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.*

To such fraternities-of which the Inns of Court had several in the last century-Murray and Thurlow, Law

* 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 place of meeting-a large room in Anderton's Hotel, Fleet Street-to discuss a knotty point of law anent Uses. The muster 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 sn aff 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.

and Erskine had recourse: and besides attending strictfy 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, shopmen, 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 won't 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 lawstudent 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 venʼson,
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 Gen