Newspaper Page Text
lasaßa&Asrff.
A LAWYERS LIFE.
From a MS found a few years ago. in an At
torney's ehamber after his death.
“ . . . Had I Sol low od the example of my
fathers, I should now be a farmer ol thirty a-
C’-es, on the hanks of a little stream that runs
the Somersetshire Avon. My ancestors
had vegetated there for the greater part of a
couple of centuries; few of them having ex
ceeded, during their lives, the limit of twen
ty miles from the village church, and ail of
them having been born and buried there. —
Even I myself should probably have
trod the same Cjuoit and confined course
had not a solitary spark of ambition flamed up
*in my fathers heart, and fired him to honor to
the family name. For we descended origin
ally from a noble and very ancient stock and
we never forgot it. * The .? were knight
ed at the Conquest / This was the sentence
that kept the pride and vanity boiling in our
bloods. Like the secret hoard of the miser,
it cheered us in our poverty; perhaps it also
nourished a vague feeling of honour, and sa
ved us from committing unworthy actions; but
this is doubtful. We had passed • through
eight of ten generations since we could boast
of unmixed nobility; and ever since that tune
we had been mingling our blood—marriage
after marriage—with the yeoman’s and the
peasant’s. Our wealth had been dissipated,
our consequence humbled, our minds over
grow’: with ignorance ; but the Pride —tiie
“airy nothing” of our name, survived ell
changes and disasters. Thus the human taste
(I mean the bodily sense) which appears to
be so obvious, is known to retain its impres
sions longer than any other faculty. The
mind forgets a name or an image, a peculiar
touch, a note of music ; but an odour or a
• flavour is remembered in an instant, with all
its concurring circumstances, after a lapse of
thirty or forty years. Our pride, which one
would have been of so frail and evanescent a
nature as to have extinguished by the first
brush of poverty, remained to us—adhered to
us like a canker or a disease, when all our im
portant distinctions had perished.
“I was brought up somewhat roughly, and
was suffered to run about wild and idle enough
until I attained my tenth year, when I was
committed to the management of the village
schoolmistress. With satchel and a well
thumbed primer, my pocket half full of mar
bles, and a couple of formidable slices of
bread, (with butter or bacon between,) for
my dinner, i used regularly every morning to
take my way to the little school. What pro
gress 1 attained there has escaped my mem
ory ; but I think that lessons in three syl ablcs
wete the summit of my accomplishments. My
father who was dissatisfied at my progress,
wished anxiously to remove me to a better
school; and at hist a legacy of £7OO enabled
him to put his ambitious schemes in execu
tion. 1 was removed without loss of time to
the “classical academy’of Mr. , and af
ter remaining there three or four years, was
pronounced to’be ‘lit i’or any thing.’ But
then came the question—the serious and too
often discussed question—what course should
I like to follow ? ‘What shall we make of
you, John? asked my father, with an inquisi
tive exulting look. He had evidently visions
of bishops, and judges, and generals, floating
before his eyes. All the splendid accidents
of fortune had been repeatedly tlm subject f
conversation between us. The stories of
men who had risen from a low beginning—
from the most squalid servitude—from the
poorhouse and the prison—and afterwards
realized the wealth of CYcesus, were familiar
to us. We lived in a dream of riches. We
surmounted obstacles; we overtook rivals in
the race to power. No opposition deterred
us? Fame, and profit, and power, were at the
end of every prospect. The only question
was, which was the lu st road to pursue ?
that promblem, however, it was difficult to
solve ?
“Will you study politics ?—or law?—or
physic?’' asked my father, with an earnest
face, ‘or will you become a soldier or a sailor
(lie was slopped here by my mother, who
pronounced a rapid negative on the two last
posstssions ;—‘or turn your mind to divinity
?’— ‘ I will not be a parson, returned I,
at once, And why?’was the question. ‘Be
cause 1 do not want to be a curate, “ passing
yoor with forty pounds a year.” I like to spec
ulate aud think, even to the limit or ortho
doxy; I cannot raise myself o a living by flat
tery ; and could I do so, I should fear to en
counter the hate ofevery inhabitant of my pa
rish, by stripping them yearly for my tithes.
Let it be something else.’ Thus it was that
tve discussed the hours away. Sometimes a
red coat was most attractive to me; some
times a blue one. Then the carriage and
ruffles of the physician caught my fancy; and
then the debates in Parliament, which the
‘County Chronicle’regularly pared down to
suit its columns, inflamed my wishes, till I
was absolutely bewildered by the number of
the avenues to fame. At last however, my
father and I (my mother concurring) det r
mined upon—the Law ? 1 remember the
happy .evening whereon this resolution was
funned. My father was in high spirits. We
will drink a glass of wine, for once in a way,
to the future Judge-,’ said he. 1 hope you will
never hang any body, John’? said my mother;
‘if I thought so, I would call back my consent’
—‘Never fear, replied my father; ‘he will do
v/hat i3 right, I know. If his country should
require such a painful act from him, he w ill
not flinch from his duty.’—l will never hang
r. man for forgery, however,’ exclaimed I: dog
gedly : ‘Blood for blood, is the old law; but
nothing farther for me.’—‘My dear John,’ in
terrupted my mother reprovingly, ‘do you
• hear what yourfuthersays? If your duty should
require it, Ac. It will scarcely be believed that
we could go on quarrelling respecting so re
mote contingency. But so it v:as. I tried—
I am almost ashamed to tell it—l tried on mv
Other’s v. ig that very evening, in order that
* might we, before the matter was absolutely
irrevocable, how a wig would become me,
when I should be advanced to the bench ?
How re ar I arrived to that point of ambition
v. ill be seed hereafter.
“ The Law being resolved upon, tho only
tncstion that rcihained was, whether I should
ie sent f o college, or paw through the rett
ing process of an attorney’s office. We were I
ii i E MAC* .N AI IVE \ V USB IS. AM) AORLOt LTURAL AND MERLANTI LE INTELLIGENCER.
in considerable perplexity o:i this point,when
a friend of inv father’s happened to step in,
and determined the matter for us. He was a
rough, eccentric man, hill had withal his share
of sense ; and on the difficulty being stated to
him, he replied with a loud continuous \v:is
tle, that augured any tiling but an approval of
our objects. ‘College?’ he exclaimed, look
ing askant at me : why he is half fool alrea
dy: if you send him to college, you’ll make
him a fool complete.’ It must be owned in
extenuation of the old man’s rudeness, that
my deportment at this time somewhat justi
fied his suspicions. 1 had so long been dr< ant
ing af er the fashion of Ahnasehar, that 1 bore
myself now and then towards my old acquain
tance and equals in 4 way that not even the
elevation’l reckoned on could have justi
fied. In truth I had become a considerable
coxcomb. I was not, 1 think, naturally vain;
but my poor fathers hopes, and my mother’s
smiles and prophesies, brought out the
germ of folly into sudden blossom. It was
well for me lhat it was timely checked. Our
friend’s advice was taken. All notions of
college were abandoned, and I was sent off,
for five years, to the office of an attorney in
our county town.
“ Tiie toil of an attorneys life is much ex
aggerated. It is held upas a sort of hideous
spcctruum to the imaginations of youth, and
lias deterred many an intelligent anddiffident
boy—and hundreds of floating mothers from
adding a victim to the shrine of Law. 111 the
country, at least, there is little to do that need
alarm an ordinary student. A brain of very
common strfngth is sufficient to bear up a
gainst ail file impediments that usually beset
tiiis period of probation. Even the fictions
of our jurisprudence (not the least vicious of
its qualities) may be mastered, though not
admired. Admiration demands a subtle scru
tiny, a longer and closer intimacy with law,
than a youth—nay than even 1, a veteran of
thirty years, have been able to contract with
it. in truth, its first aspect is rugged and se
vere towards all. It was so with me ; but ha
bit reconciled 111 c to my labors ; and thus—
with an occasional novel in the evening,a walk
with a rustic belle on Sunday, a short half
yearly visit to my parents; and a dance or two
111 the cold winter weather—L managed to
run through my five years of clerkship, with
considerable satisfacton to myself, and not
wholly without the approbation of my employ
ers. At the expiration of that period, I had
thy choice before me—whether to pursue the
humbler but safer course of an attorney, or to
nature upon the dangerous but dazzling
chances ol the bar. ] preferred the latter;
and after a short sojourn at home, I was at
once let loose upon—London !
“The stride from the quiet of the country—
from its sleepy, stagnant current of existence,
to tiie soil and centre of intellectual, busy and
ambitious life, is great and fearful. 1 think of
it with a shudder even now. The sudden es
cape from all controul is of itself perilous e
nough. But when, in addition to this, one is
thrown amongst the struggling and vicious
crowds if London, into her noisy streets and
abandoned haunts (arenas more dangerous
than even the bloody circuses of Rome,where
the wild and the gladiator fought and mangled
each otln r, for—what ?) the wonder is, that so
many ot the young, and inexperienced sur
vive to attain uny thing like a moral maturity.
“ i was ready enough to see the world’ and
1 was ready enough to behold it. ‘You should
see every thing one, at least.,’ said anew ac
quaintance ; ‘Take a glance at every tiling ;
sow your wild oats ; and then sit down and
fag steadily at law.’ This was the advice of a
nian who was esteemed for his prudence, and
not a little respected for his knowledge of‘the
town.’ It was impossible to reject such
counsel; and accordingly I resolved to see
and judge of every thing. What places this
resolution led me into, it is unnecessary to
detail. It is sufficient to say, that the death
of my father and mother about this time, liyan
infectious fever, enabled me to sec Lon
don to my hearts content. I was the sole
heir of tiieir little property, which I spee
dily disposed of; not, however, before I had
given an honest plumper at the comity elec
tion to a candidate who was hard beset, and
made my maiden speech at the husting.*,which
it was said, turned the contest in his favour.
Anew member is always grateful; and my vote
obtained for me a world of thanks, and a pres
sing invitation to his metropolitan residence.
“ I was now pursuing rny way professedly
to the bar. 1 kept several terms, and had my
self as pupil of a special pleader, at whose
chambers 1 duly read the newspapers, peeled
an orange, drank a glass of soda/.vater, and
now and then, (but this was a rate event) at
tempted to scrawl a declaration in trover and
assumpsit, in which my bad writing and legal
incapacity were the only things conspicuous.
‘You will never do for special pleading, nor
the common law bar,’ said one of my co-pu
pils ; ‘you take the nv/.ter too leisurely.—
Suppose you were to fry conveyancing?—or
see what figure you can make in a court of
equity ? I caught at this suggestion. Six
months of pleailmg had satisfied me that my
genius lay another way. In other words, I
heartily disliked my employment, and was
glad to escape from it under any show or pre
tence. Mr. had no objection, of course,
ton-y quitting his office at the end of six, in
stead of twelve months, and leaving my desk
open for another pupil ; and accordingly I
left him without ceremony, and transferred
my person to tiie chambers of a celebrated
conveyancer. This from my country educa
tion, suited me better than my previous tasks.
1 had some glimim ring notion of the law of
real property, and I was not unwilling to in
ert ase my knowledge. The rapid diminution
of my funds began to make me think; and after
a few strugglesu ith Feurne. Se.gden and Zan
ders, a few sigus cast towards the distant the
atres, and a month of severe but wholesome
illness, 1 east off the trammels of idleness,and
sat down to work in earnest.
“ I had uot been here more than a quarter
of a year, when I one day suddenly met in tin
street Sir Charles 1, our county member.
He had not forgotten my election services,
and hastened to reproach me for not having
called upon him. 1 pleaded the usual num
ber of excuses—protested that he was ‘very
kimi—that he overrated my trifling exertions’
Arc.—and concluded by accepting his invita
tion to dinner for the following Saturday.—
The interval was spent in ordering anew and
fashionable dresses, and in getting up for con
versation, some of the ordinary topics for dis
course—the last poem or novel; but when
the hour arrived, and I entered the members,
spacious mansion, and heard my name go
sounding up the marble staircase, I forgot all
my late conversational acquisitions, my new
dress, and even applause that followed rny last
speech at the club, and tumbled into the
drawing-room with a dizzy head and almost
trembling step3. The reception which Bir
Charles gave me, however, speadily measured
me. He was a weli-lm and, polite man, and,
it may be, was a little pleased at the homage
which I thus involuntarily paid to his station.
He introduced me to his wife; to his son (an
only child, whom Nature seemed to have
constructed for the sole purpose of hanging
one of Stultz’s ot Weston’s suits upon;) and
finally to a poor relation of the family, whom
the death of both parents, and her own utter
indigence, had cast upon the member’s cha
rity?—Mary S was, when 1 first knew her,
about nineteen years of age. I remember
her as though it were but yesterday. She had
not that beauty without fault, either in face or
figure, nor that romantic melancholy expres
sion, which novelists delight to expatiate on ;
but she had a pleasing and intelligent coun
tenance, a little dashed by sorrow, but not
injured—an unaffected manner—and a voice
more musical than any sound I have ever
heard. It was to me
’More tuneable than lark to shepherd’s car,’
’twas sweeter than ‘the Sweet South; richer
than Juliet’s voice; softer than Ariel’s song ;
and—l was never weary of listening to it ?
“Being both persons of small importance
(for 1 was no longer a freeholder of- shire)
Mary and I were generally left together to a
tnuse ourselves whenever I visited Sir Charles
house. I had a general invitation there, for
which L was, believe, partly indebted to some
musical talent that 1 possessed, but which I
should have neglected, had not‘attractive me
tal’ drawn me thither with a power that 1
could not resist. That being the case, I be
came a visitor; sometimes at the evening
parties of Lady L. and always fti the mor
nings ; for then the masters of the mansion
were usually absent, and their protegee was
left to the solitude of her thoughts. The
consequences of this intimacy may easily be
foreseen. 1 fell in love with the excellent
Mary, who returned my affection, but at the
same time resolutely refused to accept my
hand, and entail poverty on us both. I pro
posed to ask the consent of Sir Charles. She
dissuaded me, however, from this ; assuring
me that he would reject me—professedly up
on some plea of family pride, but in reality to
save himself from the necessity of aiding our
slender means, as well as to preserve for
his wife a cheap and useful companion. For
the condition of Mary was not that of a sine
curist. She was the chief secretary of the
house; the writer of all Lady L ’s letters;
the copyist, and often the corrector of Sir
Charles’s speeches; the milliner and dress
maker of her lady cousin, sometimes on ordi
nary, and always on extraordinary occasions.
She filled, in short, one of those thankless,
nameless offices, where the ties of blood are
admitted solely fora sordid purpose—where
the victim to endure, uncomplaining, (or
starve!) all that the proud will sometimesdare
to inflict —where all the labors and hardships
of servitude are undergone, without even the
wages of a menial. In these cases, there is
but too often no mercy on the one hand, and
no spirit of resistance on the other. The first
act of reluctant charity justifies every species
of tyranny. The value of original benevo
lence is exacted to the uttermost farthing—no
abatement, no relenting.—‘Do you remember
who it was that took you in? and fed you? and
—Ac.’
‘Oh! hither let soft charity repair!’
Lct her repair to such melancholy places,
and often the ungenerous heart, and sweeten,
wtth her smiles, the bitter, bitter bread of de.
pendence!
“Wc married. The consent of Mary’s
‘protectors’ had been asked, and immediately
refused; and upon this, I tried repeatedly to
induce her to fly with me, but in vain. At
last our situation made us desperate, and some
prospect of professional success opening at
the time, I wrung from her a slow consent to
—elope. We fled, and were, as may be im
agined, never pursued. The consequences
of this step, however, were, that my wife was
cast off’, and I discountenanced. But I nev
ertheless plodded steadily on iny way; never
relaxing, never forgetiug that on iny success
depended the comforts, nay the existence, of
one who was dearer to me than myself. By
the time 1 had arrived at the bur, and was
qualified to practice ‘in court,’ we had one
child born to us, —a girl. It was the only one
we ever had, and we loved it in proportion.
No one can tell how entire and unselfish our
love was/ Men may imagine and speculate
on other things; but this is beyond all guess,
all divining. It is, beyond comparison, the
most painful, the most powerful, and mysteri
ous sympathy that ever wanned the human
heart. Let no one talk of it, who has not
felt the care and anxiety which beset a pa
rent’s mind:—
‘He talks to me who— never had a child.'
How wise is Shakespeare in this, (as in all
other things!) The single man knows no
more of what we endure for the child we love,
than the blind or deaf know of sound or eid
our: his idea is a guess altogether unfouni
or remote from reality.
“I forget how long it was that we continued
under the ban of Sir Charles and Lady L—’s
displeasure; but I recollect that the interdic
tion was taken off at the request of a good
natured visitor of their house, to whom 1 had
once (for 1 used to carve occasionally there)
accidently given the prime slice from a haunch
of venison. He recollected this with grati
tude, and was not easy till wc were restored
to favour. After some discussion some show
of resentment, und an intimation that were
to ‘expect nothing,’ except the countenance
of the family, Lady L—signified that she ‘llO
longer objected to receive Mr. and Mrs.’ Her
willingness to bo reconciled was communica
ted to us; and we once walked up the mar
ble staircase of the L —’sjieard our names
thundered out by powdered lacqueys, and
once more underwent
‘The proud man contumely,’
and all the ungracious and worthless favours
which the poor but too frequently submit to ;
receive from ‘the great.’ It would be little 1
use to recount, one after one, the numberless
slights and stinging condescensions which
were showered upon our ‘bare’ unsheltered
heads.” I myself would have fled into the
forest, or the poorhouse, to avoid them: but
we had—a child! and for her dear and tender
sake, my poor Mary entreated that I would
bear up against ill fortune a little longi r. —
“Accordingly,a ‘little longer,’ and ‘a little
longer,’ we went on; our situation never
amending. Custom, which reconciles us to
all other things, never renders caprice or ty
ranny the less difficult to be borne. \\ e en
dured—more than shall be told, and we felt
that we were descending, with swift and cer- j
tain steps from one stage of discomfort to an
other, and with the prospect of inevitable
poverty full in our view. First trifling deli
cacies were abandoned—then the finer cloth
ing common to our condition; then the solid
comforts of life, meat, tea, firing,Ac, passed
out of our reach. Our child suffered last;
for we were daily guilty of little pious frauds
towards her, to conceal from her the abso
lute poverty of our lot.
“During all this period, I was the visitor
(on no intimate footing, however, for I could
not return the substantial civilities offered
me) at gentlemen’s tables. I dined off plate
and china, spread with all the delicacies of
the seasons, when I had not a meal at home.
On tli se occasions, I have been compelled
to restrain myself (to an extent that it would
be difficult to credit),in order to conceal from
the persons present the voracious hunger
that was devouring me. I have abstracted
food (the share, howevor, allotted to myscll)
—bread, cake or other substantial edibles—
to carry home for the next day’s sustenances
In the course of time, this foraging was cal
culated upon between ns; and my wife would
see me depart almost with pleasure upon one
of these expeditions, knowing that I should
reserve for our domestic necessities a portion
of the superfluities of which I was expected
to partake. I have heard of a wealthy miser
doing this to a great extent. We however
had a better excuse than lie. He abstracted
what belonged to others whereas I pilfered
only from myself.
’’But lam writing confusedly, and without
order. I should have mentioned that my
funds were, for some time, sufficient to fur
nish us with common comforts; and even to
appear suitably to our station. Our honey
moon did uot wane and disappear so very rap
idly in the chill atmosphere of poverty to call
for that commisseratton which a sudden acci
dent alone excites. We were exposed in
' the end, indeed, to the rigorous seasons.—
We had our fill of calamity. But it descend
ed upon us, drop after drop, like the icy dew
lhat fails ‘upon the earth beneath.’ We re
tired from our places gradually, and left our
acquaintances on opportunity (and perhaps
an excuse,) for discovering and attaching
themselves to other friends. The common
intercourse and advantages of the world an
not to be had for nothing; we must pay for
them with other things. We must return fa
vour for benefits, good humour for vivacity,
nay, almost meal lor in. al; oth rrvise, vve
shrink out of the circle of society and our
place is supplied by fresh comers. We wore
willing to do all that could be done in this in
terchange, but wc found that money failed us
at last, and with money good spirits also van
ished, —we w< re, therefore, fairly dismissed.
I made, indeed, a few efforts to recover my
self. A sudden iuflux of business gave a tem
porary colour to our fate, but it did not last
long enough, nor was it of sufficient amount,
to give to our prosperity even the appearance
of stability. We feel
‘ln many an ai-rv wheel,’
deeper and deeper still, till we touched the
lowest level of our destiny.
“But let me return, for a short space, to our
child. We had, as I have said, one cli'ld —
one only. To give her the appearance of re
spectability, to afford her the wholesome,
and sometimes delicate food, which her youth
and infirm health required, was the struggle
of every day. We ourselves fared hardly,
and were content. My own expenses were
trivial: those of my wife were less. But even
rent and the coarsest clothing are fearful
things for those whose income is utterly pre
carious. Sometimes we had nothing— .ot a
shilling* not a solitary farthing; and then we
were driven to borrow trifling sums by depos
iting the few poor trinkets of my wife, some
books that were seldom in use, or a portion of
our clothes, with the pawnbroker. These
sometimes remained unredeemed for months.
At such times our distresses have been
great indeed. I have sought and petitioned
for employment of any sort, and my wife has
shed tears of joy at having the commonest la
hour offered to her. It produced bread! I
should cause the visages of some of rny bar
acquaintance to grow doubly supercilions
were I to innumerate the shifts and projects
that I had been reduced to, to obtain a shil
ling or two for the next morning’s meal.—
But what will not the father and the husbaml
do! It may be well enough for a single man
to go to his bed and sleep, careless of the next
day’s fortune; but he who has creatures whom
he loves dependant on him, must be busy and
a anxious, and provident. I have (thank God!)
never yet lain down at night without know
ing that iny wife and child would the next
morning bave bread before them, sometimes,
indeed, scanty fare, but always something.—
What I have undergone, more than once to
procure this, shall remain locked in my own
hertrt. 1 have never provoked the generosity
of iny professional brethren, nor the con
tempt or compassion of strangers by an open
exposure of my wants: for I had a character
and station to preserve by day, on which all
the hope that was left depended. But secret
ly, and by night, and where I Was unknown,
1 shrunk from nothing. The labour of the
porter, the hack writer’s midnight toil, the
work of the common copyist, eeocary, have
all been familiar to me 1 look back on these
occupations without shame or regret, and, in
deed, at times, when my pulse of pride beats
—as it will beat feebly even now —I recur to
some of them with a smile.
“In our sunny seasons we had one appa
rent luxury—music. It was in truth, a great
enjoyment; although the real object of its
introduction among us (to whom luxury of 1
any sort was necessarily a stranger,) was that
our child, who inherited her mother’s sweet
voice, should find it a means of livelihood.—
When wc grew' much poorer than usual, our
little borrowed piano-foTte was dismissed;
but, in other times, wc struggled hard to
keep it for oaf daughter’s sake. 1 remem
ber still our evening concerts, my flute or
voice accompanying her instrument, and our
sole dear auditor standing beside us with
glistening eyes. We almost forgot our pov
erty, and turned aside from the dark face of
futurity, to listen to gentle airs and solemn
movements. We wandered with Ilandcl,
‘by hedgerow elms on hillocks green,’—with
Kent, and Boyce, andjPurcel. Hayden and
Bethoven were our friends; the learning qf
Sebastian Bach was familiar tons; the di
vine melodies of Mozart were our perpetual
delight.
t‘Music, however, could afford no help,
farther than to enable us occasionally to for
get misfortune. It did not purchase for us
bread or meat, nor revive iny coat of rusty
black, which the malice of several winters
and of as many summers had conspired to in
jure. My wife’s clothes faded, while she
hearkened to harmonies that were ever fresh.
In a w r ord our miserable wardrobe became so
flagrantly bare, that our ‘friends’ at L
house announced the fact to us in unmitiga
ted te r ms, and desired that, unless it could
be renewed, we might straight become better
strangers.. ‘We will leave them, my dear
Mary,’ said I, ‘to their poor pride-1 They
arc lowmr than we arc, after all.’ She sighed,
and made no answer; for she saw, notwith
standing all her humility, that w r e could nev
er return there again. We never did return!
“One of the most painful and irksome
things to myself was the necessity of appear
ing ‘ in Cburt’ during the period of our ex
treme poverty. It is supposed necessary,
with what reason 1 know not, that the bar
rister should appear in Court at all events,
w hether allured there by business or not.—
111 compliance with this custom I have sat
• out many a weary morning, with my blue bag
before me, (its sole ballast a quire or two of
1 paper, or an old volume of reports,) soine
-1 times listening to arguments on matters of no
interest, but generally meditating on my own
mournful prospects, and forming hundreds of
projects to retrieve our fallen fortunes. How
. little have the frequenters of the Court of
( Chancery imagined that, under the imposing
. though grotesque dress of ‘the bar,’ one man
. has sat there as poor and friendless as I have
[ b en. There is a sort of equality in the cos
. tume and in the rank which rejects the idea
1 of any great diversity of condition. Yet
. have I sate there, more than once, utterly
. pennyless, whilst Mr. Itomily, or Mr. Bell,
Mr. Hart, or Mr. Leach, Ac. have been
. ‘winning golden opinions from all sorts of
• men.’ At these times I have sometimes
i thought that, had 1 fair opportunities, I
might have taken rny stand by the side of
1 those cefcbratcd advocates ; but, alas! when
some casual opportunity came, I found that I
• was tongue-tied, and that all the faculties
that I gave mvs< If credit for w r ere either not
, there, or were in a moment dispersed and
put to flight. Self-possession,—confidence
■ in one’s own strength, is scarcely a seconda
ry requisite at the bar. The learning and
. even ingenuity of man are nothing without
: it. The course of the advocate should ever
be
‘As confident 3S is the falcon’s flight,'
if he hopes to conquer. For myself, 1 never
could attain this self-possession. I have
dreamed, indeed, of Bacon and Coke, and
Ilardvvicke and Holt, and Thurlow and
Mansfield, (‘silver-tongued Murray’) and all
who have made a name, and I have vowed
tixat I too would win the same airy and sub
stantial glory that had encircled the heads of
famous lawyers. I have read, and read, and
written, early and late, morning, noon, and
■ miit: 1 have compiled and digested, specu
lated and invented: All branches of law, all
sorts of literature have I tried:—But my
writings accumulated, my information in
creased—in vain! My labours were fruitless.
My piles of manuscript were destined only to
ii; and the worm or the moth, or to afford a
habitation to the spider.
# # * #
“I know not why I should pursue farther
this downward path. It would be easy to go
on recounting fact after fact, feeling after
feeling,
‘Facilis descensus Averni.’
“But, having thus far traced the narrative
of my calamities, lam content to stop. If
any one shouldever read over what is written
he will probably find it even now sufficiently
irksome. There is too little of incident or
adventure to stir up the blood, —to make ‘the
hair to stand on end,’ —to force from the eyes
of readers deluges of tears. Mine is notan
‘eventful history.’ It is a melancholy one ;
and, I fear toe, that it i3 not a solitary in
stance of misplaced ambition. But it is dull,
and dark, and uniform! It is without a spot
of pleasantness; sterile in all its aspects, un
less, indeed, it prove (and it may well prove)
a timely and v aluable warning for those who
have yet the race of life to run. That it may
be useful in this sort, I will complete it. I
will not, by publishing it new, encounter the
jeers or the sympathy of critics; but 1 will
leave it for the edification of those who come
after me. It will be of little moment then
what becomes of my poor memoirs. Wit,
rancour, praise, compassion,—what will they
avail to the ear that is deaf? to the eye that is
blind? to the sense—the intellect that has
soared, or sunk, or fled—whither ?
“ ... A few more sentences and I have
done. They comprehend (notwithstanding
all 1 have already said,) the hitter sum of my
existence. But I cannot linger over them. I
cannot (like tiie hegerar by the way-side,)
exhibit and grow garrulous over iny holier
sorrows. Let it be sufficient to say that 1
have followed my wife and my only child to
their graves; and that I am now utterly—
alone ! My misery needs no exaggeration,
and it asks for no sympathy. 1 go on, as 1
have always done, struggling and toiling to
day for the food of to-morrow. But I no
longer feel apprehensive of the future. It is
even some alleviation when my own insigni
ficant personal wants obtrude upon me and
call me away for a moment from substantial
grief, It •.■•as with this view—with this hope,
that I sate down to pen this story of my dis
appointments ; and, in truth, the task has
now and then geguiled me—not into forget
fulness indeed—but it has mingled with the
almost intolerable pain of the present, recol
lections of the comparatively trivial sorrows
of the past. I have all my life been pursu
ing a phantom—professional success. I have
been ‘chasing the rainbow’ for fifty vears.
1 have failed in every undertaking. 1 have
striven my best, have been honest, industri
ous, and constant to my calling; yet nothin"
has prospered with me. I do not seek to im
quire into the reasons for all this; but it may
be worth the while of another person to do
so. The causes of success in life deserve a
minute scrutiny. Whether they be owing to
accident, —to imprudence,— to genius.— to
perseverance,—it will be well to know. It
will then be seen why my learning has been
useless, my honesty of no account, my daily,
nightly, unceasing toil unavailing. Let me
not be understood as being now querulous or
indignant. The time for those feelings has
passed away. I have no motives now to de
si re rank or professional success. I would
not possess them if I could.”
*#* Such is the Counsellor’s story. I have
nothing to add to it; except that we heard he
had thriven in his business somewhat, better
latterly. His health, however, (his clerk
said,) became very indifferent; he did not
attend Court so regularly as usual, and never
walked out as formerly, except to visit a lit
tle churchyard in the suberbs of London,
where his wife and child lay buried. To this
place he went regularly every Saturday even
ing (about sunset,) and sometimes, when his
spirits were more than usually depressed, he
would wander there every afternoon for a
week or a fortnight successively. E. E. „
LOVE.
It is said that writers of my sex- have but
two themes—religion and love. If equality
was not a stranger to human destinies, a vo
cation thus exclusive would place its vota
ries beyond the possibility of rivalship; yet
oh, humiliating fact! those altars of the
heart’s interest worship are heaped with rich
er gifts than ours. From the pious speci
mens that I have seen, the best raptures of
St. Theresa were but as earth-born scintilla,
tions compared to the holy fire ol'St. Francis
de Sales; and near love’s gentle shrine, the
impassioned muse of Byron wrests from de
.Stacl the palm of superior devotion.
I find a strong family resemblance in the
effusions of Byron and Bulwcr, in each exist
tiiose effeminate voluptuous traits which, se
curing to their authors the suffrages of all
youthful hearts, awaken in maturer judgments
craving and distrust. It is possible for one of
these latter to imagine,.Byron, arrived at his
thirty-fifth year, weeping in the garden of his
Arinide over the page of Corinne, with other
sentiments than tiiose of pity and contempt.’
Neither is Bulwer deserving of a higher fate,
he that eternally breaks the thread of his na--
ratives with episodes and hymns of love, and
whose enamoured heroines are of a softness*
and insipidity that might nauseate a nunnerv.
It over love’s tautologies a reader should
yawn, women are made responsible for his
weariness; they are such mad, doating crea
tures, than an unlucky author, sighing for
popularity, must sacrifice taste and judgment
to their predilections, or forfeit his hopes of
fame. It was in subservience to the amorous
taste of actresses that Racine and Addison
enervated their tragedies with frequent love
scenes; at least so say the critics, and we
must submit to their decisions*
In the Chinese laws, one of flic grounds on
which a husband can divoce his wife is, her be
ing gicen too much to talking.
CHARLOTTE, (N.C.) APRIL 14.
Gold — Extraordinary. —We have substan
tial foundation for the rumours of tiie Ir/-t
eight or ten days, of the great original deposit
of gold discovered in this The ac
count almost cxeeeds belief, and surpasses
any thing of the kind in the history of mi*
ning. The land on which the gold was found,
about 18 or 20 miles east of this place, was
purchased two or three years ago by a Mr.
Carlton, from Virginia, for the purpose of
mining, who after spending his time and mo
ney for a year or two, relinquished the under
taking as unsuccessful. Lately, however,
the week was pursued by others, which was
eventuated in the discovery of the extraordi
nary rich deposit, on the 2d instant. The
whole amount of gold obtained is variously
stated to be from 75 to 120 pounds, but from
the statement of a certain gentleman who
was called upon to make a probable estimate
of the weight A value, it is supposed there is
at least one hundred pounds of Gold, all ob
tained in one day. The gold was found in a
small space, two or three feet below the sur
face, in grains and masses weighing from
ounces and pounds, to pieces office, seven
and eight pounds! There was no vein discov
ered, or sign of any, but the laborers came
suddenly upon the whole mass of gold as it
were in a nest, and imbedded in red clay. On
pursuing the labor of digging .during the past
week, we understood that 110 more discoveries
have been made, —(his rich deposit being en
tirely isolated, promising no continuance of
the extraordinary developcmcnt. The value
of the gold, it is estimated, will not come un
der 020,000, after being seperated front all
extraneous substances.
The man who would he known, ar.d not
know, should vegetate in a village; but he
who would know and not be known, should
li.vc in a city— Spirit of Literature.
We understand (says the National Intelli
gencer) that Com. Barron will lie placed in
command of the Navy Yard at Philadelphia,
as the successor of Coin. Warrington : and
that the last named officer will take the pbice
ofCom. Barron at the Norfolk Navy Yard.
—.) 0 4*.—-
We have seen a letter from Philadelphia,
says the Baltimore Gazette, of the 4th instant
which states that there is not 100 bags St. Do
mingo coffee in the city, in first hands,and that
some persons think the price will 12 J cents
in a f ".r days,should there be any forstde-