IN MY UNCLE'S OFFICE.
I ought to mention, in speaking of my ancestors, that I had a very
worthy godfather who was half-brother to my father. He was connected
with a family of great respectability at Royston, in Cambridgeshire,
and inherited from them a moderate-sized landed estate. A portion
of this property was a little farm situate at _Brampton_, in
Huntingdonshire, from which village I took the title I now enjoy.
The farm was left, however, to my aunt for life, who lived to a good
old age, as most life-tenants do whom you expect to succeed, and I got
nothing until it was of no use to me. When I came into possession I
was making a very fair income at the Bar, and the probability is my
aunt did me, unconsciously, the greatest kindness she could in keeping
me out of it so long.
So much for my ancestors. About the rest of them I know nothing,
except an anecdote or two.
There was one more event in my boyhood which I will mention,
because it is historic. I assisted my father, on my little pony, in
proclaiming William IV. on his accession to the throne, and I mention
it with the more pride because, having been created a Peer of the
Realm by her late gracious Majesty Queen Victoria, I was qualified
to assist as a member of the Privy Council at the accession of his
present most gracious Majesty, and had the honour to hear him announce
himself as _King Edward of England_ by the title of _Edward the
Seventh_!
Arrived in London, full of good advice and abundance of warnings as
to the fate that awaited me, I entered as a pupil the chambers of
a famous special pleader of that time, whose name was Frederick
Thompson. This was in the year 1841.
I have the right to say I worked very hard there for several months,
and studied with all my might; nor was the study distasteful. I
was learning something which would be useful to me in after-life.
Moreover, being endowed with pluck and energy, I wanted to show that
my uncles--for the godfather warned me as well--and my father were
false prophets. So I gave myself up entirely to the acquisition of
knowledge, this being absolutely necessary if I was to make anything
of my future career. "Sink or swim," my father said, was the
alternative, so I was resolved to keep my head above water if
possible.
After being at Thompson's my allotted period, I next went to Mr.
George Butt, a very able and learned man, who afterwards became a
Queen's Counsel, but never an advocate. I acquired while with him
a good deal of knowledge that was invaluable, became his favourite
pupil, and was in due course entrusted with papers of great
responsibility, so that in time it came to pass that Mr. Butt would
send off my opinions without any correction.
These are small things to talk of now, but they were great then, and
the foundation of what, to me, were great things to come, although I
little suspected any of them at that time; and as I look back over
that long stretch of years, I have the satisfaction of feeling that I
did not enter upon my precarious career without doing my utmost to fit
myself for it.
In those early days of the century prize-fights were very common in
England. The noble art of self-defence was patronized by the greatest
in the land. Society loved a prize-fight, and always went to see it,
as Society went to any other fashionable function. Magistrates went,
and even clerical members of that august body. As magistrates it may
have been their duty to discountenance, but as county gentlemen it was
their privilege to support, the noble champions of the art, especially
when they had their money on the event.
The magistrates, if their presence was ever discovered, said they went
to prevent a breach of the peace, but if they were unable to effect
this laudable object, they looked on quietly so as to prevent any one
committing a breach of the peace on themselves. Their individual heads
were worth something.
It was to one of these exhibitions of valour, between _Owen Swift_
and _Brighton Bill_, that a reverend and sporting magistrate took my
brother John, a nice good schoolboy, in a tall hat. He thought it was
the right thing that the boy should _see the world_. I thought also
that what was good for John, as prescribed by his clerical adviser,
would not be bad for me, so I went as well.
There was a great crowd, of course, but I kept my eye on John's tall
chimney-pot hat, knowing that while I saw that I should not lose John.
Presently there was a stir, for Brighton Bill had landed a tremendous
blow on the cheek of Owen Swift, and while we were applauding, as is
the custom at prize-fights and public dinners, a cunning pickpocket
standing immediately behind John pushed the tall chimney-pot hat
tightly down over the boy's eyes.
His little hands, which had been in his pockets, went up in a moment
to raise his hat, so that he might see the world, the big object he
had come to see; and immediately in went two other hands, and out came
the savings of John's life--two precious half-crowns, which he had
shown to me with great pride that very morning! When he saw the world
again the rogue had disappeared.
The famous place for these pugilistic encounters, or one of the famous
places, was a spot called Noon's Folly, which was within a very few
miles of Royston, where the counties of Cambridge, Suffolk, Essex,
and Hertfordshire meet, or most of them. That was the scene of many a
stiff encounter; and although, of course, there were both magisterial
and police interference when the knowledge reached them that a fight
was about to take place within their particular jurisdiction, by some
singular misadventure the knowledge never reached them until their
worships were returning from the battle. All was over before any
_official_ communication was made.
* * * * *
I was entered of the Middle Temple on April 16, 1839, and remained
with Mr. Butt until I had kept sufficient terms to qualify me to take
out a licence to plead on my own account, which I did at the earliest
possible date. This was a great step in my career, although, of
course, the licence did not enable me to plead in court, as I was not
called to the Bar.
If work came I should now be in a fair way to attain independence.
But the prospect was by no means flattering; it was, in fact, all but
hopeless while the position of a special pleader was not my ambition.
The lookout, in fact, was anything but encouraging from the fifth
floor of _No. 3 Elm Court_--I mean prospectively. It was a region
not inaccessible, of course, but it looked on to a landscape of
chimney-pots, not one of which was likely to attract attorneys; it was
cheap and lonely, dull and miserable--a melancholy altitude beyond the
world and its companionship. Had I been of a melancholy disposition I
might have gone mad, for hope surely never came to a fifth floor. But
there I sat day by day, week by week, and month by month, waiting for
the knock that never came, hoping for the business that might never
come.
Hundreds of times did I listen with vain expectations to the footsteps
on the stairs below--footsteps of attorneys and clerks, messengers and
office-boys. I knew them all, and that was all I knew of them. Down
below at the bottom flight they tramped, and there they mostly
stopped. The ground floor was evidently the best for business; but
some came higher, to the first floor. That was a good position; there
were plenty of footsteps, and I could tell they were the footsteps of
clients. A few came a little higher still, and then my hopes rose
with the footsteps. Now some one had come up to the third floor: he
stopped! Alas! there was the knock, one single hard knock: it was a
junior clerk. The sound came all too soon for me, and I turned from my
own door to my little den and looked out of my window up into the sky,
from whence it seemed I might just as well expect a brief as from the
regions below.
This was not quite true. On another occasion some bold adventurer
ascended with asthmatical energy to the _fourth floor_, and I thought
as I heard him wheeze he would never have breath enough to get down
again, and wondered if the good-natured attorneys kept these wheezy
old gentlemen out of charity. But it was rare indeed that the climber,
unless it was the rent collector, reached that floor.
The fifth landing was too remote for the postman, for I never got
a letter--at least so it seemed; and no squirrel watching from the
topmost bough of the tallest pine could be more lonely than I.
At last I thought a step had passed even the fourth landing, and was
approaching mine; but I would not think too fast, and damped my hopes
a little on purpose lest they should burn too brightly and too fast. I
was not mistaken: there _was_ a footstep on my landing, and I listened
for the one heavy knock. It seemed to me I waited about an hour and a
half, judging by the palpitations of my heart, and wished the man had
knocked as vigorously. But I was rewarded: the knocker fell, and as my
boy was away with the toothache, I opened the door myself. He was the
same wheezy man I had heard below some time before; and I really seem
to have liked asthmatical people ever since--except when I became a
judge and they disturbed me in court.
"Papers!"
That is enough to say to any one who understands the situation. You
may be sure I gave them my best attention, that they were finished
promptly, and, as I hoped, in the best style. If I had required any
additional incentive to keep me to my daily task of watching, this
would have been sufficient; but I wanted none. I knew that my whole
future depended upon it, and there I was from ten in the morning till
ten at night.
My first fee was small, but it was the biggest fee I ever had. It was
10s. 6d. I was only a special pleader, and with some papers our fees
were even less; we only had to _draw_ pleadings, not to open them in
court--that comes after you are called to the Bar. Drawing them means
really drawing the points of the case for counsel, and opening them
means a gabbling epitome of them to the jury, which no jury in this
world ever yet understood or ever will.
This little matter was the forerunner of others, and by little and
little I steadily went on, earning a few shillings now and a few
shillings then, but, best of all, becoming known little by little here
and there.
I was aware that some knowledge of the world would be necessary for me
when I once got into it by way of business as an advocate, so I came
to the conclusion that it would be well to commence that branch of
study as soon as I closed the other for the day--or rather for the
night.
I had not far to go to school, only to the Haymarket and its
delightful purlieus; and there were the best teachers to be found in
the world, and the most recondite studies. For all these I kept, as
the great politicians say, an open mind, and learned a great deal
which stood me in good stead in after-life.
It is not necessary, I suppose, in writing these reminiscences, to
describe all I saw--at least I hope not. Manners have so changed since
that time that people who have no imagination would not believe me,
and those who have would imagine I was exaggerating. So I must skip
this portion of my youthful studies, merely saying that I saw nearly,
if not _quite_, all the life which was to be seen in London; and I am
sure I am not exaggerating when I say that that would nearly fill an
octavo volume of itself. There is so much to be seen in London, as a
dear old lady I used to drink tea with once told me.
But she did not know more than I, for she had never seen the
night-houses, gambling hells, and other places of amusement that at
that time were open all night long, nor had she seen the ghastly faces
of the morning. I attribute my escaping the consequences of all these
allurements to the beautiful influence which my mother in early life
exercised over me, as I attribute my knowledge of them to the removal
of the restraint with which my earlier years had been curbed.
My mother died before I came to London, but undoubtedly her influence
was with me, although I broke loose, as a matter of course, from all
paternal control.
But I was never a "man about town." To be that you must have plenty of
money or none at all, and in either case you are an object to avoid.
I had, nevertheless, a great many pleasures that a young man from the
country can enjoy. I loved horse-racing, cricket, and the prize-ring.
It was not because pugilism was a fashionable amusement in those days
that I attended a "set-to" occasionally; I went on my own account,
not to ape people in the fashionable world, and enjoyed it on my own
account, not because they liked it, but because I did.
My rent at this time of my entrance into the fashionable world was £12
a year; my laundress, perhaps, a little less. She earned it by coming
up the stairs; but she was a good old soul. I remembered her long
years after, and always with gratitude for her many kindnesses in
those gloomy days. Her name was Hannem.
Of course, I had to buy the necessary books for my professional use,
coals, and other things, and after paying all these I had to live on
the narrow margin of my £100 a year.
This recollection is very pleasing. I never got into debt, and never
wanted; but I had to be frugal and avoid every unnecessary expense.
But the time at last came when I was no longer to rest on my lonely
perch at the top of Elm Court. I had kept my terms, and was duly
called to the Bar of the Middle Temple on May 3, 1843.
Just fifty years after, when I was a judge, and almost the Senior
Bencher of my Inn, our illustrious Sovereign, then Prince of Wales,
who is also a Bencher of the Middle Temple, favoured us with his
presence at dinner, and did me the honour to propose my health in a
gracious speech. On returning thanks for this kindness, I told the
crowded audience of my _jubilee_, and pointed out the spot where fifty
years before I had held my call party.