dinately the preceding night upon eel-pie. It was indispensably necessary that Mr. Gresham should attend at the opening of Panton's will, and Mrs. Panton wrote to represent this in urgent terms. Mr. Henry was gone to Amsterdam; he had, for some time previously to the death of Mr. Panton, obtained the partnership's permission to go over to the Dutch merchants, their correspondents in Amsterdam, to fill a situation in their house, for which his knowledge of the Dutch, French, and Spanish languages eminently qualified him.

When Mr. Henry had solicited this employment, Mr. Gresham had been unwilling to part with him, but had yielded to the young man's earnest entreaties, and to the idea that this change would, in a lucrative point of view, be materially for Mr. Henry's advantage.

Some apology to the lovers of romance may be expected for this abrupt transition from the affairs of the heart to the affairs of the counting-house-but so it is in real life. We are sorry, but we cannot help it-we have neither sentiments nor sonnets ready for every occasion.

CHAPTER XXII.

LETTER FROM ALFRED.

(This appears to have been written some months after the vacation spent at the Hills.)

Oh! thoughtless mortals, ever blind to fate,
Too soon dejected, and too soon elate.'

"You remember, I am sure, my dear father, how angry we were some time ago with that man, whose name I never would tell you, the man whom Rosamond called Counsellor Nameless, who snatched a good point from me in arguing Mr. Hauton's cause. This very circumstance has been the means of introducing me to the notice of three men, all eminent in their profession, and each with the same inclination to serve me, according to their respective powers-a solicitor, a barrister,

and a judge. Solicitor Babington-(by-the-by, pray tell Rosamond in answer to her question whether there is an honest attorney, that there are no such things as attorneys now in England-they are all turned into solicitors and agents, just as every shop is become a warehouse, and every service a situation)-Babington the solicitor employed against us in that suit a man who knows without practising them all the tricks of the trade, and who is a thoroughly honest man, saw the trick that was played by Nameless, and took occasion afterward to recommend me to several of his own clients. Upon the strength of this point briefs appeared on my table, day after day-two guineas, three guineas, five guineas! comfortable sight! But far more comfortable, more gratifying, the kindness of Counsellor Friend a more benevolent man never existed. I am sure the profession of the law has not contracted his heart, and yet you never saw or can conceive a man more intent upon his business. I believe he eats, drinks, and sleeps upon law: he has the reputation, in consequence, of being one of the soundest of our lawyersthe best opinion in England. He seems to make the cause of every client his own, and is as anxious as if his private property depended on the fate of each suit. He sets me a fine example of labour, perseverance, professional enthusiasm, and rectitude. He is one of the very best friends a young lawyer like me could have; he puts me in the way I should go, and keeps me in it by showing that it is not a matter of chance, but of certainty, that this is the right road to fortune and to fame.

“Mr. Friend has sometimes a way of paying a compliment as if he was making a reproach, and of doing a favour as a matter of course. Just now I met him, and apropos to some observations I happened to make on a cause in which he is engaged, he said to me, as if he was half-angry, though I knew he was thoroughly pleased, 'Quick parts! Yes, so I see you have: but take care-in your profession 'tis often "Most haste, worst speed:" not but what there are happy exceptions, examples of lawyers, who have combined judgment with wit, industry with genius, and law with eloquence. But these instances are rare, very rare; for the rarity of the case worth studying. Therefore dine with me to-morrow, and I will introduce you to one of these exceptions.'

"The person in question, I opine, is the lord chief justice and Friend could not do me a greater favour than to introduce me to one whom, as you know, I have long admired in public, and with whom, independently of any professional advantage, I have ardently wished to be acquainted.

"I have been told-I cannot tell you what-for here's the bell-man. I don't wonder the choleric man' knocked down the postman for blowing his horn in his ear. Abruptly yours,

66

"ALFRED PERCY."

Alfred had good reason to desire to be acquainted with this lord chief justice. Some French writer says, "Qu'il faut plier les grandes ailes de l'éloquence pour entrer dans un salon." The chief justice did so with peculiar ease. He possessed perfect conversational tact, with great powers of wit, humour, and all that felicity of allusion which an uncommonly recollective memory, acting on stores of various knowledge, can alone command. He really conversed; he did not merely tell stories, or make bon-mots, or confine himself to the single combat of close argument, or the flourish of declamation; but he alternately followed and led, threw out and received ideas, knowing how to listen full as well as how to talk, remembering always Lord Chesterfield's experienced maxim, "That it is easier to hear than to talk yourself into the good opinion of your auditors." It was not, however, from policy, but from benevolence, that the chief justice made so good a hearer. It has been said, and with truth, that with him a good point never passed unnoticed in a public court, nor was a good thing ever lost upon him in private company. Of the number of his own good things fewer are in circulation than might be expected. The best conversation, that which rises from the occasion, and which suits the moment, suffers most from repetition. Fitted precisely to the peculiar time and place, the best things cannot bear transplanting.

The day Alfred Percy was introduced to the chief justice, the conversation began, from some slight remarks made by one of the company, on the acting of Mrs. Siddons. A lady who had just been reading the Memoirs of the celebrated French actress Mademoiselle Clairon spoke of the astonishing pains which she

took to study her parts, and to acquire what the French call l'air noble, continually endeavouring, on the most common occasions, when she was off the stage, to avoid all awkward motions, and in her habitual manner to preserve an air of grace and dignity. This led the chief justice to mention the care which Lord Chatham, Mr. Pitt, and other great orators, have taken to form their habits of speaking, by unremitting attention to their language in private as well as in public. He maintained 'that no man can speak with ease and security in public till custom has brought him to feel it as a moral.impossibility that he could be guilty of any petty vulgarism, or that he could be convicted of any capital sin against grammar.

Alfred felt anxious to hear the chief justice further on this subject, but the conversation was dragged back to Mademoiselle Clairon. The lady by whom she was first mentioned declared she thought that all Mademoiselle Clairon's studying must have made her a very unnatural actress. The chief justice quoted the answer which Mademoiselle Clairon gave, when she was reproached with having too much art.-" De l'art! et que voudroit-on donc que j'eusse? Etois-je Andromaque? Etois-je Phédre?” Alfred observed that those who complained of an actress's having too much art should rather complain of her having too little-of her not having art enough to conceal her art.

The chief justice honoured Alfred by a nod and a smile.

The lady, however, protested against this doctrine, and concluded by confessing that she always did and always should prefer nature to art.

From this commonplace confession, the chief justice, by a playful cross-examination; presently made it apparent that we do not always know what we mean by art and what by nature; that the ideas are so mixed in civilized society, and the words so inaccurately used, both in common conversation and in the writings of philosophers, that no metaphysical prism can separate or reduce them to their primary meaning. Next he touched upon the distinction between art and artifice. The conversation branched out into remarks on grace and affectation, and thence to the different theories of beauty and taste, with all which he played with a master's hand

A man accustomed to speak to numbers perceives immediately when his auditors seize his ideas, and knows instantly, by the assent and expression of the eye, to whom they are new or to whom they are familiar. The chief justice discovered that Alfred Percy had superior knowledge, literature, and talents, even before he spoke, by his manner of listening. The conversation presently passed from l'air noble to le style noble, and to the French laws of criticism, which prohibit the descending to allusions to arts and manufactures. This subject he discussed deeply, yet rapidly observed how taste is influenced by different governments and manners-remarked how the strong line of demarkation formerly kept in France between the nobility and the citizens had influenced taste in writing and in eloquence, and how our more popular government not only admitted allusions to the occupations of the lower classes, but required them. Our orators at elections, and in parliament, must speak so as to come home to the feelings and vocabulary of constituents. Examples from Burke and others, the chief justice said, might be brought in support of this opinion.

Alfred was so fortunate as to recollect some apposite illustrations from Burke, and from several of our great orators, Wyndham, Erskine, Mackintosh, and Romilly. As Alfred spoke, the chief justice's eye brightened with approbation, and it was observed that he afterward addressed to him particularly his conversation; and, more flattering still, that he went deeper into the subject which he had been discussing. From one of the passages which had been mentioned, he took occasion to answer the argument of the French critics, who justify their taste by asserting that it is the taste of the ancients. Skilled in classical as in modern literature, he showed that the ancients had made allusions to arts and manufactures, as far as their knowledge went; but, as he observed, in modern times new arts and sciences afford fresh subjects of allusion unknown to the ancients; consequently we ought not to restrict our taste by exclusive reverence for classical precedents. On these points it is requisite to reform the pandects of criticism.

Another passage from Burke to which Alfred had alluded the chief justice thought too rich in ornament. "Ornaments," he said, "if not kept subordinate, how