served that no person increaseth his store of law after he is called to the bar and enters upon practice. His judgment and knowledge of forms may increase, but his book learning is at a stay, because business, either found, or pursued, fills his head; so that even reading doth him little good. Wherefore it is said, that he who is not a good lawyer before he comes to the bar, will never be a good one after it. After he was called to the bar (which, as they term it, was ex debito justitiæ) he did not, as many less qualified have done, bustle about town, and obtrude themselves upon attornies, and perhaps bargain for business; but lay quiet and the chief alteration in his way of appearing, was this. Instead of his being posted within the court, as a student to take notes, he did the same standing at the bar; and if chance, or a friend, brought a motion, of course it was welcome.

The exhibition allowed his lordship by his fa- Exhibition of sixty ther, was, at first, sixty pounds per annum :* But pounds per

ann. redu

for seven years; and after being called, he was not to practise ced to fifty. publicly in court, until he had been called three years: thus making the term of probation ten years. "For that the over early and hasty practice of utter barristers doth make them the less grounded and sufficient, whereby the law may be disgraced, and the client prejudiced." (Dugdale's Orig, Jurid. 323.)

* The sum allowed Jeffries when a student was still less, being 401. and 10l. for clothes. (Lives of the Chancellors, vol. i. p. 179.)

the family being hard pinched, for supplies, towards educating and disposing many younger children, and his parents observing him to pick up some pence by court-keeping, besides an allowance of twenty pounds per annum from his grandfather, and a little by practice, they thought fit to reduce him to fifty pounds. This sat hard upon his spirits, and produced divers notable-penned letters, post after post, complaining upon all the topics of an hard case, that could be thought of. He never pleaded so earnestly for the best fee that ever he had. At length there comes a letter from his father, which he opened with precipitous haste, in hopes of a favourable answer; and there he found,-"Frank, I suppose by this time, having vented all your discontent, you are satisfied with what I have done, &c." There sunk all his hopes upon that point. But, 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 loss. Assisted in One of his lordship's first clients, and for whom cause for he had a great respect, because he had the office of keeping his courts early, was Mr. Stutvile of Dalham near Newmarket. This gentleman was a compound of irregularity, and one of his feats had like to have cost him dear; for he was taken napping with the wife of one Robinson: on which, death, without honourable satisfaction, was to

carrying a

one Stutvile.

follow. The giving the law satisfaction, that is money, was the milder dose of the two; and that must be a peremptory bond for the payment of fifteen hundred pounds, on which condition the bond was to be void. This bond was made by a scrivener, and very well; though at the close of the condition, the words "else to remain in full force" were not added. After the sealing, Mr. Robinson brought his bond to the scrivener, and swore to be the death of him if he did not mend it, by adding those words. "Here is a condition," said he, "to make the bond void, but none to make it good." "It is good," said the scrivener, "if there be no words to avoid it; and I may spoil, but cannot mend the bond." That was all one, he must do it, and did it. And then the scrivener honestly told the obliger, what he had been forced to; so that was laid up for a plea to avoid the bond. But Mr. Robinson, advising with counsel about suing, was told his bond was utterly voided by his adding words to the condition after sealing. Then he was advised not to put it to suit till the scrivener was dead. His lordship, and other of Mr. Stutvile's counsel, perceiving that, contrived to bring the point soon to a trial, by preferring an information, in the King's Bench, against Robinson for forgery; and if, upon the scrivener's testimony, he should be convict, that record would remain against the bond for ever. Robinson, finding him

Provides a

self caught, and no remedy, complied by delivering up the bond, and so got rid of the information. But this unexpected success made such an impression on Stutvile's wild brains, that he thought there could be no law-suit desperate; and, from that time, he never did any man justice, but ruined himself by perverse law-suits, and at last died in a gaol. Perhaps, if he had paid the fifteen hundred pounds, his punishment had been less.

After his lordship was called to the bar, the first chamber for thing he took care for, was a practising chamber, and books. as they call those which are not above two pair of

practice,

stairs high. The ground chamber is not so well esteemed as one pair of stairs, but yet better than two; and the price is accordingly. He sold his little student's chamber, and also the lease of a house his father gave him, which raised near three hundred pounds; and, with that sum, he bought his life in a corner chamber, one pair of stairs in Elm Court. A dismal hole for the price; for it was not only dark next the court, but, on the back side, a high building of the Inner Temple stood within five or six yards of his windows: But yet, some more room, and a large study being gained, he thought himself greatly preferred: and he soon filled his shelves with all the useful books of the law which he wanted. His mother had made a collection of legacies and gifts to him, when very young; and, when he first went to the inns of court, she gave him an exact account, to the time,

cast up with the interest, and paid him the sum total at once; and, with that stock, he made out a good student's library.

brother at

About this time, his brother Dudley, who had Assisted a lived in London divers years, in the several states parting. of preparation for trading as a Turkey merchant, was sent abroad, by his master, in a long roundabout voyage, by Archangel in Russia, to Smyrna; an account of which voyage will be found in the relation of that gentleman's life. He had, at his going out, from his father, but a single hundred pound stock to trade with; and his lordship augmented it by lending him two hundred pounds, which was all the wealth he could value himself upon, beforehand; and of that, by the voyage and mortality, he ran no small risk. This was a melancholy parting; for they had been bred, and much conversant together, and, fraternal relation apart, were joined in the strictest personal friendship: and now, when they were arrived to a state of enjoying each other in perfection, worldly engagements obliged them to separate. But this kindness of his lordship's was rewarded, by living to see his brother come home wealthy, and, soon after, flourishing, not only in the city but also at court in the king's service.

about one

These two brothers and friends held a continual Correscorrespondence by letters; but more frequent and ponded, and expatiated at first than afterwards, when business Broadgate. increased so much upon both as abated the ar