since, William Scott made it for some years a rule to dine with
+his brother John on the first day of term at a tavern hard by the
+Temple; and on these occasions the brothers used to make away with
+bottle after bottle not less to the astonishment than the approval of
+the waiters who served them. Before the decay of his faculties, Lord
+Stowell was recalling these terminal dinners to his son-in-law, Lord
+Sidmouth, when the latter observed, "You drank some wine together, I
+dare say?" Lord Stowell, modestly, "Yes, we drank some wine."
+Son-in-law, inquisitively, "Two bottles?" Lord Stowell, quickly putting
+away the imputation of such abstemiousness, "More than that."
+Son-in-law, smiling, "What, three bottles?" Lord Stowell, "More."
+Son-in-law, opening his eyes with astonishment, "By Jove, sir, you don't
+mean to say that you took four bottles?" Lord Stowell, beginning to feel
+ashamed of himself, "More; I mean to say we had more. Now don't ask any
+more questions."
+
+Whilst Lord Stowell, smarting under the domestic misery of which his
+foolish marriage with the Dowager Marchioness of Sligo was fruitful,
+sought comfort and forgetfulness in the cellar of the Middle Temple,
+Lord Eldon drained magnums of Newcastle port at his own table. Populous
+with wealthy merchants, and surrounded by an opulent aristocracy,
+Newcastle had used the advantages given her by a large export trade with
+Portugal to draw to her cellars such superb port wine as could be found
+in no other town in the United Kingdom; and to the last the Tory
+Chancellor used to get his port from the canny capital of Northumbria.
+Just three weeks before his death, the veteran lawyer, sitting in his
+easy-chair and recalling his early triumphs, preluded an account of the
+great leading case, "Akroyd _v._ Smithson," by saying to his listener,
+"Come, Farrer, help yourself to a glass of Newcastle port, and help me
+to a little." But though he asked for a little, the old earl, according
+to his wont, drank much before he was raised from his chair and led to
+his sleeping-room. It is on record, and is moreover supported by
+unexceptionable evidence, that in his extreme old age, whilst he was
+completely laid upon the shelf, and almost down to the day of his death,
+which occurred in his eighty-seventh year, Lord Eldon never drank less
+than three pints of port daily with or after his dinner.
+
+Of eminent lawyers who were steady port-wine drinkers, Baron Platt--the
+amiable and popular judge who died in 1862, aged seventy-two years--may
+be regarded as one of the last. Of him it is recorded that in early
+manhood he was so completely prostrated by severe illness that beholders
+judged him to be actually dead. Standing over his silent body shortly
+before the arrival of the undertaker, two of his friends concurred in
+giving utterance to the sentiment: "Ah, poor dear fellow, we shall never
+drink a glass of wine with him again;" when, to their momentary alarm
+and subsequent delight, the dead man interposed with a faint assumption
+of jocularity, "But you will though, and a good many too, I hope." When
+the undertaker called he was sent away a genuinely sorrowful man; and
+the young lawyer, who was 'not dead yet,' lived to old age and good
+purpose.
+
+[36] In old Sir Herbert's later days it was a mere pleasantry, or bold
+figure of speech to say that his court had risen, for he used to be
+lifted from his chair and carried bodily from the chamber of justice by
+two brawny footmen. Of course, as soon as the judge was about to be
+elevated by his bearers, the bar rose; and also as a matter of course
+the bar continued to stand until the strong porters had conveyed their
+weighty and venerable burden along the platform behind one of the rows
+of advocates and out of sight. As the _trio_ worked their laborious way
+along the platform, there seemed to be some danger that they might
+blunder and fall through one of the windows into the space behind the
+court; and at a time when Sir Herbert and Dr. ---- were at open
+variance, that waspish advocate had on one occasion the bad taste to
+keep his seat at the rising of the court, and with characteristic
+malevolence of expression to say to the footmen, "Mind, my men, and take
+care of that judge of yours--or, by Jove, you'll pitch him out of the
+window." It is needless to say that this brutal speech did not raise the
+speaker in the opinion of the hearers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII.
+
+LAW AND LITERATURE.
+
+
+At the present time, when three out of every five journalists attached
+to our chief London newspapers are Inns-of-Court men; when many of our
+able and successful advocates are known to ply their pens in organs of
+periodical literature as regularly as they raise their voices in courts
+of justice; and when the young Templar, who has borne away the first
+honors of his university, deems himself the object of a compliment on
+receiving an invitation to contribute to the columns of a leading review
+or daily journal--it is difficult to believe that strong men are still
+amongst us who can remember the days when it was the fashion of the bar
+to disdain law-students who were suspected of 'writing for hire' and
+barristers who 'reported for the papers.' Throughout the opening years
+of the present century, and even much later, it was almost universally
+held on the circuits and in Westminster Hall, that Inns-of-Court men
+lowered the dignity of their order by following those literary
+avocations by which some of the brightest ornaments of the law supported
+themselves at the outset of their professional careers. Notwithstanding
+this prejudice, a few wearers of the long robe, daring by nature, or
+rendered bold by necessity, persisted in 'maintaining a connexion with
+the press, whilst they sought briefs on the circuit, or waited for
+clients in their chambers. Such men as Sergeant Spankie and Lord
+Campbell, as Master Stephen and Mr. Justice Talfourd, were reporters for
+the press whilst they kept terms; and no sooner had Henry Brougham's
+eloquence charmed the public, than it was whispered that for years his
+pen, no less ready than his tongue, had found constant employment in
+organs of political intelligence.
+
+But though such men were known to exist, they were regarded as the
+'black sheep' of the bar by a great majority of their profession. It is
+not improbable that this prejudice against gownsmen on the press was
+palliated by circumstances that no longer exist. When political writers
+were very generally regarded as dangerous members of society, and when
+conductors of respectable newspapers were harassed with vexatious
+prosecutions and heavy punishments for acts of trivial inadvertence, or
+for purely imaginary offences, the average journalist was in many
+respects inferior to the average journalist working under the present
+more favorable circumstances. Men of culture, honest purpose, and fine
+feeling were slow to enrol themselves members of a despised and
+proscribed fraternity; and in the dearth of educated gentlemen ready to
+accept literary employment, the task of writing for the public papers
+too frequently devolved upon very unscrupulous persons, who rendered
+their calling as odious as themselves. A shackled and persecuted press
+is always a licentious and venal press; and before legislation endowed
+English journalism with a certain measure of freedom and security, it
+was seldom manly and was often corrupt. It is therefore probable that
+our grandfathers had some show of reason for their dislike of
+contributors to anonymous literature. At the bar men of unquestionable
+amiability and enlightenment were often the loudest to express this
+aversion for their scribbling brethren. It was said that the scribblers
+were seldom gentlemen in temper; and that they never hesitated to puff
+themselves in their papers. These considerations so far influenced Mr.
+Justice Lawrence that, though he was a model of judicial suavity to all
+other members of the bar, he could never bring himself to be barely
+civil to advocates known to be 'upon the press.'
+
+At Lincoln's Inn this strong feeling against journalists found vent in a
+resolution, framed in reference to a particular person, which would have
+shut out journalists from the Society. It had long been understood that
+no student could be called to the bar _whilst_ he was acting as a
+reporter in the gallery of either house; but the new decision of the
+benchers would have destroyed the ancient connexion of the legal
+profession and literary calling. Strange to say this illiberal measure
+was the work of two benchers who, notwithstanding their patrician
+descent and associations, were vehement asserters of liberal principles.
+Mr. Clifford--'O.P.' Clifford--was its proposer and Erskine was its
+seconder. Fortunately the person who was the immediate object of its
+provisions petitioned the House of Commons upon the subject, and the
+consequent debate in the Lower House decided the benchers to withdraw
+from their false position; and since their silent retreat no attempt has
+been made by any of the four honorable societies to affix an undeserved
+stigma on the followers of a serviceable art. Upon the whole the
+literary calling gained much from the discreditable action of Lincoln's
+Inn; for the speech in which Sheridan covered with derision this attempt
+to brand parliamentary reporters as unfit to associate with members of
+the bar, and the address in which Mr. Stephen, with manly reference to
+his own early experiences, warmly censured the conduct of the society of
+which he was himself a member, caused many persons to form a new and
+juster estimate of the working members of the London press. Having
+alluded to Dr. Johnson and Edmund Burke, who had both acted as
+parliamentary reporters, Sheridan stated that no less than twenty-three
+graduates of universities were then engaged as reporters of the
+proceedings of the house.
+
+The close connexion which for centuries has existed between men of law
+and men of letters is illustrated on the one hand by a long succession
+of eminent lawyers who have added to the lustre of professional honors
+the no less bright distinctions of literary achievements or friendships,
+and on the other hand by the long line of able writers who either
+enrolled themselves amongst the students of the law, or resided in the
+Inns of Court, or cherished with assiduous care the friendly regard of
+famous judges. Indeed, since the days of Chancellor de Bury, who wrote
+the 'Philobiblon,' there have been few Chancellors to whom literature is
+not in some way indebted; and the few Keepers of the Seal who neither
+cared for letters nor cultivated the society of students, are amongst
+the judges whose names most Englishmen would gladly erase from the
+history of their country. Jeffreys and Macclesfield represent the
+unlettered Chancellors; More and Bacon the lettered. Fortescue's 'De
+Laudibus' is a book for every reader. To Chancellor Warham, Erasmus--a
+scholar not given to distribute praise carelessly--dedicated his 'St.
+Jerom,' with cordial eulogy. Wolsey was a patron of letters. More may be
+said to have revived, if he did not create, the literary taste of his
+contemporaries, and to have transplanted the novel to English soil.
+Equally diligent as a writer and a collector of books, Gardyner spent
+his happiest moments at his desk, or over the folios of the magnificent
+library which was destroyed by Wyat's insurgents. Christopher Hatton was
+a dramatic author. To one person who can describe with any approach to
+accuracy Edward Hyde's conduct in the Court of Chancery, there are
+twenty who have studied Clarendon's 'Rebellion.' At the present date
+Hale's books are better known than his judgments, though his conduct
+towards the witches of Bury St. Edmunds conferred an unenviable fame on
+his judicial career. By timely assistance rendered to Burnet, Lord
+Nottingham did something to atone for his brutality towards Milton,
+whom, at an earlier period of his career, he had declared worthy of a
+felon's death, for having been Cromwell's Latin secretary. Lord Keeper
+North wrote upon 'Music;' and to his brother Roger literature is
+indebted for the best biographies composed by any writer of his period.
+In his boyhood Somers was a poet; in his maturer years the friend of
+poets. The friend of Prior and Gay, Arbuthnot and Pope, Lord Chancellor
+Harcourt, wrote verses of more than ordinary merit, and alike in periods
+of official triumph and in times of retirement valued the friendship of
+men of wit above the many successes of his public career. Lord
+Chancellor King, author of 'Constitution and Discipline of the Primitive
+Church,' was John Locke's dutiful nephew and favorite companion. King's
+immediate successor was extolled by Pope in the lines,
+
+   O teach us, Talbot! thou'rt unspoil'd by wealth,
+   That secret rare, between the extremes to move,
+   Of mad good-nature and of mean self-love.
+   Who is it copies Talbot's better part,
+   To ease th' oppress'd, and raise the sinking heart?
+
+But Talbot's fairest eulogy was penned by his son's tutor, Alexander
+Thomson--a poet who had no reason to feel gratitude to Talbot's official
+successor. Ere he thoroughly resolved to devote himself to law, the cold
+and formal Hardwicke had cherished a feeble ambition for literary
+distinction; and under its influence he wrote a paper that appeared in
+the _Spectator_. Blackstone's entrance at the Temple occasioned his
+metrical 'Farewell' to his muse. In his undergraduate days at Cambridge
+Lord Chancellor Charles Yorke was a chief contributor to the 'Athenian
+Letters,' and it would have been well for him had he in after-life given
+to letters a portion of the time which he sacrificed to ambition.
+Thurlow's churlishness and overbearing temper are at this date trifling
+matters in comparison with his friendship for Cowper and Samuel Johnson,
+and his kindly aid to George Crabbe. Even more than for the wisdom of
+his judgments Mansfield is remembered for his intimacy with 'the wits,'
+and his close friendship with that chief of them all, who exclaimed,
+"How sweet an Ovid, Murray, was our boast," and in honor of that "Sweet
+Ovid" penned the lines,
+
+   "Graced as thou art, with all the power of words,
+   So known, so honored in the House of Lords"--
+
+verses deliciously ridiculed by the parodist who wrote,
+
+   "Persuasion tips his tongue whene'er he talks:
+   And he has chambers in the King's Bench walks."
+
+As an atonement for many defects, Alexander Wedderburn had one
+virtue--an honest respect for letters that made him in opening manhood
+seek the friendship of Hume, at a later date solicit a pension for Dr.
+Johnson, and after his elevation to the woolsack overwhelm Gibbon with
+hospitable civilities. Eldon was an Oxford Essayist in his young, the
+compiler of 'The Anecdote Book' in his old days; and though he cannot be
+commended for literary tastes, or sympathy with men of letters, he was
+one of the many great lawyers who found pleasure in the conversation of
+Samuel Johnson. Unlike his brother, Lord Stowell clung fast to his
+literary friendships, as 'Dr. Scott of the Commons' priding himself more
+on his membership in the Literary Club than on his standing in the
+Prerogative Court; and as Lord Stowell evincing cordial respect for the
+successors of Reynolds and Malone, even when love of money had taken
+firm hold of his enfeebled mind. Archdeacon Paley's London residence was
+in Edward Law's house in Bloomsbury Square. In Erskine literary ambition
+was so strong that, not content with the fame brought to him by
+excellent _vers de societe_, he took pen in hand when he resigned the
+seals, and--more to the delight of his enemies than the satisfaction of
+his friends--wrote a novel, which neither became, nor deserved to be,
+permanently successful. With similar zeal and greater ability the
+literary reputation of the bar has been maintained by Lord Denman, who
+was an industrious _litterateur_ whilst he was working his way up at the
+bar; by Sir John Taylor Coleridge, whose services to the _Quarterly
+Review_ are an affair of literary history; by Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd,
+who, having reported in the gallery, lived to lake part in the debates
+of the House of Commons, and who, from the date of his first engagement
+on the _Times_ till the sad morning when "God's finger touched him,"
+while he sat upon the bench, never altogether relinquished those
+literary pursuits, in which he earned well-merited honor; by Lord
+Macaulay, whose connexion with the legal profession is almost lost sight
+of in the brilliance of his literary renown; by Lord Campbell, who
+dreamt of living to wear an SS collar in Westminster Hall whilst he was
+merely John Campbell the reporter; by Lord Brougham, who, having
+instructed our grandfathers with his pen, still remains upon the stage,
+giving their grandsons wise lessons with his tongue; and by Lord
+Romilly, whose services to English literature have won for him the
+gratitude of scholars.
+
+Of each generation of writers between the accession of Elizabeth and the
+present time, several of the most conspicuous names are either found on
+the rolls of the inns, or are closely associated in the minds of
+students with the life of the law-colleges. Shakspeare's plays abound
+with testimony that he was no stranger in the legal inns, and the rich
+vein of legal lore and diction that runs through his writings has
+induced more judicious critics than Lord Campbell to conjecture that he
+may at some early time of his career have directed his mind to the
+study, if not the practice, of the law. Amongst Elizabethan writers who
+belonged to inns may be mentioned--George Ferrars, William Lambarde, Sir
+Henry Spelman, and that luckless pamphleteer John Stubbs, all of whom
+were members of Lincoln's Inn; Thomas Sackville, Francis Beaumont the
+Younger, and John Ferne, of the Inner Temple; Walter Raleigh, of the
+Middle Temple; Francis Bacon, Philip Sidney, George Gascoyne, and
+Francis Davison, of Gray's Inn. Sir John Denham, the poet, became a
+Lincoln's-Inn student in 1634; and Francis Quarles was a member of the
+same learned society. John Selden entered the Inner Temple in the second
+year of James I., where in due course he numbered, amongst his literary
+contemporaries,--William Browne, Croke, Oulde, Thomas Gardiner, Dynne,
+Edward Heywood, John Morgan, Augustus Caesar, Thomas Heygate, Thomas May,
+dramatist and translator of Lucan's 'Pharsalia,' William Rough and Rymer
+were members of Gray's Inn. Sir John David and Sir Simonds D'Ewes
+belonged to the Middle Temple. Massinger's dearest friends lived in the
+Inner Temple, of which society George Keate, the dramatist, and Butler's
+staunch supporter William Longueville, were members. Milton passed the
+most jocund hours of his life in Gray's Inn, in which college Cleveland
+and the author of 'Hudibras' held the meetings of their club. Wycherley
+and Congreve, Aubrey and Narcissus Luttrell were Inns-of-Court men. In
+later periods we find Thomas Edwards, the critic; Murphy, the dramatic
+writer; James Mackintosh, Francis Hargrave, Bentham, Curran, Canning, at
+Lincoln's Inn. The poet Cowper was a barrister of the Temple. Amongst
+other Templars of the eighteenth century, with whose names the
+literature of their time is inseparably associated, were Henry Fielding,
+Henry Brooke, Oliver Goldsmith, and Edmund Burke. Samuel Johnson resided
+both in Gray's Inn and the Temple, and his friend Boswell was an
+advocate of respectable ability as well as the best biographer on the
+roll of English writers.
+
+The foregoing are but a few taken from hundreds of names that illustrate
+the close union of Law and Literature in past times. To lengthen the
+list would but weary the reader; and no pains would make a perfect
+muster roll of all the literary lawyers and _legal litterateurs_ who
+either are still upon the stage, or have only lately passed away. In
+their youth four well-known living novelists--Mr. William Harrison
+Ainsworth, Mr. Shirley Brooks, Mr. Charles Dickens, and Mr. Benjamin
+Disraeli--passed some time in solicitors' offices. Mr. John Oxenford was
+articled to an attorney. Mr. Theodore Martin resembles the authors of
+'The Rejected Addresses' in being a successful practitioner in the
+inferior branch of the law. Mr. Charles Henry Cooper was a successful
+solicitor. On turning over the leaves to that useful book, 'Men of the
+Time,' the reader finds mention made of the following men of letters and
+law--Sir Archibald Alison, Mr. Thomas Chisholm Anstey, Mr. William
+Edmonstone Aytoun, Mr. Philip James Bailey, Mr. J.N. Ball, Mr. Sergeant
+Peter Burke, Sir J.B. Burke, Mr. John Hill Burton, Mr. Hans Busk, Mr.
+Isaac Butt, Mr. George Wingrove Cooke, Sir E.S. Creasy, Dr. Dasent, Mr.
+John Thaddeus Delane, Mr. W. Hepworth Dixon, Mr. Commissioner
+Fonblanque, Mr. William Forsyth, Q.C., Mr. Edward Foss, Mr. William
+Carew Hazlitt, Mr. Thomas Hughes, Mr. Leone Levi, Mr. Lawrence
+Oliphant, Mr. Charles Reade, Mr. W. Stigant, Mr. Tom Taylor, Mr.
+McCullagh Torrens, Mr. M.F. Tupper, Dr. Travers, Mr. Samuel Warren, and
+Mr. Charles Weld. Some of the gentlemen in this list are not merely
+nominal barristers, but are practitioners with an abundance of business.
+Amongst those to whom the editor of 'Men of the Time' draws attention as
+'Lawyers,' and who either are still rendering or have rendered good
+service to literature, occur the names of Sir William A'Beckett, Mr. W.
+Adams, Dr. Anster, Sir Joseph Arnould, Sir George Bowyer, Sir John
+Coleridge, Mr. E. W. Cox, Mr. Wilson Gray, Mr. Justice Haliburton, Mr.
+Thomas Lewin, Mr. Thomas E. May, Mr. J.G. Phillimore, Mr. James Fitz
+James Stephen, Mr. Vernon Harcourt, Mr. James Whiteside. Some of the
+distinguished men mentioned in this survey have already passed to
+another world since the publication of the last edition of 'Men of the
+Time;' but their recorded connexion with literature as well as law no
+less serves to illustrate an important feature of our social life. It is
+almost needless to remark that the names of many of our ablest anonymous
+writers do not appear in 'Men of the Time.'
+
+
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