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 PRINTED IN U.S.A. 
 
The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924024873469 
 
MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
PR 5670.T7 
 
SwanEleclric Engraving C° 
 
CHEAP EDITION. 
 
 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE 
 TALK: 
 
 WITH SOME TALK ABOUT THE 
 TABLE ITSELF. 
 
 ^^„.^^ 
 
 r^ ^^-^ 
 
 W. G. THORPE, F.S.A., 
 
 A BARRISTER OF THE SOCIETY, 
 AUTHOR OF "the STILL LIFE OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE.' 
 
 " 'Twas social wit, which, never kindling; strife. 
 Blazed in the small sweet courtesies of Life.' 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 HUTCHINSON & CO., 
 
 34, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 1895. 
 
i^jiim 
 
 ''}' 
 
 ^li*^ 
 
 FOREWORD. 
 
 "D EADERS of my former book have invari- 
 ably concluded their letters to me with 
 " Give us some more." I hope they may find 
 this practical reply equally amusing. But I 
 trust no more of them will sit up all night to 
 finish it : three tell me they did so in the case of 
 the last volume — two of them married men, 
 too. 
 
 The greater part of this book is, of neces- 
 sity, desultory and disconnected, but the first 
 two chapters are framed differently. 
 
 The first records the survival of Templar 
 Knights' ceremonies in our Middle Temple 
 Hall, due to the incoming Law Students 
 taking over the staff" and establishment, as 
 well as the house, of the dissolved Order. 
 
 The title of the second is misleading, inas- 
 much as it emphasizes one very contestable 
 suggestion and leaves out of view two impor- 
 
vi THE EPITAPH? 
 
 tant positions, now formulated, it would seem, 
 for the first time, yet both so simple and easy 
 that the wonder is why they have never before 
 been pointed out. 
 
 Coming first to the epitaph, I know that 
 Moseley prints it from Milton's papers ; he may 
 also have been the channel through which it 
 reached the Editors of the 2nd Folio. 
 
 But my objections to this ^apparently plain 
 case are numerous. 
 
 1. Milton at twenty-two could not have 
 written it, though he certainly could have done 
 so thirty years later. It is the work of an 
 older, graver man. 
 
 2. The writer talks of " my Shakespeare," 
 and " our wonder and astonishment " ; there 
 is a flavour of personal knowledge about it. 
 Milton was but four years old when Shake- 
 speare withdrew from London, and eight when 
 he died. 
 
 3. Milton was a Puritan, to whom a play- 
 actor was pollution : would he look upon the 
 man who drank down the Bidford people as 
 having " hallowed " bones ? Would not some 
 of the epithets in Prynne's " Histrio-Mastix " 
 be more in his mouth ? 
 
THE EPITAPH? vii 
 
 4. The epitaph is fresh, unstudied — in fact, a 
 burst of feeling, as if its object were just dead, 
 and the question of a fitting monument were 
 being debated. 
 
 Unless the question of a monument was 
 being discussed in plague-stricken Cambridge 
 in 1630, it is hard to conceive how the epitaph 
 came to be written then, on a man deceased 
 fourteen years before. What started Milton 
 on it? 
 
 It is uphill work, however, and I regret the 
 accidental prominence given to the point ; but I 
 cannot but think that I have some foundation 
 on which to go, and that the coincidence of the 
 last lines with those of Bacon upon Henry VII. 
 is noteworthy. 
 
 It is curious, too, that the absence of a play 
 upon this monarch's reign should be made up 
 by Bacon's History — " this monument of his 
 fame," as he calls it — as if he did not wish him 
 to be unlike the other Henries. 
 
 The first of the other positions is the 
 collaboration between Bacon and the Lord 
 Chamberlain's Company of Players— in which 
 Shakespeare was actor-manager for a whole 
 
viii BACON AND THE PLAYERS. 
 
 quarter of a century, first at Gray's Inn Hall 
 and afi;erwards at our Middle Temple Hall — 
 which seems hitherto to have been strangely 
 overlooked. The considerations which directly 
 follow from it are of great importance. 
 
 The second is that the concealment of what- 
 ever share Bacon took in the plays is due to 
 the abject fear in which he stood of his mother, 
 and, to make this plain, the genesis of the first 
 of them shall be briefly set out here. 
 
 1. Lady Ann Bacon was a "good" but 
 most tyrannical woman, who demanded from 
 her two sons, even when grown men, slavish 
 obedience. She would even drop in at 
 Francis' chambers and carry him off to Mr. 
 Travers' lecture (otherwise preachment) at the 
 Temple (Spedding's Life of Bacon, vol. i., 
 p. 31, and pp. 113, 116). 
 
 2. Gray's Inn had performed no revels for 
 three or four years previous to 1594. In that 
 year they determined to get up a pageant of 
 great splendour. 
 
 3. Lady Ann heard of it, as likely to be 
 performed before the Queen, which it in fact 
 was on the next Shrove Tuesday afterwards. 
 
 4. On December 5th, 1594, she wrote her 
 
TOO LATE— TOO LATE I ix 
 
 son Anthony : " I trust they will not mum, nor 
 mask, nor sinfully revel at Gray's Inn. Who 
 were sometimes counted first, God grant they 
 wane not daily and deserve to be named last " 
 (Spedding, i. 325). (This was a shot at 
 Francis anent the old Travers days, and all 
 the harder because he had spent three years 
 in Paris !) 
 
 5. But the lady was too late : the pageant 
 had been written, and by Francis (Mr. Spedding 
 insists — vol. i., p. 342 — that the six long speeches 
 " carry his signature in every sentence"). The 
 players were rehearsing a play translated from 
 Plautus by some one, who must needs be a fine 
 scholar to bring out all the subtle touches and 
 points. Moreover the Templars had been 
 formally invited, and were coming in state. 
 
 6. Hence the thing could not stop, for all 
 the mothers of all the Bacons. But there was 
 no fear of her, or any of her set, attending it : 
 so the authorship of both masque and play 
 could be kept dark. (We may remark here 
 that, in the pamphlet which tells us all this, the 
 name of Bacon does not once appear.) 
 
 7. That masque, by the way, has much of 
 the music of Midsunimer Night's Dream (this 
 
X A FORGOTTEN POET. 
 
 Struck Mr. Fleay — Life of Shakespeare, p. 178); 
 philosophers discuss magnetism and the possi- 
 biHty of fishes hearing ; and the " last songe " 
 (p. 74) is :— 
 
 "The hours of sleepy night decay apace, 
 And now warme beds are fitter than this place : 
 All time is longe that is unwilling spent, 
 But hours are minutes, when they yield content. 
 The gathered flowers, we love, that bear sweet scent, 
 But loathe them, their sweet odours being spent. 
 It is a life is never ill 
 To lye and sleep in roses still. 
 
 "The rarer pleasure is, it is more sweet, 
 And frends ar kindest when they seldome meet. 
 Who would not heare the nightingale still singe 
 Or who grew ever weary of the springe ? 
 The day must have her night, the springe her fall; 
 All is divided, none is lorde of all. 
 
 It were a most delightfull thinge 
 To live in a perpetuall springe." 
 
 Nor can I omit one line from the dancing 
 song (p. 70) :— 
 
 "Musicke is the soule of measure, speeding both in 
 equal grace " ; 
 
 and the burden which closes it : — 
 
 "Sprightly, sprightly, move your paces, 
 Nimbly changing measure-graces ; 
 Lively mounted, high aspire, 
 For Joy is only found in fyer.'' 
 
THE MUSIC OF WORDS. xi 
 
 The mountebanks' songs on pp. 60-63 are 
 as of Autolycus himself. 
 
 Here is the chorus to them : — 
 
 " What is't you lacke ? what would you buy ? 
 What is it that you neede ? 
 Come to me, gallants, taste and buy ; 
 Heer's that will do the deede." 
 
 Much of the description of their wares is 
 hardly reading fit " pueris virginibusque." 
 
 All these, be it observed, are in a masque 
 which contains six long speeches unmistakably 
 written by Bacon. 
 
 The tract is called " Gesta Grayorum," pro- 
 bably written by some member at the time, but 
 not published till 1688. It is to be found in 
 Nichol's " Progresses," vol. ii. 
 
 The poetry is Campion's, and was published 
 with his name in 1602. He was a physician, 
 poet, and composer of music, writing many 
 masques. Camden, in 161 5, gives him, in his 
 list of poets, the place number six of the age, 
 Shakespeare being tenth. It is odd how he 
 could have been so long overlooked, as 
 
 "Still his name of high account. 
 And still his verse hath charms," 
 
xii BACON RANKED AS A HIGH POET. 
 
 for he has a whole page to himself in the 
 " Dictionary of National Biography." 
 
 Let us note here that Bacon himself was a 
 poet of no mean order ; he is also enrolled in 
 Stowe's list of " our moderne and excellent poets, 
 which worthily flourish in their own workes, 
 and all in my own knowledge, according to their 
 priorities." Here follow twenty-eight names, 
 of which Bacon stands as eighth, Shakespeare 
 ranks thirteenth, Ben Jonson eighteenth, and 
 Meares twentieth. Poet is playwright. 
 
 This list is to be found in Halliwell's " Out- 
 lines," vol. ii., p. 155. 
 
 In 1587 Bacon had partly devised the dumb 
 shows in a masque played before the Queen, 
 Campion acting. 
 
 Campion was a member of Gray's Inn — hence 
 in touch with Bacon ; he wrote an epigram 
 on this very masque in 1595. Peele in 1593 
 addresses him : " Thou that richly clothest 
 conceit with well-made words." He addressed 
 two epigrams to Bacon, using the word as to 
 his writings, " Mens stupet." 
 
 8. The masque could be, and was, hidden 
 away for nearly a century ; but the play was 
 performed, not by the gentlemen of the Inn, 
 
PLAY NAMING ITSELF. xiii 
 
 but by professional actors, and the " true 
 originall copies " made for their use were given 
 to the world. All that could possibly be done 
 was to father it upon some one else, and who so 
 likely as the " Jack Factotum" of the Company, 
 himself a poet ? But the name of the author 
 was certainly not announced — nor the tide 
 of the play itself; it certainly does not come 
 from Plautus, and actually received its name 
 from the circumstance that there was a terrible 
 rumpus that evening, and that the Templars 
 took themselves off in a great huff, whence 
 that night got the name for long after of 
 "The Night of Errors." The play got the 
 name among the actors of Errors ; and when 
 Meares included it by that name in his list 
 of Shakespeare's plays in 1598, Shakespeare 
 cared so little about the bantling he sponsored 
 that he did not trouble himself to give it a 
 fresh one. It stands there as Errors. All 
 our informant says about it is: "A Comedy 
 of Errors (like to Plautus, his Mensechmus) 
 was played by the players." 
 
 This was the genesis of Shakespeare's 
 plays, and as Lady Ann Bacon lived till 1610, 
 any system which her life controlled could 
 
xiv '' ERRORS" MUST BE FREE FROM SUCH. 
 
 not be changed for sixteen years from this 
 period, after which time, oddly enough, 
 no more of the quarto plays were published, 
 though Shakespeare had plenty of money 
 for the printer, and doubtless a demand as 
 well. 
 
 But yet one word more about this play of 
 Errors. Mr. Halliwell tells us (" Outlines," 
 vol. i., p. 290) that all Shakespeare's plays were 
 first submitted to the Master of the Revels (a 
 court official), who had absolute discretion as 
 to excision and alteration — powers certain to 
 be fully exercised when a classical scholar was 
 producing a Latin play before Templars and 
 classical students. To avoid sharp criticism 
 and make plain the subtle situations in another 
 tongue. Bacon would probably re-write the 
 version three or four times over, unless indeed 
 it were his own work, as must have been the idea 
 of producing it. (See P.S.) Here comes in 
 a curious piece of early evidence. Rowe, 
 Shakespeare's biographer in 1709 (quoted 
 Halliwell, i. 290) openly doubts whether 
 Shakespeare knew enough Latin to read Plautus 
 in the original, adding that no translation into 
 English existed at the period of its production. 
 
THE "SHORT OF IT." xv 
 
 Let US put in short compass the genesis of 
 the plays : — 
 
 1. Francis Bacon fond of masques. 
 
 2. Lady Ann Bacon his mother, having 
 
 great power over him. 
 
 3. Gray's Inn gets up a masque in 1594. 
 
 4. Lady Ann hears of it on December 5th, 
 
 and demurs strongly. 
 
 5 . But too late : masque and (probably) play 
 
 written by Francis — both in rehearsal 
 — music and songs by Campion — 
 heavy expense incurred, and Templars 
 coming in state. 
 
 6. The thing must go on, but the masque 
 
 can be allowed to drop (as it was for 
 
 a century) and the play fathered upon 
 
 one of the actors. 
 
 Now 'this is the whole story, except we 
 
 consider here, as lawyers will do, i^e conduct of 
 
 the parties — especially Shakespeare, as to the 
 
 ownership of his plays. 
 
 He was a man of business, energetic to earn, 
 prudent to keep. In ten years from his coming 
 to London to hold horses, he was able to buy 
 New Place, the best house in Stratford. 
 
 Now all other players — Greene, Jonson, 
 
xvi SHAKESPEARE'S CONDUCT AS OWNER. 
 
 Marlowe, etc. — published their works with their 
 names appended. 
 
 Shakespeare only produced in his lifetime 
 eighteen out of the thirty-six of the ist Folio. 
 
 He allowed spurious plays to be published as 
 his, careless seemingly as to the injury weak 
 imitations might do to his real works. 
 
 Thus the Yorkshire Tragedy was performed 
 by his Company and registered as his at 
 Stationers' Hall ; Pericles twice surreptitiously 
 published. 
 
 But his will is even more extraordinary in its 
 silence as to these plays. He never refers to 
 these potential sources of profit; he gives legacies 
 to Hemmings, Burbage, and Condell, who either 
 should have had the MSS. or known where 
 they were, yet not a word of the . plays. We 
 know Hemmings and Condell had not got 
 them, and had to collect and print actors' parts 
 and prompters' copies ; but where were the 
 bulky MSS.? 
 
 All this is perfectly consistent with Shake- 
 speare having the use and performance of them 
 during the life of Lady Ann Bacon, and after 
 the occurrence of her death ceasing to care 
 anything about them ; or could the MSS. have 
 
WHICH WROTE THE PLAYS? xvii 
 
 been claimed back ? Shakespeare could deny- 
 nothing to so valuable a patron as Bacon. 
 
 Remember that all the contemporary pas- 
 sages brought together by Mr. Halliwell, save 
 Meares', praise Shakespeare' s/(?^»«j-, and not his 
 plays. Why ? The plays are infinitely superior ! 
 
 We may briefly sum up the evidence in 
 another way. 
 
 From 1587 to 161 3 Bacon is in working con- 
 nection with Shakespeare's Company, and has 
 four special adjuncts at his command : to wit — 
 
 1. A poet reckoned superior to Shakespeare. 
 
 2. A first-class musician and musical director 
 
 — both these in Campion. 
 
 3. The best troupe of actors in London. 
 
 4. Shakespeare himself as Factotum. 
 
 After 1 610 — his mother's death — Bacon gives 
 masques openly in his own name, not con- 
 cealing it, as in 1594. 
 
 It is true Shakespeare had the same four 
 adjuncts, and we are brought straight once 
 more to the question, " Which of the two men 
 is the most likely ? " embodying in the reply 
 the remembrance of Bacon's need for secrecy, 
 and also Shakespeare's indifference, both in 
 life and death, as to anything but the present 
 
 b 
 
xviii BACON'S COMPLETE SECRECY. 
 
 profit to be got by performing them ; and his 
 having lost touch with the original MSS. 
 
 Yet one note more. Voluminous as is 
 Bacon's correspondence, no letter exists refer- 
 ring to either masques or plays — though he 
 wrote an essay on them in his youth, and 
 presented them at his own cost when past 
 middle age — save that draft of a letter to 
 Carre which started me upon this inquiry. All 
 others have perished, as if of design and for 
 some purpose of concealment. Could he have 
 destroyed the MSS. of the plays also ? 
 
 If I have had in this argument to deepen 
 the shadows which so many events of Bacon's 
 life unhappily cast, it is from no want of love, 
 reverence, and honour to one who must ever 
 stand most eminent among God's grandest gift 
 to His creatures — Great Men. 
 
 W. G. THORPE. 
 
 Gloucester House, 
 
 Larkhall Rise, S.W. 
 
 March lyth, 1894. 
 
 P.S. — It was a common thing for Gray's Inn 
 men to translate and act classical plays. In 
 1566 Gascoyne had done so with Euripides' 
 Jocasta. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The finest town view in London — Other town views 
 — Exterior of the Middle Temple Hall — Interior of it 
 — Purposes it once served — Purposes it at present 
 serves — The Hall dressing for dinner — Arrangement 
 of it — Peculiar Association of Members — Formation of 
 Messes — The origin of "Commons" — Suppression of 
 the Knights Templars — Continuation of Templars' 
 Commons in Middle Temple Hall — The Manciple — His 
 catering — The call to Mess — The Pannier — " Attention " 
 — Entry of the Procession — The Grace — " Is it the 
 original one ? " — The Mace withdraws — The dinner 
 — Traces of the Common food — Power of the Benchers 
 — A Bencher cannot complete his dinner singly— Grand 
 Day— Readers' feasts — Great Grand Day — Call Day — 
 The suspense — The Revels — Pranks' inside the Hall — 
 Pranks outside the Hall — The captured Bobby — "I've a 
 good mind to kill you ' — The end of it all — Shields in 
 Hall — Hall put to a new purpose — Its great benefit to 
 humanity ......... i 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Many years ago, during the Treasurership of Mr. Milward, 
 Q.C., Twelfth Night was read by Mr. Brandram in 
 the Middle Temple Hall, wherein it was first produced 
 on January 5th, 1602, by the Lord Chamberlain's 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Company of Players, of which Shakespeare was one of 
 the managers, taking also an actor's part. The Inn had 
 therein followed suit to Gray's Inn, in whose Hall in 
 1 594 had been produced for the first time the Comedy 
 of Errors. At that time, and for a quarter of a century 
 in all, the Master of the Revels there was the illustrious 
 Bacon. The Inns of Court availed themselves of the 
 London Theatre Companies in the production of all their 
 pageants and shows, and one of the most welcome of 
 the guests of our Inn, if indeed he had not been actively 
 engaged in the production of the play from the first,' 
 would be the Furnisher of the Sports from Holborn. 
 Let us consider this more at length, and under a some- 
 what peculiar title : Did Bacon write Shakespeare's 
 Epitaph? 41' 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Yawning and Yarning— The Butterfly at Niagara— Russian 
 introductions — The Archdeacon's epitaph — Comin Thro' 
 the Rye — Un-Canny-Lee — Dock and its Counsel — 
 Difference between "or" and "and" in a will— The 
 Nemesis of Law — Sir Joseph Paxton's rise — The start 
 in life of Joseph Hume, M.P.— The difference between 
 " and " and " or " in a way — Bishop Samuel Wilberforce 
 — How he liked turtle soup— What he said when he 
 got too little — What he said when he got too much — 
 An Episcopal Presbyterian Service — An Archiepiscopal 
 Presbyterian Service— Bishops' joy at the Primate's 
 recovery— The unpresentable present— Catching crabs 
 and nearly being caught doing it— The Criminal 
 Chairman of Quarter Sessions— Does Providence work 
 in rhythmic periods ?—Helston Corporators and the 
 Argyle Rooms— One's chance comes at unknown times 
 — " D-d if I didn't think so "—Messrs. Coutts' shabby 
 customer— Overend and Gurney's "bullion" drawer 
 —Matthew Marshall a Malmesbury— Taking a lion 
 by the mane— Hammering a bear's muzzle— The 
 
CONTENTS. xxi 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Rarey-fied zebra — Lord Overstone's mistake — Arch- 
 bishop Thomson's great sorrow in life — Professor 
 Freeman preaching to the Parson — How to evict a 
 trespasser — Our Vicar lessening his work in the lessons 
 — The two shortest epitaphs — Scenes in a village church 
 — Always " Crosse " — " He's tored his breeches " — 
 Dartmoor Prison and our "innocent man" — GUI' haunt 
 in the " fifties " — The end of the old College Fellow — 
 " Kissing my sisters " — " Look who your neighbours 
 are before you settle down at the Derby " — Photophone 
 carries naughty words — The Genesis of the Unionist 
 Party — Courtesy in Clubs, how to create it — Marquis 
 and saveloy — Ducal gets-up 73 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The public man who wrote the " Little Book " about the 
 Church, and what came to him in life — " Which of us 
 is" it?" — Pious Peer and Derby sweep — Ruined by 
 a thunderclap: (i) The youngster just come into his 
 kingdom, (2) The bidder at auction, (3) The lady and 
 her Tinto's — The Judge on the Mill, and what was said 
 to him thereon — The little omnibus take-in— Temple 
 Church become a hospital — The Reform Club and its 
 hustler — Mossing trees out of existence — Dispiriting 
 Public Spirit — " Suppose your servants all go at 
 once?" — Mr. Justice Mathew upon "rights of way," 
 and the man who acted on his advice — Legal slips, 
 and who pays for them — Maoris and a little game at 
 cards — "Here's a penny for you"— A long epigram — 
 Why the great orator takes such a lot of snuff— What 
 saying " nothing " may bring about — Suppose George III. 
 had married the mother of the Napiers— Bank of Eng- 
 land Managers and Australian ditto, are they looked 
 after on the same principles ?— The winking cat which 
 fetched ^50 — The Man in the Moon eclipsed— The 
 man who really did refuse ;£5oo. for his vote, and held 
 out too long— The great surgeon and his ^1,000 fee— 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The largest medical fee ever given — The perils of 
 operating on a king — Bygone medical sources of 
 income H2 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A Barrister criminal — How he worked the forgeries — Falling 
 into his own trap — Archbishop Thomson — Cause and 
 Effect— The alphabetical Bishops— The Ven. Arch- 
 deaconess — A " drop in " on a Sunday evening — The 
 medical student and Covent Garden Concerts — The 
 medical man and his long-deferred bill — The Empress 
 of Russia — " Don't use words unless you know what 
 they mean " — The drink stopped in time — A contrary 
 operation — Cardinal and Rabbi — The late Lord Beacons- 
 field — Does much writing congest the liver? — "Central 
 Railway " and the J[t,o,ooo Consols which went astray 
 — A good excuse for getting up late — The fight between 
 Sayers and Heenan — A terrible form of insanity — Why 
 used jute always to get on fire whenever the price 
 went down ? — Playing with fire — One of the latest booms 
 in indigo — Three compensations in five years — The 
 boiled baby — The parish clerk and the salmon — How 
 to get into a closed hotel — Sir Richard Owen — County 
 Court Judges shouldn't travel third class — Science in 
 beer 179 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ' My graveyard is as salubrious as Margate " — Clerk 
 thrashing Counsel — Indian example of the same — 
 Treading on a panther's tail — The sauce the Mussul- 
 mans ate the ham with — Shareholders generally — The 
 bullet knocks at the door — Highland bull and Spanish 
 bull-fighters — Scotland yet — ^2,000 for a dish of con- 
 fectionery — "Jimp and sma'" — Definitions of " Faith " : 
 (1) Yankee ; (2) Scotch — Always buy before you 
 sell — Stone Street, Amsterdam — Always get rid of the 
 
CONTENTS. xxJii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 trimmings — Curious recurrence of a lion story — The 
 discomforts of shyness — Missionary and maidens — 
 Shaking hands with the Shah — The Emperor's elbow — 
 Napoleon III.'s only good point — His little game in 
 Morocco — The French Tribunal and the Englishman . 223 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Serjeant Ballantine's closing career — Minnie mum — " Never 
 read prospectuses " — On advances for costs to Solicitors 
 — Landlord and barmaid : hard case — The costly chalice 
 — Teetotaller asking for rum, and how he consumed it — 
 " Alas, my daughter ! "—The Mortgage Deed and the 
 missing plot of land — The rabbit worth ^^30 — How the 
 Solicitor made amends for his slip — Stonehouse Local 
 Board and its Bond Issue — Electrical leakings — The 
 Conway and Worcester boys — Prince Consort and 
 candle ends — The Bishop's son and his revelations of 
 the future — Sixes and sevens 264 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Bradshaw, not Bible — Lord Tennyson and the ;£6oo charge 
 — Chief Justice Bovill — " Take th^ lost time out of your 
 speech " — " We're on our oaths the same as you are ' — 
 Lord Palmerston turned teetotaller — Diaconal troubles 
 — George III. and his Prayer Book — The late Duke of 
 Cambridge and the Decalogue — Sudden deaths of rich 
 men — Shadowing of statesmen — High art suicide — Dean 
 Stanley and the Hibbert Lectures — The Rev. Olympia 
 Brown — Earl Percy sees my fall — Unfortunate upset 
 to two clergymen — Ministers and their shadows — The 
 Countess' return visit — Tischendorf and the Codex 
 Sinaiticus — How he humbugged the Cardinal over the 
 Vatican MS. — £21°° for ^ sheet of paper — The harm- 
 less ghost — Chief Baron Kelly ; once grocer in Oxford 
 Street — The starting-place of the Pollocks — Hudders- 
 fieldall Ramsden now— Lord Chancellor Westbury and 
 
/ CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 his eldest son — Largest sum ever earned by a Junior — 
 "One of 'em hit me or else both of 'em" — The Irish 
 jurymen's proper place — The effect of colour on a 
 criminal case — Safe escape from a train going two hun- 
 dred miles an hour — Judges and Counsellors' coloured 
 trousers — How Judges have sometimes been appointed 
 — Huddleston as a French scholar — Judge tired of the 
 Bench — Judge sick of a case — Counsel's change of 
 front 299 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ' Furreners don't count" — Love your enemies, and even 
 drink 'em — " Oceans o' moock " — The rise of W. H. 
 Smith— His blackballing at the Reform— On pilling 
 generally — The Charitable Society and their Chaplain — 
 In what shape will the public be asked to pay the 
 cost? — Braxy — Strange meeting — Indian cooks and 
 their kitchens — D — d Turkey 339 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Chief Baron Pollock and his nursemaid — Castor and Pollux 
 — Can't have too many sons in the Exchequer — Two 
 actions taken up to the House of Lords for sums under 
 one shilling — Professor HoUoway and the turn of the 
 tide — ^The baby — Comments upon the Inn management 
 — Is a Benchership worth its cost ? — Conclusion . . 360 
 
MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The finest town view in London — Other town views — Exterior 
 of the Middle Temple Hall — Interior of it — Purposes it once 
 served — Purposes it at present serves — The Hall dressing 
 
 for dinner — Arrangement of it — Peculiar Association of 
 Members — Formation of Messes — The origin of " Commons " 
 — Suppression of the Knights Templars — Continuation of 
 Templars' Commons in Middle Temple Hall — The Manciple 
 — His catering — The call to Mess — The Pannier — " Atten- 
 tion" — Entry of the procession — The Grace — "Is it the 
 original one ?" — The Mace withdraws — The dinner — Traces 
 of the Commons food — Power of the Benchers — A Bencher 
 cannot complete his dinner singly — Grand Day — Readers' 
 
 feasts — Great Grand Day — Call Day — The suspense — The 
 Revels — Pranks inside the Hall — Pranks outside the Hall — 
 The captured Bobby — " I've a good mind to kill you" — The 
 end of it all — Shields in Hall — Hall put to a new purpose — 
 Its great benefit to humanity. 
 
 THE old Hall of the Middle Temple is one 
 of the best-known structures in London. 
 Most of the few other ancient edifices of this 
 kind form part of a row of buildings from 
 which they are in no way isolated, and are 
 
 I 
 
2 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 hence crowded up and blocked in by masses 
 of brick-and-mortar, wherein their form, size, 
 and individuality are lost. Far different is 
 this present subject of ours, with its imposing 
 mass standing out clear upon three of its sides : 
 on the south a pleasant and historic garden, 
 on the north and west open spaces where the 
 loiterer loves to linger 'mid the greenery of 
 the trees, the shade of their branches, and the 
 cool downfall of the long, straight jet of water, 
 whose musical plashing has as soothing a sound 
 now, as had the falls of the headlong Anio 
 on the worn-out nerves of Virgil's Maecenas. 
 Benches are there, in which the idler — but 
 twenty steps removed from the roar of Fleet 
 Street, the tumult of the Strand, and longing 
 to rest his tired eyes upon Nature's graceful 
 curves and lines of beauty ; eyes which have 
 been strained by the "shoe-sole" ornament of 
 the hideous Law Courts — can linger, in calm 
 and placid repose of mind, and enjoy at leisure 
 the finest town view in London. 
 
 There are other fine town views in London. 
 He who stands at the foot of the Serpentine 
 when the sun is setting on a fine evening in 
 autumn, sometimes falls in with an after-glow 
 which, for colour, variety, and change, as the 
 orange pulses of quivering light shoot out their 
 passing radiance, is but little if at all inferior 
 to the sundowns in a mountainous country, 
 
UNSEEN VIEWS IN LONDON. 3 
 
 or the rapturous glories of tropical sunset in 
 a Ceylon hill-valley. 
 
 He, again, who stands at the base of the 
 Foreign Office, and looks westward down the 
 ornamental water in St. James's Park, has, save 
 in a thick November fog, at all times a view 
 of unparalleled beauty, so admirably do island 
 foreground, umbrageous elms, and gleaming 
 water-sheen make up a picture that seems 
 never to have been painted or even photo- 
 graphed ; sharing, in this respect of ignorement, 
 the view from the top windows of the said 
 Foreign Office, the Hankey Mansions, or the 
 roofs of Piccadilly houses which overlook the 
 Parks, — a view that is almost a revelation, as 
 the eye ranges over the sea of green tree-tops, 
 out of which, as from a garden lake, rise up 
 the familiar landmarks of Victoria Clock and 
 Abbey Towers. 
 
 But our surroundings at the Middle Temple 
 Hall transcend the views we have named, by 
 reason of the colourings supplied by the ad- 
 jacent features. By some subtle and irresistible 
 law. Nature rarely fails, if time be given her, 
 to bring in the Beautiful, however unpromising 
 the original materials may have been. Trees 
 obey a hidden impulse, and, pushing out 
 rounded masses of foliage, block out an un- 
 sightly projection ; ivy makes beautiful the 
 ugliest wall ever built, while bricks tone down 
 
4 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 in colour, and throw in the soft brown glow 
 which, like Nature herself, harmonizes with 
 everything. 
 
 The wayfarer sees the mass of the Hall on 
 his left, the Library on his right ; his eye rests 
 midway on the cool green slopes and prim 
 lawns of the historic Middle Temple garden, 
 wherein were acted the opening scenes of the 
 Wars of the Roses, while there is a back- 
 ground of planes which flourish as if proud to 
 form a background to such an un-citylike vista. 
 
 So much for the surroundings of the Hall, 
 free and open to every one, except on the first 
 day of each month, when the gates are closed 
 against all comers lest by prescription the 
 public should acquire a right of way (which, 
 by the way, a Royal Charter of Edward III. 
 actually gave them), ingress, however, being 
 accorded to all applicants who ask for it, and 
 thus acknowledge the Inn's claim. We are 
 now to see another side of the question — 
 another, not the other, as common error will 
 have it. Every question that is ever mooted 
 has at least seven, according to the several 
 persons having interest in it. For instance, 
 the parties on each side are two ; their respec- 
 tive supporters (unless differing inter se, in 
 which case more terms come in) are two more ; 
 the Public, as having some slight say in the 
 matter in the present, are one; Posterity, as 
 
INTERIOR OF HALL. 5 
 
 representing the reversionary interest, a sixth ; 
 and last of all comes the Real Truth. Which 
 may possibly, but so rarely as to be practically 
 out of the hunt, inosculate with one of the six 
 foregoing at one or two points. 
 
 We are going to deal with the inside of the 
 Middle Temple Hall ; how there came to be 
 dinners there at all, and why there are dinners 
 there still. 
 
 The interior of the Hall is unknown to very 
 few, — its noble proportions, its well-adjusted 
 shape, its grand, high-pitched roof losing itself 
 in obscurity, its noble Elizabethan windows 
 through which stream from the quarries, rich 
 with cognizances of men great in their gene- 
 ration, lights that die away upon carven screen 
 and panelled walls, with armorial shields upon 
 them whose colours have been attuned by time 
 and age, the true and great leveller, to tones 
 of perfect harmony. 
 
 Such is what the ordinary visitor sees. Let 
 it be our attempt to show him the inner view : 
 how the grand old Hall warms to its task 
 when put to its pristine use of the assemblage 
 of its Members within its walls; how it unbends 
 to welcome them, and like a fond mother 
 receiving sons at a family festival, smiles with 
 a sunshiny greeting upon all, young and .old, 
 Judges or Students, who meet together within 
 her walls in a renewal of filial affection. 
 
6 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 This is the social side of our Middle Temple 
 life ; a state of things only possible now in a 
 place where it has grown up for centuries, 
 and which no other Inn of Court or famous 
 old College can parallel ; so many and so 
 diverse are the traditions and strands which go 
 to make up the cable of Middle Temple life. 
 
 Let us consider how this comes about. It 
 will begin to come fitly in as we describe our 
 venerable mother dressing for dinner ; a pro- 
 cess which none of the public see, and but few 
 of her own family. There was a time, if not 
 for her at all events for her predecessor, when 
 Members lived in Hall, slept on rushes or 
 straw, ate their meals there, and passed the 
 evening with the assistance of the wine-flask 
 and the dice-box, the contents of which latter, 
 to judge from specimens found which had fallen 
 through the joints of the floor, were mostly 
 cogged. 
 
 A memory of this state of things is kept 
 up by the key which each Bencher receives 
 after his "coming up" to the Bench, so that, 
 day or night, he can at pleasure find entrance 
 to the Great Hall of his Society. The very 
 word Hall, Tabernacle, or Tent is found in 
 the " morning of the Times," brought westward 
 by Turanian nomads in the ceaseless march 
 of humanity towards the setting sun ; a word 
 almost as universal as " sack," which is the 
 
DRESSING FOR DINNER. 7 
 
 same in all languages, and which is the first 
 idea which follows upon that of property — a 
 thing to carry it about in and keep it safe. 
 
 But all this has passed away, and the old 
 Templar Common Life is now reduced to four 
 terms of about three weeks each : for the rest 
 of the year the Hall remains practically 
 unused. 
 
 But in these nights of Term a light dimly 
 burns in one or two of the huge gaseliers, 
 and as dinner draws on the aspect of the Hall 
 changes. The great pictures, famous as they 
 are, put on a different aspect and seem to come 
 down and form part of the Company of which 
 many of them were Members, and of which 
 all have formed part. The grand Vandyke 
 of Charles I., the dirt of generations cleaned 
 off it, and all traces removed of the terrible 
 gash in its canvas inflicted by the infamously 
 bad packing of the Manchester Art Treasures 
 Exhibition of 1857, brings down the sickly 
 smile which that weakest of monarchs possessed ; 
 his sons and grandchildren smile or frown 
 according to their natures ; the lady whose 
 countenance recalls the sobriquet of " Brandy 
 Nan " accorded to her by her loving subjects ; 
 while " King Elizabeth " looks her character 
 as that of the greatest ruler (save one, and 
 he not here) who ^ever steered the bark of 
 England's Greatness, 
 
S MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 At 5.15 the doors open for the admission 
 of Members, and early birds come in soon 
 after to secure their seats, "bag-a-mess" as 
 it is called, by turning the fork at right angles. 
 On Grand and other crowded nights, this is 
 a point of importance, and as on one occasion 
 there came of it an epigram — an art now, to 
 all appearance, for ever lost, " certainly among 
 lawyers " — that same may be recorded here. 
 A Member came hurriedly in to secure the 
 coveted seat next the wall for the well-known 
 Mr. Burleigh Muir, provoking from a bystander 
 this Latin jingle : — 
 
 " Furcas vertit super mensam 
 Mentem habet apprehensam 
 Vult tenere persecuram 
 Sedem Muiri juxta murum," 
 
 which, by the way, goes very well in French : — 
 
 " La siege de Muir est aupres du mur 
 II veut en tenir secure. " 
 
 In English, however, the only point of 
 resemblance between Mr. Muir and a wall is 
 the difficulty his opponent finds in " getting 
 over him." So the joke which holds good in 
 the Romance languages comes out baldly in 
 Anglo-Saxon, thus : — 
 
 " He turns the fork to make it sure 
 The wall seat shall belong to Muir." 
 
 In all cases, priority of seat depends on 
 
CHOOSING SEATS. 9 
 
 seniority of call to the Bar, but contests for 
 precedence are not so frequent as in past years 
 at the side-tables ; the Seniority Rule, however, 
 being really enforced at the Ancients' Mess, 
 where dine every night the eight Senior Bar- 
 risters present. As this table receives a course 
 or two extra and a possible chance, if only a 
 single Bencher is present, of wine and dessert 
 with him in the Parliament Chamber afterwards, 
 the seats at it are looked after ; in fact, regular 
 habitues check off each new arrival of a Senior 
 as he comes in, to calculate their own chance. 
 This is before grace is said. But here again 
 comes in our subtle, all-pervading Sacramental 
 element. Seniority, all-powerful at first, fades 
 away and becomes dead after grace has been 
 said. The veriest junior who has stood there 
 at the commencement of the prayer of consecra- 
 tion in the shape of grace, cannot be ousted by 
 even the venerable Sir Thomas Topham, whose 
 call dates from November 1836, fifty-eight 
 years ago, and who recently claimed his seat at 
 the Ancients' Table. Meantime the Hall has 
 been fast filling, chiefly by Students in their 
 sleeveless gowns— the Barristers, who are in 
 much smaller numbers, appear later on — the 
 Messes are being made up, in some cases by 
 men who always dine together, as it is only 
 after grace has been said that the Inn officials 
 fill up vacancies. 
 
lo MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 And here comes in once more the Sacra- 
 mental idea which underlies so many Middle 
 Temple customs. We shall later on explain 
 why. In the other Inns of Court, Barristers 
 dine together, and sit in order of seniority. In 
 the Middle Temple alone the veil of partition 
 does not exist — the wall is broken down by the 
 idea of brotherhood. Both classes. Masters and 
 Apprentices, dine together, and the Captain of 
 the Mess is often a Student, with Barristers 
 occupying lower places. 
 
 The system works well — in fact, without it 
 this book never could have been written. Under 
 any other rdgime, interchange of thought is 
 impossible ; it may even be that two men 
 personally on bad terms may have to eat their 
 Commons cheek by jowl, to the great upset of 
 digestion. 
 
 In our system, the Messes are continually 
 changing ; and men with fresh experiences, 
 novel habits of thought, mix up with the old 
 stagers of the Inn, to their mutual advantage. 
 At the Benchers' table, for instance, a laugh 
 is rarely heard ; they each know all the others' 
 old jokes, and as a rule dodge any attempt 
 to bring them in. At the Ancients' table 
 a joke, new or old, is never let off, and 
 Dulness holds undisturbed her ancient melan- 
 choly reign. But the Side Messes may 
 comprise a clever Junior, an Irish Student full 
 
THE SOCIAL MEAL. ii 
 
 of mother wit, a Clergyman who has chucked 
 his orders for very weariness of them, an Indian 
 Civil Servant making use of his furlough to 
 take the Bar degree, or a smart Colonial ; and 
 these, the ice once broken, keep the ball in the 
 air. Stories from all parts of the world come 
 in and fit together ; and not unfrequently, 
 when the cloth is removed, the wine all gone, 
 and nothing to stay for but a little intellectual 
 tournament, the merry chance companions sit 
 together till the time of closing the Hall 
 arrives. 
 
 The ceremonies of the dinner encourage 
 such bonhomie ; the idea of the common 
 dish and the common cup, of which the Loving 
 Cup is still the memorial and exponent, is kept 
 up by the rule that at the first glass of wine 
 the Members bow to each other and are at once 
 introduced. It is the same idea of fellowship 
 that prevails in the Ancient Hebrew Wedding. 
 Just one or two exceptions have been known 
 to this ; there have been sons of peers who 
 have attended the dinners, without presence 
 at which they could not be called to the Bar, 
 and have sat out the meal in silence, neither 
 eating nor doing more than dumbly raise the 
 glass and bow. But their parents were notori- 
 ous economists, and had starved their sons' 
 education to the extent of twopence per week. 
 
 We have now reached the point where the 
 
12 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 tables are furnished with guests in their gowns 
 or wedding garments, without which the dinner 
 goes for nothing ; and nothing is wanted but 
 the presence of the Superiors to speak the 
 words of blessing, after which the viands will 
 be put upon the tables, and the feast begin. 
 
 But before this happens, let us consider why 
 this dinner was ever eaten at all, and how long 
 it has been held on the spot where it is now. 
 The spot has always been the same, though 
 the Hall in which it first commenced has gone 
 the way of all things ; yet one material fragment 
 of it still remains in an old oak door, which at 
 one time led from the Hall to the garden, and 
 which is no\y set up in the main corridor, but, 
 unhappily, in so bad a light, that its quaintness 
 and old-world fashion do not attract the notice 
 it deserves. Our dinner is the old midday 
 meal of the Knights Templars, started on this 
 spot somewhere about 1185, and continued 
 without change for seven hundred years, down 
 to our own time. And so little are the customs 
 changed that we have fish on all Fridays, not 
 in Lent only, just as they did. 
 
 On the suppression of the Templars, the 
 Knights, as appears from the Close Rolls of 
 the early part of Edward II., were boarded 
 out amongst various convents on a pension of 
 ;^4 per annum, — a liberal allowance when a 
 sheep cost threepence and an ox two shillings. 
 
CONTINUITY OF TEMPLAR LIFE. 13 
 
 The domestics and retainers of the dissolved 
 Order continued to live together in common life 
 in their old habitation, subsisting on pensions 
 from the Crown. 
 
 The Students of the Law seem to have 
 originally come to the Temple as the lessees 
 of the Earl of Lancaster, about 1320. The 
 Order had been suppressed and its lands for- 
 feited to the Crown some years previously, but 
 there remained on the spot its old retainers, 
 and the Crown granted pensions to these on 
 condition of their continuing to perform their 
 old duties. Not being Members of the Order, 
 they were not included in its proscription ; 
 hence when the Lawyers came they found a 
 set of experienced servants, masters of their 
 duties, and sadly in want of masters for them- 
 selves. The new-comers found the nest warm 
 and the common table in daily work just as 
 it is now. 
 
 The present two Societies were originally 
 one, and used in common the Halls of the 
 Knights and Serjens : these last were gentle- 
 men admitted into the fraternity, and could 
 even rise to be preceptors. In memory of 
 their past unity, the Benchers of one Inn even 
 now dine yearly in the other. 
 
 Chaucer, about 1362, gives us in the pro- 
 logue of the " Canterbury Tales " the following 
 description of the Manciple or Purveyor of 
 
14 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 Provisions to Commons; which must have 
 been orderly furnished and comfortably worked, 
 as the Prior of the Hospitallers and Chaplain 
 of the Temple Church dine there : — 
 
 " A gentil Mancipel was there of the Temple 
 Of whom Achatours might taken ensample 
 For to ben wise in bying of vitaille ; 
 For whether that he paid by toke or taille, 
 Algate he waited so in his achate, 
 That he was aye before in good estate. 
 Now is not that of God a full fayre grace 
 That suiche a lewed manne's wit shall pace 
 The wisdom of an hepe of lerned men ? 
 Of maisters had he more than thrice ten 
 That were of law expert and curious, 
 Of which there were a dozien in that hous 
 Worthy to ben Stewards of rent and lond 
 Of any lord that is in Engle lond, 
 To maken him live by his propre good 
 In honor detteless ; but if he were wod. 
 Or live as scarsly as him list desire. 
 In any cas that mighte fallen or happe, 
 And yet the Manciple sette her aller cappe." 
 
 (His wages in the time of Henry IV. were 
 thirty-six shillings and eightpence per year.) 
 From all this it is evident that the Lawyers 
 were the lessees of the Earl of Lancaster, and 
 that they had their purveyor of provisions 
 and were then keeping commons or dinners 
 in the Hall from 131 5. The professors of 
 Civil Law subsequently associated themselves 
 under the style of Doctors Commons. 
 
UNDER THE HOSPITALLERS HEEL. 15 
 
 The observances would keep themselves up, 
 as the nest was warm. But there was an 
 especial reason for observing the old forms 
 in the Hall of the Serjens, now that of the 
 Middle Temple. The Crown had granted 
 away the Templars' old house and the Hall 
 of their Knights, to their scorned and hated 
 foes, the Knights Hospitallers, and the 
 mourners for and sympathisers with the 
 trodden-down and ousted Templars betook 
 themselves to the Serjens' Hall. Be it 
 remembered these were all admitted Templars, 
 and as bitterly resentful about their downfall, 
 and at the persons who profited by it, as 
 religious people always are. The Hospitallers, 
 three years later, got possession of this Hall 
 also, but the vanquished would more than 
 ever keep up every Temple observance they 
 possibly could, and hand it down in dumb 
 protest as a matter of hereditary duty. To 
 this we owe the preservation of the curious 
 customs and ceremonies practised by these 
 Serjens six centuries ago, and which are, in 
 many vital points, as complete and as traceable 
 as when the last Grand Master bravely died 
 his death of shameful and long-protracted 
 torture. The Lawyers took the system over 
 en bloc, for the double reason that it saved 
 money to go into a state of things in working 
 order, and saved the bother of turning the 
 
1 6 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 present occupiers out ; and, moreover, they 
 would gain many recruits from the novices and 
 junior Members remaining. The system was 
 pretty much the same as it is now ; the Mess 
 had a purveyor or caterer who provided table, 
 food, and cooking, and was soundly abused by 
 all the Members on any or no occasion. 
 
 We have no record of what this officer set 
 before the Members at that time — it could only 
 have been salted meat ; but some three hundred 
 years later we find the charge for a Barrister's 
 " diet " was two shillings and sixpence per 
 week, say fifteen shillings of our money, and 
 this covered dinner and supper, save on 
 Tuesdays and Fridays, when the meat was 
 withheld. Breakfast, doubtless at first a crust 
 and a horn of small beer (it got to be pheasant 
 and Malmsey in the Restoration), was probably 
 included. The meat was almost invariably 
 loins of mutton produced from the salting-tubs 
 in the basement, with perhaps a salad when 
 in season. Otherwise, bread brought by the 
 pannier-man from Westminster, was the only 
 vegetable. French wine at two shillings per 
 gallon would be there; and beer, in which the 
 Inn always was great, was provided in green 
 earthenware drinking-pots, passed round from 
 hand to hand like the pewter now. These 
 were expressly made for the Society at a 
 pottery near Staines, and were used in the 
 
THE FURNISHING OF COMMONS. 17 
 
 memory of men living as late as last year ; 
 as well as the wooden trenchers, which retained 
 in the knife-cuts the perennial grease. Both 
 seem to have gone out about sixty years since, 
 though even now two of the Inn servitors are 
 called " Wash-pots." 
 
 To return to the eatables. Members who 
 took cheese paid for it weekly to the butler, and 
 once in the year he served them with calves' 
 heads at breakfast, at a cost of one shilling 
 each. Breakfasting seems, however, to have 
 got discouraged, for in the time of James I. 
 this bonne-bouche was made the subject of a 
 dinner, without the slightest forecast of its 
 future connection with the untimely end of his 
 then Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, 
 afterwards Charles I. 
 
 Of course, the Inn found all the furnishing 
 of commons, — " coles " for their cooking, pewter 
 vessels, table-" linnen," etc., service at the 
 tables ; but not a word about table cutlery. 
 The cook who cut would have his own im- 
 posing knife, but how about the smaller ones 
 to attack the chunk of meat cut off for the 
 Mess of four ? and as to appeals against any 
 possible unfairness in which, we shall shortly 
 come to the still existing and still acted-on 
 remedy. At the beginning, or some period of 
 the seven hundred year course, the case-knife 
 and fork of each member would be all he had 
 
1 8 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 to eat with — barring fingers, of course, which 
 are not to be thought about ; but when they 
 would cease, and the now obsolete two-pronged 
 steel fork supply their place, is not in evidence. 
 
 But one preamble to dinner has yet to be 
 noticed — the summons to dinner by the sound 
 of the horn ; a custom certainly dating from 
 Templar times, when the war-horn was used 
 alike for peaceful commons in the Hall as for 
 setting the watch on the tented field and 
 sounding the onslaught on the Saracen. In- 
 deed, the original form of the trumpet itself is 
 only a horn perforated at the tip, just as in our 
 present example, which is made out of a sea- 
 horse tooth, much carved in low relief, and said 
 to be three hundred years old. Everywhere 
 else, save in one instance, this form of summons 
 has died away ; it remains in use only in this 
 Inn, and in Queen's College, Oxford (the 
 Black Prince's College), where also survives 
 the Procession of the Boar's Head. 
 
 The Pannier or Bread-man (the name sur- 
 vives in Panyer Alley) had first to fetch the 
 bread for dinner from Westminster, and then 
 to go through all the Courts of the Inn to 
 sound the horn for men to come and eat it. 
 Our predecessors had stout stomachs, for its 
 sound is more like to give what is commonly 
 called a " belly-ache " than an appetite. When 
 this is done the Pannier-man moves off to 
 
PRELIMINARIES TO DINNER., 19 
 
 Hall to light up the great chandeliers, the heat 
 of which must have by this time turned into 
 touchwood the great beams of the roof. The 
 clock strikes, and there is heard the cry of 
 " Dinner ! " The head porter takes up the mace 
 and betakes him to the corridor outside the 
 Parliament Chamber, where are waiting such 
 Benchers as propose, to " keep their term," a 
 condition precedent to their filling the offices 
 of Reader and Treasurer ; the qualifying attend- 
 ance is said to be three nights each term, and 
 the Benchers are charged seven shillings and 
 sixpence apiece for each of the three dinners, 
 whether they eat them or not. 
 
 At all the other Inns of Court the Benchers 
 file in from a side-door to their respective 
 seats, and withdraw in similar fashion. Here 
 alone is the world-old and ancient usage of 
 the Benchers circling the Hall in the course of 
 the dinner, and that too in the way of the sun, 
 as if to show that attendance on the fraternal 
 and sacramental meal is also their daily path of 
 duty, just as is his. The procession is headed 
 by the Mace, the curtailed Battle-axe, emblem 
 of power to instantly punish, like the consular 
 fasces of old. Before entering the Hall, the 
 Mace strikes a heavy blow on the floor, as if 
 from a lance-butt, to call to attention a military 
 assemblage. The Members at once rise in 
 their places and " dress" shoulder to shoulder, 
 
20 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 and the Mace moves on, leading the procession 
 to the dais ; which, however, it does not cross, 
 but halts below. The Benchers, pacing along, 
 according to ancient Templar rule, two-and- 
 two, mount the dais, "parade" in line, 
 facing the Mace and looking down the Hall. 
 Then, with the Benchers still at attention, the 
 head porter takes a wooden mallet, and strikes 
 with it three distinct blows upon a table as with 
 a lance-butt, representing, soldier-fashion and 
 symbolically, the Invocation of the Trinity. 
 The military part over, the religious portion 
 follows ; as to which the ancient use appears 
 to have been varied, probably in Reformation 
 times. The Grace in question is certainly 
 nearly four hundred years old, and is read by 
 the Treasurer or his deputy, unless no Bencher 
 be present, in which case the priesthood of the 
 original users reasserts itself in Grace being read 
 by the Senior Barrister or Brother present. It 
 needs a superior to read it ; though it is not an 
 act of authority, but of fraternity. The Grace 
 itself is a Lutheran "tisch bot," somewhat 
 varied from the form in which it appears in a 
 black-letter Elizabethan Prayer Book of 1581, 
 in my possession. A friend breaks in here and 
 protests against its being ascribed to Luther, 
 saying it follows directly after Knocks (Knox). 
 But there is an amusing little alteration in the 
 Return Thanks portion, which makes it usable 
 
THE GRACE. 21 
 
 by all denominations, even to Mussulman and 
 Hindoo, running thus : 
 
 " God save His Church " ; 
 
 leaving it to each reader to settle for himself 
 which of them all that Church may happen to 
 be, in his own opinion. It is sometimes un- 
 fairly fudged by an Established Churchman's 
 saying " this " ; Roman Catholics, on the other 
 hand, strongly emphasise " His." 
 
 It is more probable that the original Templar 
 Grace is still preserved in the Inner Temple 
 Hall, where " Benedictus benedicat" calls 
 down the blessing, " Benedicite benedicto " 
 recalls the thanks that are due. It fits in better 
 than does ours between the invocations to the 
 Trinity, which, " struck " before and after our 
 meal, hedge it in as sacramental. 
 
 But the idea still runs on — the place, the food, 
 the partakers, have all been consecrated by the 
 prayer and the ceremony ; all are brethren, the 
 secular arm of authority is out of place, and the 
 Mace at once withdraws, while the meal is 
 eaten in peace. And so utterly has authority 
 yielded place to brotherhood, that any 
 Member who considers himself aggrieved as to 
 the quality of his portion or drink, can at once 
 appeal, not to the butler, who provided it, but 
 to the Treasurer himself, who is bound at once 
 to taste it, and if the complaint be well founded 
 
32 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 to supply a fresh portion ; the idea being that 
 all eat the same meat and all drink the same 
 drink, and that the superior can at once taste 
 and compare the food given to his brother 
 with that which he is himself consuming. The 
 present form of complaining of a joint or a 
 bottle is to send it up by the waiter with the 
 private card of the Captain of the Mess, who, in 
 old days, would have had to take it up himself 
 But the acting Treasurer is bound to do him 
 justice personally. The youngest novice or lay 
 brother, had the right to ask the oldest Knight 
 present for redress if he thought his " commons " 
 (the word speaks volumes) below the mark of 
 those of the high table. No one in those days 
 would have thought it possible that that high 
 table could ever, as it does now, appropriate to 
 its own use the oysters which a benevolent and 
 beneficent Member (may he rest in peace !) left 
 for the benefit of the whole Body of Members, 
 who do not now even get the shells ! 
 
 That in the old days silence prevailed in the 
 Hall is clear from the title of " Parliament " 
 (or speaking-chamber) given to the drawing- 
 room, now also monopolised by the Bench. 
 In place of conversation, two of the Benchers 
 read out for the general benefit legal com- 
 mentaries ; the Readers survive, and twice a 
 year preside in Hall, but their instruction is 
 more agreeably replaced by an addition to the 
 
THE DINNER. 23 
 
 dinner in the shape of a bottle of champagne 
 and a loving cup. 
 
 Our dinner itself consists of fish or soup on 
 alternate days, of joints (of which there is 
 usually a choice), a tart of either gooseberry, 
 rhubarb, or apple, according to the season, 
 bread, cheese, and butter, and a napkin withal. 
 
 We may here notice that the Mace remains 
 outside the Hall until, the dinner being finished 
 and Grace about to be said, it is especially 
 summoned to strike the three mysterious 
 knocks and inaugurate the saying of Grace. 
 Our liquors are port, sherry, hock, champagne, 
 claret, burgundy or moselle ; and if a second 
 quality of wine be applied for, two bottles are 
 given in place of one ; the selection being 
 by vote, in which the Captain has a casting 
 suffrage in cases of equality. Beer is served in 
 large cans fashioned exactly like the old black 
 jack, is of admirable quality and condition, cool, 
 fresh, and sparkling, and in quantity unlimited. 
 
 On nights when a new Bencher takes his 
 first communion with us by dining in Hall, 
 the loving cup, or " cup of blessing," is passed 
 round as the tie of brotherhood with him in his 
 new capacity as Ruling Councillor. On Grand 
 Night — those occasions, one in each term, on 
 which strangers are invited — an extra dish of 
 fowl or duck, and an extra sweet, are given, as 
 in monastic days. And on these nights and 
 
24 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 the birthday of the Prince of Wales, the 
 toast of the Queen is given, but without any 
 speeches. 
 
 The Benchers have, however, the power of 
 putting out of communion by expulsion or 
 disbarral ; there was a time when they sent 
 five Barristers to the Fleet prison as an 
 additional penalty, but until lately the putting 
 out of communion was sometimes carried out 
 at the dinner itself When a Bencher of the 
 Inn became a Judge during the time of Term 
 or Commons (the effect of which was to make 
 him a Member of Serjeant's Inn, and dis- 
 qualify him for his own), he dined for the 
 last time at the dais in the usual way ; but 
 at the close of the meal he rose and left the 
 Hall between heartily-shouted good-byes : as 
 he neared the great door it swung open for 
 his exit, and as it closed on him the bell in 
 the tower overhead tolled solemnly as for a 
 parting soul! He had gone from among us! 
 he was no longer of us ! toll the passing 
 knell. 
 
 The last occasion of this kind took place 
 when Sir George Honyman was raised to the 
 Bench. As Serjeant's Inn has perished, and 
 a judge on appointment no longer resigns his 
 Inn, this ancient form of " Send Ofi"" has gone 
 for ever. 
 
 And we here note another old sacramental 
 
THE COMMUNION. 25 
 
 custom which our present Benchers are endea- 
 vouring to do away with ; on which subject 
 the resentment felt by Members, took such 
 open and unmistakable form as to have caused 
 some little stir and excitement last year. 
 Whenever there are less than two Benchers 
 dining at the high table (the Templars' order 
 is to dine two by two, but a second member 
 might turn up in the course of dinner), it is the 
 custom for the solitary diner, directly he has 
 left the Hall, to invite the eight Senior Mem- 
 bers sitting at the Ancients' Table to take wine 
 and dessert with him in the Parliament Cham- 
 ber ; for this reason, though the gentleman 
 himself in these days does not know it, that 
 ■ one recipient only does not make a com- 
 munion. During the whole of dinner-time a 
 colleague might have entered and, even at the 
 last moment, supplied the void ; but this has 
 not occurred, and the Bencher's act of bounden 
 duty and service, according to his sacramentum, 
 the Roman soldier's oath, has to be perfected 
 by calling to him the nearest Members to eat 
 and drink with him ; they accordingly are 
 invited, and leave the Hall in procession, to 
 find awaiting them in the Parliament Chamber 
 the best wine the Inn cellars hold, with dessert. 
 Coffee and liqueur at eight o'clock close the 
 camaraderie ; the only instance, by the way, in 
 which Benchers and Members now forgather, 
 
26 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 as there used to be a rule that no one should 
 speak to a Bencher in the Hall unless first ad- 
 dressed by him ; indeed, a fiassy superior made 
 one Member's backbone ache, several years 
 ago, by correcting him sharply for infringing 
 it. But this practice is wished to be done 
 away with on the alleged ground that a perky 
 guest once heckled a Bencher upon details on 
 the finances of the Inn, over his tawny port. 
 That Bencher made some confused answer 
 which the Press man picked up and published. 
 Hence, the Benchers are said to have framed 
 a rota among themselves to ensure that there 
 should never be a " Bencher Solus " at dinner 
 any more. But last year one of the told-ofif 
 twins did not turn up to time, and the invita- 
 tion, after some hesitation, had to be given. 
 The pause was noticed. The Captain of the 
 Ancients' Mess, Mr. Peterson, an old and 
 i"espected Member of the Calcutta Bar, and 
 whose name stands connected with the largest 
 fee ever given to an English barrister, over 
 ^20,000, briefly consulted his juniors, and 
 sniffed. When the messenger arrived, the old 
 champion of independence, who, together with 
 the late Lord Macaulay, had been burned in 
 effigy in Calcutta for his championship of Indian 
 ryots against indigo planters, courteously de- 
 clined the invitation. It had never occurred 
 before, and a kind of creep passed over the 
 
GREAT GRAND DAY. 27 
 
 Members when the messenger returned by the 
 way he had come, and with no one following 
 in his steps. 
 
 There remains to notice the extra days in 
 Hall ; the Prince of Wales' birthday, and the 
 two Readers' feasts yearly, all three marked out 
 prominently by an extra bottle of champagne, 
 and also the loving cup. At the first of these 
 H.R.H.'s health is proposed, on the other 
 days the Readers take the chief place in Hall. 
 Grand Day has already been noticed ; the dis- 
 tinguished visitors are much cheered as they 
 pass between the narrow file of shouting and 
 clapping Members ; in fact, they sometimes have 
 difficulty in making their way, so closely do the 
 ranks press forward in greeting the honoured 
 guests of the House. 
 
 It may be noted, however, that on Great 
 Grand Day, i.e., that which occurs in the 
 June term, a faint survival still remains of the 
 Templar custom under which the fragments of 
 the feast were given to the poor. It is a very 
 high feast indeed, and the mace-bearer, on 
 that day only, wears his breastplate of silver 
 embossed with the Lamb and Flag. After the 
 Hall has been cleared of guests and Members, 
 the Inn Warders and servants have supper in 
 it off" the remains of the dinner previously 
 served up. 
 
 There remains Call Day, itself a survival of 
 
28 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 the past existing only in this Inn. At the 
 three other Colleges of the Legal University 
 the neophytes are admitted into Society in the 
 Benchers' private room, the ceremony con- 
 sisting in drinking a glass of wine, itself a form 
 of solemn contract for life, as we see in the 
 precedent of a Hebrew marriage ceremony. 
 But we, in this Inn of memories, do everything 
 in the face of the congregation. The candi- 
 dates, wearing forensic habit for the first time, 
 are marshalled in procession according to their 
 Inn-seniority, and follow the head porter with 
 the Mace, which precedes them then for the 
 first time in their lives. The Postulants are 
 then conducted to a room adjoining that in 
 whiph the Benchers are assembled and sup- 
 posed to be finally scrutinising their qualifica- 
 tions ; not by any means a mere form, as on 
 one occasion a gentleman was rejected at the 
 last moment, at that time a loss to him of time 
 and money, though now an appeal lies to all 
 the Judges against refusal' of call. Another 
 candidate was for some time in peril because 
 he had cut his throat in a fit of mental 
 aberration ; but the Benchers thought he might 
 not do it again in this country, and hence 
 forbore to do it for him in India. 
 
 After doing nothing for an intensely stupid 
 quarter of an hour, the door is opened and 
 they join on to the end of the procession of 
 
THE CALL TO THE BAR. 29 
 
 Benchers which the Mace is now leading. 
 They walk thus up the Hall ; but while the 
 Benchers ascend the dais and parade, the 
 novices form a parallel line on the Hall floor. 
 The two lines of petitioners and petitioned, 
 Masters and Apprentices, thus facing each 
 other, the Under Treasurer or Scribe of the 
 Inn calls out each name separately as a form of 
 request for admission. Silence gives consent. 
 The leading Student steps forward and, by 
 signing the Scribe's book, a most insignificant- 
 looking affair, becomes enrolled. When all 
 have signed, a few well-chosen words from 
 the Treasurer replace the charge once given 
 to new Knights by the Grand Master or his 
 Deputy, ; and then, both ranks still standing, 
 comes the grand act of admission itself, until 
 which is accomplished the ceremonies are not 
 completed. 
 
 Three knocks are given as an invocation 
 of the Most High ; the Prayer of Consecration 
 is heard ; and then the ranks break up, the 
 new Members dining in their wigs and gowns, 
 which they are not to take off until the Com- 
 munion Feast is over. The legal ceremonial 
 has to be accomplished the following day in 
 the Hall of the Supreme Court, where, dressed 
 in his habit, the newly-made Barrister signs 
 the Roll of the Bar of England and has begun 
 his career. 
 
30 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 Then, until the last few years, came revels, 
 perfectly understandable in the days when long 
 vigils, fasting, watching of armour, mortification, 
 prayer, and penitence, had been gone through 
 as passports to a military organisation, and 
 the longed-for relief and reaction were sought 
 for in uproariousness. Just as the Senior 
 Templars did, so now the Benchers withdraw 
 to their own apartment, giving up the use of 
 the Hall not only to Members generally, but 
 also to the invited friends of the newly-called, 
 who are now granted the privilege, to be 
 enjoyed once, but which they are never to enjoy 
 again — that of the society of father, brother, 
 cousin, or school-fellow, sitting side by side with 
 them, in a farewell to the world, amongst that 
 new brotherhood which henceforth for them is 
 to replace the ties of kin. 
 
 The analogy is very complete, and it is hard, 
 when we see how closely it articulates together 
 even now, after six hundred years, not to 
 believe that some of the Templars, novices 
 or squires (as to the Crown's dealing with whom 
 the Close rolls are silent), did not join that 
 fraternity of Law Students for whom their 
 lodging in Holborn had got too small, and 
 who settled themselves afresh into the still 
 warm nest, which, when we come to look into 
 particulars, has brought down to our own era 
 so many memories seven hundred years old. 
 
CALL NIGHT REVELS. 31 
 
 But the modern Grand Night was a survival 
 of tremendous strength. It was a curious kind 
 of sight : a brilliantly lighted hall, filled with 
 men enjoying themselves almost like so many 
 boys again, while from each table, on which 
 were well-arranged desserts, proceeded some 
 different kind of unearthly row. While a 
 health was being proposed the Speaker had 
 possession of the audience ; but it was no un- 
 common thing to see two or three on their 
 legs at once. At another table was a song 
 with chorus, taken up by neighbours con amove ; 
 a third table had a recitation, usually much 
 marred by cat-calls, hisses, cheers, cock-crow- 
 ings, hootings, etc. ; while, when the man 
 had tired out patience, oranges, nuts, apples, 
 biscuits, and other small missiles were pelted 
 at him. On one especially rackety night 
 I was at a side-table where sat a Barrister 
 skilled in projecting peeled almonds from 
 between his finger and thumb ; and his 
 practice at an elderly bald-head in the centre 
 of the Hall was accurate. The victim, struck 
 on the back of his head a dozen times in five 
 minutes, raised his hand, not as before to rub 
 his cranium, but to seize an orange and hurl 
 it at his tormentor with such hearty good-will 
 as, if it had hit him, would have done some 
 damage. It was, however, aimed a trifle high, 
 and only hit the coat-of-arms of Sir Lawrence 
 
32 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 Peel, just above the head of the man aimed at. 
 The thud and the squash would have startled 
 most people, but the man in question simply- 
 looked up and said, " Orange Peel in the 
 right place for once ! " and diverted his atten- 
 tion to another bald-head lower down the 
 Hall. Meantime, some one had started the 
 Marseillaise, and the whole body commenced 
 singing it with tremendous effect, in the midst 
 of which the head porter walked up the Hall 
 and beckoned for silence, as if about to say, 
 " Eleven o'clock, closing-time, gentlemen," a 
 position at all times fearfully contested. At 
 last, however, he roared out something else : 
 " Gentlemen, the Benchers request you to 
 make a little less noise." This capped the 
 whole thing ; pandemonium broke loose worse 
 than ever, and after doing my best to en- 
 courage and inspirit three capital rounds of 
 a fight between an Irish Member and his 
 fellow-countryman visitor, differing over the 
 Home Rule question, and settling it in 
 eminently National fashion, I left the scene 
 of this curious survival, now dead beyond 
 recall. This was so recently as 1883. 
 
 Nor were the pranks confined to the inside 
 of the Hall. The two Societies of the Temple 
 ostensibly preserve order by means of their 
 own Warders, and the City police force are 
 
A COPPER COPPED. 33 
 
 supposed to patrol their Courts merely as 
 deputies of the authorities there. Being extra 
 parochial, this runs from the times of the old 
 parish constable, and there is on the part of 
 the Members a sense as of immunity from 
 being interfered with by all but their own 
 officials, just as actually obtains now in German 
 Universities, where matriculation exempts stu- 
 dents from all police jurisdiction, which is 
 reserved to their own governing body. 
 
 Hence, when on a bright, moonlit Grand 
 Night in the June term, some skylarking 
 went on outside Hall, the City policeman 
 on duty intervened, got chaffed, then angry, 
 and finally lost his temper so far as to arrest 
 a student. Back flew the fiery message into 
 Hall ; the constable had wisely made for 
 Fleet Street (though he would probably have 
 found the gate shut against him when he got 
 there), and with his struggling captive had got 
 as far as Brick Court when the rescuing 
 column overtook them. The captive was freed. 
 Bobby, after a fierce struggle, was seized by 
 legs and wings, his face turned downwards, 
 and with truncheon and helmet borne before 
 him to the tune of " Rule, Britannia ! " taken 
 back into Hall and laid on his back on a table. 
 
 He was then told that he had insulted the 
 Inn and must drink its health in a bottle of 
 champagne by way of amends, which he ex- 
 
 3 
 
34 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 pressed his perfect willingness to do if he sat 
 up to it, during which time the immunities 
 of the Temple from bobbishness were ex- 
 pounded to him by a " very, very far gone " 
 student, in very broad Scotch. He was then 
 put right-side up and escorted back to his 
 Inspector, who had announced his intention 
 of storming the Hall to recover his man ; with 
 the effect of the old Guardsmen who mainly 
 form our Warders drawing themselves together 
 meaningly in a quiet, determined way. The 
 return of the wanderer prevented a row of the 
 very first magnitude, such as will occur when 
 police and soldiers have a misunderstanding, 
 and the soldiers are defending the home they 
 are proud to belong to. 
 
 After storm comes calm, and such was the case 
 at one Call party which had for its President a 
 peculiarly thick-headed, self-asserting, stuck-up, 
 Metropolitan Police Magistrate, no longer on 
 the Bench. There were, perhaps, ten other 
 parties in full blast at the same time, most of 
 the men quite satisfied if they heard, or did not 
 hear, what was afoot at their own symposium. 
 Within six feet of them, on an empty table 
 lower down, stood two students giving an 
 exhibition of boxing with bare knuckles, which 
 presented every appearance of developing into 
 hard hitting, and was being nursed towards 
 
STOUT PORTER. 35 
 
 that result by sympathising lookers-on. Sud- 
 denly a note was presented to the several 
 Captains of the three largest Messes, which 
 the meek bearer, a student and sober, was in 
 
 each case requested to " read out and be 
 
 to you." It ran thus : " As Mr. of 
 
 Police Court is about to make a speech, 
 
 silence at the adjoining tables is requested." 
 Each Captain glared quietly ; passing from 
 chair to chair as gingerly as on the foot-boards 
 of a train in motion, he coasted safely round to 
 the other Captains, and for a wonder got safe 
 back. Then the silence was absolute. 
 
 The Beak evidently felt flattered with the 
 result of his intimation, and, rising up to 
 speak, bowed gracefully round him. Then 
 pandemonium broke loose again, and the 
 Hall re-echoed about as big a row as could 
 be made in it, which continued until the 
 orator danced with rage and shook his fist. 
 When h*e sat down a lull came for very want 
 of breath, and there appeared the big Hall 
 porter, six feet four inches high, dragging up 
 by the collar of his coat a small Barrister of 
 five feet two inches, till he reached the centre 
 of the Hall. Then the porter spoke in his 
 
 deepest and most drunken voice : " By , 
 
 I have a good mind to kill him ! " The 
 threat was distinctly heard in the unnatural 
 hush, and a rush for rescue was at once 
 
36 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 made — a very staggering one. It was the 
 old, old story. The head porter's wife was 
 young and pretty ; she was waiting to receive 
 the men's gowns as they came out of Hall, a 
 task she might certainly have left on such a 
 rackety night to one of the many assistants ; 
 the husband was apparently out of sight (really 
 behind a door looking through the hinges) ; the 
 Barrister was stupid, and, but for the head 
 porter's desire to administer punishment pub- 
 licly, might have got seriously damaged. 
 
 But the end of this somewhat out-of-date 
 Saturnalia came very suddenly, and in the 
 course of three years became as dead as Queen 
 Anne herself. A priggish Bencher, now 
 deceased, who did not smoke, and who while 
 he lived had made his County Court to be 
 abhorred of all men, was seized with a fidget 
 as to the Hall catching fire ; and in this case he 
 had evidence to go upon, a thing which rarely 
 occurred in any of his decisions from the 
 Bench. Members resented the ukase against 
 smoking, all the more because H.R.H. came 
 to dine with us, pendente lite, and lighted his 
 own cigar, just as if there were no Bench order 
 against it. Call parties in Hall ceased, and 
 though Mr. Justice Day, who dearly loves the 
 ways of old, got up an admirable substitute for 
 it during his Treasurership in 1890, the example 
 has not since been followed. 
 
ARMS AND LEGS. 37 
 
 One more little-noticed feature of the fittings 
 of our Hall may be mentioned. Matthew Paris 
 tells us that it was the Templars' practice to 
 suspend round the Hall their shields-of-arms, 
 and each new Reader has for some three 
 centuries followed this example. 
 
 The beauty of our Middle Temple Hall is 
 much enhanced by the light which glances off 
 these gilt-framed shields on which are em- 
 blazoned the armorial bcci^rings of the Members 
 who for nearly three hundred years have filled 
 the positions of Lent and Autumnal Readers. 
 So much has the number mounted up that the 
 difficulty is where to plade, the new arrivals ; 
 and they have now to be placed behind the 
 Benchers' dinner- table, where they are prac- 
 tically invisible. 
 
 Considering the large numbers of successful 
 lawyers who have sprung, from nothing, it is 
 wonderful where all the blazpnings and mottoes 
 have come from. Some indeed meet the diffi- 
 culty by showing a blank escutcheon with 
 nothing charged, while two exhibit fancy 
 heraldry. One gentleman bears on his shield 
 one shoe only — presumably he wore a wooden 
 leg ; while Mr. Soullar, Q.C., has a pair of 
 soles as seen by the pavement, if it has eyes ; 
 alluding, it is said, to his having been origin- 
 ally a cobbler; not, by the way, so humble 
 a calling in the land of wooden clogs as it 
 
38 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 appears at first blush of it to leather-wearing 
 Southrons. 
 
 The Benchers' Corridor contains some curious 
 prints of the Temple in past centuries, and a 
 plaster bust of the illustrious Havelock, once 
 a student here. 
 
 Here, too, one can inspect a picture of the 
 Benchers of the Inn as they were some ten 
 years back, with H.R.H. in the chair, im- 
 mortalised in a picture painted for posterity. 
 Those Members are said to have paid ;^8 
 apiece for the insertion of their portraits, 
 but the artist has so manipulated the like- 
 nesses that, even for the age in which they 
 lived, a key with names has had to be 
 placed by the side. It makes, however, a 
 pretty and interesting picture, and the corridor, 
 which is top-lighted, is the pleasantest place 
 in the Inn buildings. Prominent there, how- 
 ever, is the Lesson of Life — " Be not high- 
 minded, but fear." There is hung up in it 
 a framed vote of thanks to the Bench for 
 the use of its Hall by the International Prison 
 Congress, signed by its then President, Mr. 
 G. W. Hastings, late M.P., and now a 
 practical student of the question as a convict 
 under five years' penal servitude. 
 
 And the Hall has been lately put once 
 more to its pristine and proper use by the 
 provision of lunch from one to three, It 
 
MELIORA CANAMUS. 39 
 
 seems to be good, cheap, and well served, 
 and a glass of the unequalled Inn beer costs 
 but a penny. 
 
 As the long-talked-of idea of building a new 
 Common Room in Garden Court seems to have 
 died away, there remains a hope, that, under 
 the more liberal system of ideas which may be 
 expected as a natural reaction from the present 
 system of government by fathers, sons, 
 brothers-in-law, old pupils, and the mutual 
 co-optation in general, which at present obtains 
 and daily gets worse, some attempt may be 
 made to open the Hall for longer hours, to put 
 in newspapers, and thus enable Members to 
 enjoy their inheritance ; not that it does not 
 even now serve a noble purpose. As it is, 
 the grand old place does play a leading and 
 elevating part in the Education of Man.' It 
 practically destroys Caste. There, and there 
 only, in growing numbers, do Christian, Mussul- 
 man, Buddhist, Brahmin, Hindoo, Parsee, 
 Chinaman, Sikh, Jat, Japanese, Burman, 
 Negro, and the votaries of the mysteries of 
 Voodhoo, not only sit down together in 
 harmony, but eat in peace of the same food 
 and under the same religious invocation of 
 the Father of All. 
 
 It is but little, you may say, and the lump 
 large ; but the little ferment that is to transmute 
 and re-vivify the whole mass is composed of 
 
40 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 the future leaders of the people to whom they 
 return, and those in very truth The Families 
 OF ALL Mankind, The Professors of all 
 THE Faiths in which The Eternal is 
 approached by His creatures. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 Many years ago, during the TreamrersMp of Mr. Milward, Q.C., 
 " Twelfth Night" was read by Mr. Brandram in the Middle 
 Temple Hall, wherein it was first produced on January sth, 
 1602, 6y the Lord Chamberlain's Company of Players, of 
 which Shakespeare was one of the managers, taking also 
 an actor's part. The Inn had therein followed suit to 
 Grays Inn, in whose Hall in 1594 had been produced for 
 the first time the " Comedy of Errors!' At that time, and 
 for a quarter of a century in all, the Master of the Revels 
 there was the illustrious Bacon. The Inns of Court availed 
 themselves of the London Theatre Companies in the pro- 
 duction of all their pageants and shows, and one of the 
 most welcome of the guests of our Inn, if indeed he had not 
 been actively engaged in the production of the play from, the 
 first, would be the Furnisher of the Sports from Holbom. 
 Let us consider this more at length, and under a somewhat 
 peculiar title : — 
 
 DID BACON WRITE SHAKESPEARE'S EPITAPH? 
 
 PEOPLE in search of a pleasant little shock 
 to the nerves may find a little healthy 
 excitement in joining the " Bacon " Society, 
 which meets periodically at the houses of its 
 chief members, with (at least in the case which 
 I was privileged to attend) a very substantial 
 champagne supper as a wind up to the in- 
 vestigation. 
 
 If it be considered that the Society's first 
 41 
 
42 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 postulate is, that all real evidence as to the 
 authorship of the plays was designedly sup- 
 pressed from the very beginning, by a Master of 
 Statecraft, skilled in plot and counterplot where 
 men's lives and fortunes were the stakes ; and, 
 further, that the concealment of the authorship 
 of a few dramas patronised chiefly by the dis- 
 solute among the higher classes, and attended 
 only by the poor ones, though in their thousands, 
 was a matter of very easy accomplishment, — 
 Mrs. Henry Pott has an excellent chance of 
 getting her case heard if she will only give it 
 fair play, and not prejudice herself by the use 
 of such words as "Shaxper" and "the Strat- 
 ford man," "deer-stealing vagabond," "horse- 
 holder outside the stage door," etc. Nor need 
 the lady, whose zeal and courage are undoubted, 
 press forward as another personal disparagement 
 that very early story about the retired manager's 
 having died as the result of a drinking bout 
 with Drayton and Ben Jonson in April 1616. 
 Not only does that story rest on the authority 
 of the Vicar of Stratford, at a time too when 
 drunkenness was not a criminal offence, but it 
 is prima facie by no means improbable. On 
 the contrary, it is more probable than not. 
 Such contests lasted centuries after Shake- 
 speare's time ; the days of the Restoration are 
 full of them; there is the example of that 
 pious monarch known to her then loving 
 
DID BACON WRITE SHAKESPEARE'S EPITAPH? 43 
 
 subjects as " Brandy Nan," who alienated 
 the bounty which bears her name from the 
 State (it was a handy little sum of ;^ 14,000 
 a year) the morning after a heavy boose, as 
 atonement for her kick over the traces. It 
 was a cheap form of penitence which cost 
 her nothing, and party Tory spirit kept the 
 little transfer out of sight when the Queen 
 next came to Parliament for money to pay 
 her ;^2, 000,000 of debt. Later on, there 
 were the Mansion House swillings, when men 
 brought their night-caps in their pockets and 
 put them on after dinner, and when pages 
 would creep under the table and loosen the 
 neck-cloths of those for whom the heavy wet 
 had been too much. Then there were the 
 Prince Regent and his brothers and all their 
 society, half-gallon men at least ; in fact, heavy 
 drinking has only now gone out of fashion 
 under the gentle, decency-loving sway of an 
 almost pattern monarch. Nay, more, a book 
 that never can die, a book always fresh when- 
 ever one takes it up, " Pickwick," absolutely 
 reeks of brandy and water, and this in the year 
 1838 ! Ten years later than this, I myself re- 
 member the standing contest between Dundee 
 and Glasgow being fought over again at 
 Dunoon on the Clyde ; the champions were 
 not of the pot-house order, but an Admiral and 
 a large Glaswegian ship-owner. The ordeal 
 
44 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 was as to the greatest number of tumblers of 
 whisky-punch which either side could consume 
 in a long autumn afternoon, between a one- 
 o'clock dinner and supper. Each man went 
 as he pleased, with a friend of his opponent's 
 tallying the mutchkins, but in the end the 
 record remained unchanged. The " Glaskie 
 body" found room inside for 22, which should 
 be 5 J pints of whisky, but he was beaten by 
 the Dundee man, who, as usual, scored 24, or 
 six pints of alcohol — three quarts ! three-quarters 
 of a gallon ! ! 4 J bottles ! ! ! Here it was 
 not " one " party who died of the bout, as in 
 Shakespeare's case, but both. The child of the 
 Clyde was dying when they removed him from 
 the carpet on which he had fallen ; the son of 
 the Dee died, at the hotel to which he was 
 removed, within a week. 
 
 Now all this is nearly three centuries after 
 Shakespeare is said to have seen "the other 
 two men under the table." It was no disgrace 
 in 1848 ; it could hardly have been one in 16 16, 
 
 Shakespeare's bout with the Bidford village 
 has very good evidence to back it. He walked 
 leisurely over the hill, met the local champions, 
 on whose names he made rhymes which have 
 come down to us, sat down with them, saw 
 them all under the table, and, like the bagman's 
 uncle in " Pickwick," helped himself to a final 
 glass and strolled away home. But the cold 
 
DID BACON WRITE SHAKESPEARE'S EPITAPH? 45 
 
 air caused the fumes of the spirit to mount to 
 his brain, just as with the bagman's uncle 
 referred to. He fell down, and passed the 
 summer night under a crab tree, which subse- 
 quently bore the name of Shakespeare's Canopy, 
 till it was cut down some ninety years ago. 
 Shakespeare was a wealthy and well-known 
 man, and this alone caused an incident to be 
 locally ear-marked which in a meaner man 
 would have been thought nothing of 
 
 Now let us see if Mrs. Pott and her hardly- 
 driven Society have overlooked any evidence 
 which slipped out immediately after Bacon's 
 death in 1625, when the close watch hitherto 
 kept, and the reason for it, were alike removed, 
 and which may throw any light on the subject, 
 — say, by showing the same idea (and that a 
 classical one) couched in similar words upon 
 an identical subject at about the same period ; 
 occurring too, practically simultaneously, in one 
 book of which Bacon was the admitted author, 
 and another edited by the literary executors 
 of Shakespeare. 
 
 Not till Bacon's death was it possible to 
 make this contrast. He was good at keeping 
 his own secrets. The skill with which his 
 wife's unknown, but unpardonable, offence 
 against him was concealed from the world, 
 though she survived him by a quarter of a 
 century ; the secrecy with which the double life 
 
46 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 he himself led was kept from the knowledge 
 of his most puritanical, and tyrannical too, of 
 mothers, warrant our assuming that he could 
 keep an authorship secret of a very small kind, 
 at least as closely as did Sir Walter Scott, who 
 went the unheard-of length of quoting in his 
 novels, and that with commendation, from his 
 own "Lay of the Last Minstrel." Sir Walter's 
 own secret, too, remained dark till he himself 
 let it out. 
 
 We shall endeavour, later on, to strengthen 
 the Bacon Society's case (with the reason why) 
 for this reticence, and it will be found a simple 
 enough solution, through many points of which 
 the equation they make up will pass. But 
 let us place this fresh evidence, if such it be, 
 in the field. 
 
 In Bacon's Life of Henry VII., published in 
 1622, pages 247 and 248, there appears as the 
 concluding sentence an epitaph upon that king ; 
 and in the second folio of Shakespeare, published 
 in 1632, appears the " epitaph on the Admirable 
 Dramatick Poet Mr. William Shakespeare." 
 
 Both passages have as their author's last 
 thought, and as their closing lines, the reflec- 
 tion that a man is more richly sepulchred in 
 a written monument of his fame, than in any 
 material tomb, however sumptuous or even 
 regal it may be. The idea is Horace's : — 
 "Exegi monumentum sere perennius," 
 
DID BACON WRHE SHAKESPEARE'S EPITAPH? 47 
 
 and therefore familiar to a scholar with a fine 
 ear for rhythm and swing. Such learning was 
 common enough among the courtiers of " King 
 Elizabeth," and the example of George 
 Buchanan had kept it alive in the reign of 
 Scotch "Jamie." 
 
 Let us see how it is worked out in these two 
 books, published within ten years of each other. 
 
 "The Epitaph on the 
 Admirable Dramatick Poet 
 Mr. William Shakespeare " 
 (2nd, 3rd, and 4th folios). 
 
 "What needs my Shake- 
 speare for his Hallowed 
 
 Bones ? 
 A pyramid of earth in piled 
 
 stones, 
 Or that his mortal relics 
 
 should be hid 
 Beneath some starre-y- 
 
 pointing pyramid? 
 Dear Son of Memory, great 
 
 Heir of Fame, 
 Why needs the World such 
 
 witness of thy Name ? 
 Thou in our wonder and 
 
 astonishment 
 Hast built thyself a lasting 
 
 monument. 
 And so sepulchered in such 
 
 state dost lie, 
 That kings for such a tomb 
 
 would wish to die." 
 
 Bacon, "Henry VH.," 
 pp. 247-8, conclusion. 
 
 " Ife lyeth buried at 
 Westminster in one of the 
 Statelyest and Daintiest 
 Monuments of Europe both 
 for the Chappell, and for 
 the Sepulcher. So that hee 
 dwelkth more richly Dead, 
 in the Monument of his 
 Tombe, than he did Alive in 
 Richmond, or any of his 
 Palaces. I could wish he 
 did the like, in this Monu- 
 ment of his Fame." 
 
48 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 Now this epitaph dates itself to a nicety ; it 
 is a burst of warm, heart-felt affection for a 
 friend, thrown off just after Shakespeare's burial, 
 and before the precise shape of the present 
 monument at Stratford, the only one of his 
 own time which exists, had been decided on ; 
 nay, at the time while it was being debated 
 among friends and admirers of his genius. 
 
 Let us spot two phrases in the epitaph — " my 
 Shakespeare " and " our wonder and astonish- 
 ment." They are perfectly natural 'ones ; but, 
 as to this epitaph for a man whose social talents 
 made so firm a mark in the memory of his 
 epitaphist, that he could keep it by him for the 
 next sixteen years, why came these lines, full 
 as they are of almost Miltonian music, to be 
 left out of the first edition of 1623 and yet 
 appear in the second edition of 1632 ? Surely 
 there must have been some cause for the omis- 
 sion of this tribute of an affectionate friend of 
 such commanding genius, from the first folio, 
 which had ceased to exist when the second 
 saw the light ! Ben Jonson's rugged tribute 
 could be prefixed, but why should this still 
 grander one be left out ? During that nine 
 years between 1623 and 1632 the restraint, 
 whatever it was, vanished. Why ? 
 
 I may say at once here, that I propose to 
 adduce ground to prove incontestably that not 
 only were Bacon and Shakespeare known to 
 
DID BACON WRITE SHAKESPEARE'S EPITAPH? 49 
 
 each other, but were in constant hand-grip for 
 a quarter of a century ; associated in large 
 enterprises, involving the transfer of large sums 
 of money ; mutually in need of each other ; and 
 boon companions as well, in some of those 
 drinking parties which formed the sole amuse- 
 ment of that day, and^ in one of which, if the 
 Stratford Rector's account be true — and it has 
 never been questioned until lately — the younger 
 of the two died. 
 
 To go on with our microscoping the epitaph 
 — let us look closely into its composition — the 
 writer must have been a man in years, and of 
 grave and sober habits of thought, to have 
 imagined and given utterance to such grand 
 organ music — resembling Milton's " Lycidas " 
 and Tennyson's " In Memoriam," where also, 
 after long lapse of years, the loss of a personal 
 friend, one's other self, is bewailed. Moreover 
 the writer had first learned to use his pen in 
 pre-Jacobean days, from his using the word 
 " starre-y-pointing," the " y " prefix being in 
 common use about the middle of the sixteenth 
 century and dying out before its close. 
 
 The upshot therefore seems, so far, to be 
 this : that the writer of the epitaph was a 
 scholar with the classics at his fingers' ends, 
 courtier, man of taste, personal friend and 
 appreciator of Shakespeare's wit, and brought 
 up in traditions of the middle of Elizabeth's 
 
 4 
 
50 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 reign at latest. All of which would imply 
 familiar knowledge of that poet of whom it 
 is written : — 
 
 " Horace still charms with graceful negligence, 
 And, without method, wins us into sense ; 
 Can, like a friend, familiarly convey 
 The truest doctrines in the easiest way, 
 Yet judged with coolness though he sang with fire " ; 
 
 and this knowledge could hardly have been 
 acquired by a youth who, having learned at 
 a grammar school small Latin and less Greek, 
 was bound apprentice to a butcher when thirteen 
 years old. 
 
 Now Bacon was not only double-sided or 
 many-sided, but he was also double-lived. He 
 occupied chambers in Gray's Inn, and lived 
 there the life of a man about town, sufficiently 
 rackety in those days. He was fond of prac- 
 tical jokes, like any medical Bob Sawyer. He 
 made no move towards marriage till he was 
 forty, and then only with the wealthy virago 
 Lady Hatton. He did not actually marry till 
 he was forty-three, and then with the daughter 
 of a City Alderman, of whose wealth he speaks 
 in appreciative terms, as if that was the magnet 
 to matrimony rather than the lady. His rela- 
 tions with all females, and that in this most 
 dissolute age, are shrouded in darkness as 
 impenetrable as the offence which his wife had 
 
DID BACON WRITE SHAKESPEARE'S EPITAPH? 51 
 
 committed, and for which he deprived her of 
 every shilhng, a sentence she meekly submitted 
 to — a pretty sure proof of its truth, for she sur- 
 vived him twenty-five years, and never seems 
 to have claimed even her dower out of the 
 lands he left to strangers. 
 
 Bacon was the son of a Puritan mother of 
 the strictest sect, who ruled her children, even 
 when grown up, with a rod of iron; could, would, 
 and did call upon both her sons, when grown 
 men, for a continual report on their actions, as 
 if they were children standing by her knee ; 
 could, would, and did send up her servant Peter 
 from Gorhambury to look them up in chambers ; 
 could, would, and did rate theln like beaten 
 hounds for the shortcomings which, with all 
 their care, they could not conceal from her (and 
 Peter). This had its natural result — the 
 weakening of the .fibre of both men. Perhaps 
 it was as much to maternal crushing out of 
 all mental independence, as to the conscious- 
 ness of awkward secrets that might at any 
 moment come to light, that the great and 
 glaring meannesses of all Bacon's life are due, 
 — such as his squirming to the Court ; his 
 accepting money from Essex, whom he was 
 afterwards to hound to death, and even further 
 to defame in memory, for a bribe from the 
 Court ; his servility to Southampton ; his tam- 
 pering with the judges in the interest of the 
 
52 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 Crown in Peacham's case, whom he personally- 
 questioned, while the old clergyman of seventy 
 was undergoing the torture of the rack. 
 
 Nor was this all — he could fawn upon the 
 miscreant Carre, and spend what amounts to 
 ;^i i,ooo of our own money, when that murderer 
 of Sir Thomas Overbury was married to the 
 adulterous divorced wife of the son of that Earl 
 of Essex, whom he had first fawned on and 
 afterwards consigned to axe and block. This 
 large outlay was made too by a man who knew 
 the value of money, and whose extravagance 
 upon some object or other, and that for jewellery, 
 had caused his arrest, and his being carried to 
 a sponging house for ^300, in 1598. 
 
 When Carre's cup of iniquity was full, and 
 Criminal Justice brought upon him and his wife 
 sentence of death for the murder of Sir Thomas 
 Overbury by poison while a prisoner in the 
 Tower, the assassins were pardoned by their 
 not improbable accomplice James I., who was 
 mixed up in it somehow. The criminals were 
 subjected by the Great Judge of us all to the 
 most terrible sentence that surely ever was 
 pronounced : left to themselves, to reside 
 together in a lonely Manor House, their love 
 turned into hatred, without intercourse or corre- 
 spondence with each other, and existing thus till 
 extreme old age brought the order of release. 
 
 And yet, such is the subtle irony that runs 
 
DID BACON WRITE SHAKESPEARE'S EPITAPH? 53 
 
 through our lives, the sole daughter of 
 these convicted murderers was to become the 
 mother of Lord WiUiam Russell, and to unite 
 together in her own mind the remembrance of 
 her mother's vices and crimes, with all that is 
 beautiful in our idea of womanhood, exemplified 
 in her son's wife, the Lady Rachel. 
 
 Were it not to throw light upon the utter 
 absence of all manliness when an end was to be 
 gained, the further incidents of Bacon's absolute 
 prostration before the king's next favourite 
 might not be necessary. Sir John Villiers, 
 Buckingham's brother, had carried off the 
 wealthy daughter of ex-Lord Chief Justice 
 Coke. The father had pursued and recovered 
 the lady, and sought to keep her and her 
 large fortune from the adventurer. Bacon had 
 taken the father's side, until such time as 
 Buckingham threatened him with the king's 
 resentment. Then, haste was made to undo 
 everything ; proceedings in the Star Chamber 
 withdrawn ; Lady Coke informed that the very 
 fount of equity to which all others could resort 
 for redress would not assist her ; and, as 
 Buckingham continued obdurate, grovelling 
 personal self-abasement was resorted to. On 
 two successive days the highest civil function- 
 ary in the kingdom, the most eminent man of 
 letters in the world, repaired to Buckingham's 
 house and was denied admission to him. Yet 
 
54 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 the Lord High Chancellor of England, with 
 the Great Seal -of England by his side, 
 remained in the ante-room amongst foot-boys, 
 seated on an old wooden box, until at length 
 the upstart admitted him to get rid of him. 
 When this at length happened. Bacon flung 
 himself on the floor, and vowed never to rise 
 again until he was forgiven. 
 
 After this, the " greatest, brightest, wisest 
 of mankind " fixed himself like a leech to 
 Buckinghcun, and once more prostituted Justice 
 to secure to his patron monopolies, lucrative to 
 his relations and his creatures, but ruinous and 
 vexatious to the body of the people. He even 
 went the length of committing several persons 
 to prison for infringing those patents. On the 
 utter and grovelling submission to his fate, 
 when the end of all things, and downfall, came, 
 we need not linger ; but we have here thrown 
 on the screen the image of a mind, from which 
 maternal' tyranny had removed every spark of 
 independence, and, so to speak, backbone. 
 
 Yet how he loved that mother ! During 
 life, her harsh commands were carefully obeyed 
 and listened to ; when the stroke of death 
 approached her, the son's letter betrays almost 
 inconsolable grief; and when her coffin had 
 gone to the vault at the little church within 
 the ambit of Roman Verulam, her son had no 
 thought but to be buried in her grave. 
 
DID BACON WRITE SHAKESPEARE'S EPITAPH? 55 
 
 As to his public life, there could be no 
 concealment from her ; but his private life — 
 though his uncle, Lord Burleigh, could refuse 
 him promotion on the direct ground of his 
 " vanities " — could, to a very great extent, be 
 hidden ; only too willing as such a high-minded 
 and noble woman would be to avert her eyes 
 from, and close her ears to, the proceedings of 
 a Court as dissolute as was that of the first 
 Stuart. 
 
 Puritan enough in all other respects, Lady 
 Ann Bacon's pet horror was stage-plays, and 
 the perverseness of human nature drew her son 
 in that very direction. He took it out under 
 the cover of those sumptuous and costly 
 masques, which seem to have cost as much 
 to mount as did that celebrated Babil and 
 Baboche — put on the stage at a cost of 
 ^35,000 by a nobleman, in order that one 
 particular lady might act the leading part. 
 
 We know that Bacon took a very prominent 
 part in these spectacles ; he was for twenty- 
 five years Master of Revels at Gray's Inn ; 
 which went in for that kind of thing, and 
 employed the Lord Chamberlain's Company 
 of Actors to produce Shakespeare's Comedy 
 of Errors there in 1594. He stood in such 
 a position with regard to pageants that he 
 could approach the three other Inns of Court 
 with a view of presenting a masque by the 
 
56 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 Members of all four Inns jointly, on the 
 occasion of the marriage of Carre with the 
 infamous Lady Frances Howard in 1613. 
 
 But this last was a little too much ; even 
 from the Attorney-General and head of the 
 Bar. Lawyers had a kind of shrewd forecast 
 that within a year from that time bride and 
 bridegroom would be lying in the Tower 
 under sentence of death for murder ; hence 
 Bacon got the pageant up at his own expense, 
 ;^2,ooo, some ;^ 12,000 of our money. It was 
 a beautiful masque, and the Gray's Inn people 
 re-presented it some few years back under its 
 old name of The Masque of Flowers, but 
 not, of course, at such a cost, though they 
 availed themselves of similar channels for its 
 production. Now ;^ 12,000 of our money is a 
 good deal, and it would have to be distributed 
 amongst a great many people, through trust- 
 worthy hands accustomed to deal with such 
 persons ; and it is necessary to consider, as the 
 Irishmen say, "How the money came to go." 
 
 These pageants required, for their being 
 successfully carried out, a large quantity of men 
 and material. Among the requisites were 
 scenery, musicians, dresses, mechanical traps 
 and other appliances, stage machinery and 
 fittings, with men capable of erecting and 
 working them, lights and lamp-trimmers — all 
 of which existed then as now, in working order 
 
DID BACON WRITE SHAKESPEARE'S EPITAPH? 57 
 
 in the London theatres, and in them alone. 
 Moreover, when all these had been provided 
 and set up, they would be so much dead stock 
 without an acting manager and his assistants 
 to superintend rehearsals, teach a speaker how 
 to manage his voice, organise the dances, 
 arrange the processions, and drill into keeping 
 step and time, lines of volunteers, very jealous 
 of precedence among themselves, and much 
 too high in rank to be advanced in proficiency 
 by being roundly sworn at — a form of coaching 
 not even yet unknown (so they say) in scenic 
 training in our own time. All these qualities 
 existed in Shakespeare, whom Greene in 1598 
 calls " an absolute factotum." 
 
 Now these essentials did exist in Bacon's 
 time, and in such good working order as 
 to be able to get gentlemen of Gray's Inn 
 " letter-perfect" in three weeks from the start. 
 That good working tuition could only be due 
 to there being constant employment for it ; and 
 all this would require a large expenditure of 
 money, which must come from the hands of 
 the Master of the Revels, in this case, for a 
 quarter of a century. Bacon. In the case of 
 The Masque of Flowers he found the money 
 out of his own pocket. 
 
 Could these arrangements have been made 
 without contact between paymaster and " fac- 
 totum " managers? Could Bacon, in the pro- 
 
58 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 duction of a masque which cost him ;^ 12,000, 
 have avoided being in constant consultation, 
 nay, more (in his desire to procure good-will 
 and avoid friction), personal friendship, even 
 hand-grip, with the several managers who ran 
 the playhouses ? We know indeed that one, 
 and he not of the cleanest living among them, 
 Ben Jonson, was a personal friend of Bacon's 
 as well as Shakespeare's, that he was present 
 as such in the distinguished circle assembled at 
 York House on the Lord Chancellor's sixtieth 
 birthday, and wrote an ode upon it, still extant. 
 This being so, if Bacon could entertain as a 
 guest at his table an actor who had once been 
 a bricklayer, and was never in the best of 
 feather, how could he fail to know the actor- 
 manager of one of the great theatres of the 
 day, a man come from a family higher in social 
 rank, and with money in his purse, as his 
 purchases of land and theatre-building go to 
 prove ? Could Bacon have avoided knowing the 
 " absolute factotum " Shakespeare intimately ? 
 have possibly escaped being in constant touch 
 with him during the getting up of these 
 pageants ? and still more when money had to be 
 paid for them, and it was necessary to see that 
 it passed into right hands? Does there exist 
 in some lumber-room of Gray's Inn, perhaps 
 stowed away under the roof, any bundles of 
 old accounts which show how the masques 
 
DID BACON WRITE SHAKESPEARE'S EPITAPH? 59 
 
 were paid for, and who received the money for 
 the salaries ? The Civil War proved fatal to 
 much MS. of that kind, but in these days of 
 patient search after small matters, some one 
 might surely enter on a research that might 
 bring to light a seventh autograph of Shake- 
 speare ; though as none of the existing six 
 (or five ?) are in the least alike, it might confuse 
 the question further by showing that practice 
 had not made Shakespeare perfect in signing 
 his name. We further know that Shakespeare 
 got a great deal of money from somewhere, 
 for he had a great deal of it to invest. In 
 1597 — ten years from the time when he came 
 to London and began to earn money by holding 
 horses outside the theatre doors — he had saved 
 enough to buy New Place, one of the best 
 mansions in Stratford. The Inns of Court 
 have always been good paymasters. 
 
 Let us take the evidence a little more cate- 
 gorically. Bacon supervised the Gray's Inn 
 people when getting up a masque for their Inn 
 revels in 1586, and in the production of the 
 Comedy of Errors in 1594; he produced the 
 Masque of Flowers there at Carre's wedding in 
 161 3, so that for twenty-seven years he was con- 
 tinuously engaged in getting up these pageants. 
 Shakespeare came to town somewhere about 
 1586. Now the great Company of Players to 
 which Shakespeare belonged, and which worked 
 
6o MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 three theatres, was called the Lord Cham- 
 berlain's Company. Shakespeare had followed 
 this troupe up from Stratford, and continued 
 a member of it till 1612 or more. That this 
 Company was made use of for the production of 
 masques, and that it did this very well, is clear 
 from the following letter, which Mr. Spedding 
 holds to have been addressed to Carre by Bacon 
 just before the marriage in December 161 3 
 (Spedding's " Life of Bacon," vol. iv., p. 389). 
 Mr. Spedding connects Bacon with Carre by 
 means of a cringing letter published by him, in 
 which Bacon, earlier in this year, begs for the 
 Chiefship of the Court of Wards, and which 
 Bacon didn't get. Now here is this letter of 
 December 161 3 to Carre verbatim : — 
 
 "It may please your good Lordship — I am 
 sorry the joint Mask from the four Innes of 
 Court faileth, wherein I conceive there is no 
 other ground of that event but impossibility. 
 Nevertheless it faileth out that at this time 
 Gray's Inn is well furnished of gallant young 
 gentlemen ; your Lordship may be pleasd to 
 know that rather than this occasion shall pass 
 without some demonstration from the Innes of 
 Court there is a dozen gentlemen of Gray's 
 Inn that out of the honor they bear to your 
 Lordship and my Lord Chamberlain to whom 
 at their last mask they were so much bounden, 
 will be ready to furnish a mask, wishing it were 
 
DID BACON WRITE SHAKESPEARE'S EPITAPH? 6i 
 
 in their power to perform it according to their 
 minds. — Fr. Bacon." * 
 
 Now the Lord Chamberlain's players were 
 the best in London. They received a fresh 
 Royal Charter on the accession of James I., 
 and Shakespeare was identified as acting 
 manager with this Company, walked in the 
 Royal Procession from the Tower to West- 
 minster, and even found money to build 
 Blackfriars Theatre for it. 
 
 But there is one point still further. Could 
 any of these player-folk, to whom the very 
 name of " Bacon " meant money, and large sums 
 of it to be distributed in employment, refuse 
 to carry out any little private matter which 
 he might wish arranged on the quiet ? The 
 spirit of the times was distinctly against up- 
 setting employers' arrangements when a lady 
 was in the case ; but as there were no female 
 actors then, would not this guide the itching 
 palm into other directions ? " Write me this 
 lampoon, and put it out in your own name ! " was 
 a behest faithfully carried out, in Charles IL's 
 time at all events, and there were plenty 
 of men who publicly held themselves out for 
 such work. " Alter this pamphlet for me," 
 " Put this song into the ' true originall copie ' 
 
 * The Lord Chamberlain was the Earl of Suffolk, father 
 of the bride, and in intimate touch with Carre as a matter 
 of course. 
 
62 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 of the text," or " Bring out for me this play, 
 which, in my position, I dare not own." 
 There was no disgrace in it — not, as we 
 sorrowfully know, that Bacon cared much for 
 that. He might at his age, and in his then 
 impecunious personal position, explain to a 
 boon companion (in 1594): " My mother leads 
 me life enough as it is, and she will be ten 
 times worse if she knows that I attend stage- 
 plays, which she abominates the very name 
 of — if she knew I wrote any she would be 
 ungovernable. The letter I got last week, 
 about a thing not half as bad as this, was nasty 
 enough. She lives but a few hours' ride off, 
 and sends her man Peter to look me up twice 
 a week. She would never let him leave my 
 chambers at all if she knew that it was I who 
 had turned that new Italian novel, which 
 you can't read, into Two Gentlemen of 
 Verona. Now, like a good fellow, mount 
 this, and bring it out for me and call it 
 your own. I will take care you sha'n't lose 
 by it." 
 
 We know that something like this did 
 actually occur when the Comedy of Errors 
 was first represented at Gray's Inn Hall under 
 the direct supervision of Bacon as Master of 
 Revels there in 1 594. The Comedy of Errors 
 is a classical subject, general plan and details 
 alike taken from Plautus, an author with whom 
 
DID BACON WRITE SHAKESPEARE'S EPITAPH? 63 
 
 Bacon was certainly more familiar than Shake- 
 speare, who knew " small Latin and less 
 Greek " ; he would not be an author studied at 
 Stratford grammar school. Lady Ann Bacon 
 lived seven years longer, and by the time she 
 died the practice would have become too 
 much a matter of course to be easily changed 
 — the Company, and Shakespeare too, both 
 stubbornly resisting an alteration in what had 
 worked well enough so far. 
 
 Such a position, it is submitted, is perfectly 
 natural, possible, and not improbable ; would 
 satisfy all the curves of the equation, and 
 reconcile as well, the admitted inferiority of 
 the poems to the plays ; would answer the 
 never-ending difficulty of how it happens that 
 a man who could not write his own name six 
 consecutive times alike, could put on paper 
 such a mass of " copy " as the plays, even if 
 written but once over, which is hardly likely, 
 would necessitate ; it would even solve a 
 difficulty raised by the Rev. James Bell. At 
 the time I write, it is wished to claim Shake- 
 speare as a prophet ! H istory is but philosophy 
 teaching by example! Who could draw her 
 lessons from so many sources as the philosopher 
 who, in the course of one afternoon, while ill 
 at ease, could dictate from memory to his 
 secretary three hundred apophthegms embody- 
 ing the fruits of history ? and who could so well 
 
64 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 reason from the past to the future as the 
 philosopher who wrote Bacon's Essays ? 
 
 We have but one more matter to bring in 
 in order to square with this theory — Shake- 
 speare's known and admitted " Wit." That it 
 existed is clear from Ben Jonson's lines, 
 
 "Oh could you but have seen his Wit." 
 
 Now on this point all his contemporaries are 
 clear, and there can be no doubt that Shake- 
 speare did enjoy, in an especial degree, that 
 power of bringing two utterly incongruous 
 ideas into one focus with a ludicrous result, 
 which is one of the greatest amenities of life, 
 and a very attractive accomplishment to its 
 possessor. Men of all kinds vouch for this 
 wit of Shakespeare's : Marlowe, killed in a 
 tavern brawl ; and Dekker, v/ho choked him- 
 self by eating too quickly a crust when starv- 
 ing. And the word "wit" itself has always 
 meant allusion more to spoken, than written 
 humour, even down to the days of Dryden and 
 the Devil Tavern. A witty fellow meant a 
 man of verbal sallies. Nay, more, it was " wit 
 over the wine-cup," and this is where those 
 lower in the social grade would have their one 
 chance of hearing it. Men, however clever 
 and quick, swore over their work — they were 
 too busy to make jokes over it. That was 
 reserved for the evening and night, when, 
 
DID BACON WRITE SHAKESPEARE'S EPITAPH? 65 
 
 work wholly over, the social bowl — the cup, 
 the " Sherris Sack " — would call out all their 
 latent brilliancy. (What might that brilliancy 
 then perchance have been, had that most 
 blessed of all monks, who first put sugar into 
 Sillery Wine, invented Champagne a century 
 or so earlier!) If this be so, we have an idea 
 where Bacon might have heard and enjoyed the 
 Actor-Manager's sallies — in the sanded parlour 
 of the tavern next the Globe, or in a conference 
 begun upon business, and subsequently ad- 
 journed to Bacon's chambers in Gray's Inn. 
 
 Bacon's own wit, if we can credit Jonson, 
 was both playful and lambent. Bacon knew 
 Jonson so intimately as to ask him to his house 
 among a circle of distinguished friends on his 
 sixtieth birthday. Could he in those days 
 have known Jonson intimately without a drink- 
 ing bout? Whoever wrote Henry IV. and 
 Henry V. could not have either sketched or 
 filled in Falstaff without being able to carry 
 a good deal of liquor, and being moreover fond 
 of the process, both publicly and in the privacy 
 of home or chambers ; and in these evenings 
 in Gray's Inn, where moneys were paid on 
 account of acted masques, or arrangements 
 talked over about those to come, other little 
 business about mounting a play could be 
 quickly put in hand. Both Bacon and Shake- 
 speare were reticent men — Bacon very likely 
 
 S 
 
66 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 never told a secret even to himself. Shake- 
 speare's London and Stratford lives are 
 mysteries apparently as unsolvable at the time 
 he lived them as they are now. From 1587 to 
 1 592 our knowledge of him is a blank. Bacon's 
 married life was not a happy one, but with all 
 his public friction and the glare of light which 
 fell naturally upon one so prominent alike by 
 his pride of place and by his authorship of 
 the Essays (which had been reprinted within 
 six months from issue, and at once translated 
 into French, German, and Italian), the news- 
 monger could not penetrate the door of that 
 house. His married life is as sealed to us as 
 Shakespeare's. 
 
 Years would roll on : with the cessation of 
 the production of masques, close contact would 
 to some extent cease ; death had severed the 
 bond of common interest at Bacon's sixtieth 
 birthday festival ; though the presence of Ben 
 Jonson, previously remarked, would seem to 
 show that the intimacy with players had not been 
 wholly discontinued : they still were honoured 
 guests. 
 
 But so capacious and retentive a memory, 
 such as has rarely been given to one so dis- 
 tinguished among the sons of men, would keep 
 in its stores the aromatic recollection of one 
 who had assisted in intellectual pleasures which 
 few could enjoy so well. The memory of the 
 
DID BACON WRITE SHAKESPEARE'S EPITAPH? 67 
 
 death of a congenial spirit, if even some years 
 had passed by, would brighten up again, espe- 
 cially when the working machinery of his mind 
 had to be altered, and the thinking faculties and 
 speech necessary for an advocate, replaced in 
 favour of those exercised by a judge with its 
 constantly supervening silence. But Shake- 
 speare's death occurred somewhat suddenly on 
 April 24th, 1 61 6, and Bacon received the Great 
 Seal in that same year. 
 
 To him, as with one who missed and 
 mourned another Great Wit of his period, death 
 gave an opportunity of embodying the recol- 
 lection of a voice that was still, in a conse- 
 cration of grief by words. Words ! say rather 
 jewels of thought, as bright and sparkling as 
 those other gems which nature prepares in 
 silence and solitude wherein alone can work 
 her sublime forces, the deep things of God ; 
 bright, gleaming coruscations of light, dazzling 
 the eyes of men for all time to come, in 
 monarch's crown or emperor's diadem. 
 
 Nor does the parallel end here. Both radi- 
 ancies, whether of thought or crystallisation, 
 possess a cold chaste beauty of their own, lending 
 itself, as need may be, to those circumstances 
 of constant change, wherein alone outwardly 
 reveals itself the Great Law of Life, — whether 
 turban of Mighty Conqueror, a " hammer of 
 God," as Attila called himself; necklet of young 
 
68 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 princess innocently entering on the thorny and 
 anxious path inseparable from a crown ; or 
 trophy of the valour of her armies on the breast 
 of a Sovereign, whose long life of active goodness 
 dies gracefully down toward that further shore 
 where, across the dark blue sea, gleams in calm 
 reposeful beauty the True " Vision of Peace." 
 
 With all these, jewels of mind and matter 
 alike willingly and harmoniously blend them- 
 selves. The thoughts which found expression 
 on the death of Selwyn must have been in 
 Francis Bacon's mind, for it grasped everything. 
 Let us dream for a moment that he had given 
 those thoughts expression ; and in memory of 
 Shakespeare (who was a much more decent 
 member of society than the man who taught 
 Wilberforce to use the dice-box) handed them 
 down to us in such a threnody as this : — 
 
 " If, this gay favourite lost, they yet can live, 
 A tear to (Shakespeare) let the Muses give, 
 With rapid kindness teach oblivion's pall 
 O'er the sunk foibles of the man to fall. 
 And fondly dictate to a faithful Muse 
 The prime distinction of the friend they lose ; 
 'Twas Social Wit, which, never kindling strife. 
 Blazed in the small sweet courtesies of life ; 
 Those little sapphires round the diamond shone. 
 Lending soft radiance to the richer stone." 
 
 We have yet to consider how the other epi- 
 taph, which is in some sort a leading factor in 
 this inquiry, only comes to light in the second 
 
DID BACON WRITE SHAKESPEARE'S EPITAPH 1 69 
 
 folio of 1632. Shakespeare, we know, died, if 
 not suddenly, yet on short notice — Suppose this 
 epitaph to be a sudden expression of quickly 
 rising grief from a self-enclosed mind ! when 
 some such intimate as Ben Jonson, fresh from 
 the scene of that unhappy excess, possibly 
 from the grave-side on that 25th April, came 
 to tell the news to the man who never had a 
 friend. The words read like a sudden burst 
 of feeling, all the stronger because given vent 
 to by so secret a nature. The lines, written 
 down on the spot, were to be handed to friends 
 who were even then busy considering what 
 form of monument would best befit such a man. 
 It was safe to hand them to Ben Jonson, whose 
 old pledge of secrecy had been kept faithfully 
 for thirty years ; Jonson and he were in close 
 touch, this secret of the authorship being 
 perhaps one bond between them, a secret now 
 more impossible than ever to reveal, because 
 Bacon had become Lord Chancellor. 
 
 We know that Jonson was loyal to Bacon : 
 an honoured guest at York House while at 
 its zenith, the poet at its nadir had employed 
 his pen to defend the great man when prostrated 
 under his terrible downfall. 
 
 Jonson would hand these lines over to 
 Hemmings and Condell, then just beginning, as 
 Shakespeare's literary executors, to get together 
 the "true originall copies" for pubHcation as 
 
70 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 a whole. They would receive them, but could 
 make no use of them : not only had Bacon's 
 secret still to be kept during his life, but he 
 was a disgraced man whose influence was gone, 
 and whose eulogy would be an injury, not a 
 help, to a book, the success of which, to judge 
 from the preface and the continually repeated 
 " Buy, buy " in it, was a source of great anxiety 
 to the editors. The only patrons worth any- 
 thing were the two court favourites to whom 
 the book was dedicated. 
 
 No ! Ben Jonson's rugged rhymes, which 
 have some flavour of haste about them as it 
 is, must head the book ; only with the second 
 edition, when its illustrious author's restraint 
 on publication was removed by his death, could 
 the affection of Ben Jonson for that author and 
 the subject of his lament give it to the world, 
 and even then anonymously : Bacon's praise 
 was at that time no recommendation. 
 
 Lastly, the verses in one respect speak for 
 themselves. No man of that age, and few in 
 any other (except Milton), was capable of 
 writing them. The author, whoever he was, 
 we know from Ben Jonson's testimony, had 
 seen Shakespeare's wit — otherwise been in his 
 company, and listened to the words which fell 
 from his mouth. Now Milton was born in 
 1608, was nine years old when Shakespeare 
 died, and fifteen years old when Ben Jonson's 
 
DID BACON WRITE SHAKESPEARE'S EPITAPH? 71 
 
 lines were published in 1623. There could 
 have been for him no " seeing " Shakespeare's 
 wit — even had not his first poetical effusions 
 been translations fi"om the Psalms, composi- 
 tions hardly consistent with such company or 
 surroundings as those in which the " wit " 
 would have shone to the best advantage. 
 
 I much regret to add, that the refiasal of the 
 Treasurer of the Middle Temple to give me 
 personal access to the Inn Records of this 
 period, has prevented my searching them for 
 any further light they might throw upon this 
 most interesting subject in its present phase. 
 
 The Argument Put Shortly. 
 
 The Inns of Court had recourse to the 
 London theatres for assistance in their 
 masques and pageants. 
 
 Bacon was Master of the Revels at Gray's 
 Inn from 1594 up to 16 13, and recognised by 
 the other Inns as chief authority in such matters. 
 
 Bacon produced the Comedy of Errors at 
 Gray's Inn in 1594 — its first performance; 
 the performers being the Lord Chamberlain's 
 Company, in which Shakespeare was Manager 
 and Actor — nay, more, " Absolute Factotum." 
 
 In 1602 the same Company performed 
 Twelfth Night in the Middle Temple Hall, 
 Shakespeare managing and acting. 
 
72 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 In 1 613 the same Company performed the 
 Masque of Flowers at Gray's Inn, at a cost 
 of ;if 12,000 (in our money), at Bacon's sole 
 expense, he expressing the appreciation in 
 which they were held at Gray's Inn. 
 
 Hence for nineteen years Bacon was in touch 
 with Shakespeare and the Company of which 
 he was Manager and Factotum, consulting 
 him constantly, and paying him large sums 
 of money for men and materials. 
 
 Lady Ann Bacon — her influence over her son, 
 and the restraint thereby placed on him, so long 
 as she lived, to keep secret his connection with 
 the stage, most of all as to authorship. 
 
 Inherent improbability that so versatile an 
 author would have read any play or masque 
 through without his fingers itching to alter it. 
 
 Bacon in " Henry VII.," and Shakespeare, 
 quoted largely and verbatim from Holinshed. 
 Could Gray's Inn Library, or Bacon's own, 
 have produced the book for them both ? 
 
 On Shakespeare's death Bacon is consulted 
 as to the form of a monument. 
 
 He writes certain lines, which remain with 
 Shakespeare's family or literary executors. 
 
 They are not published in- the first folio of 
 1623, Bacon having been disgraced two years 
 previously and his praise no recommendation, 
 but are given to the world after his death had 
 softened down animosities. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 Yawning and Yarning — The Butterfly at Niagara — Russian 
 introductions — The Archdeacon's epitaph — Comin Thro' the 
 Rye — Un-Canny-Lee — Dock and its Counsel — Difference 
 between " or" and " and" in a will — The Nemesis of Law 
 — Sir Joseph Paxton's rise — The start in life of Joseph 
 Hume, M.P. — The difference between "and" and "or" 
 in a way — Bishop Samuel Wilberforce — How he liked 
 turtle soup — What he said when he got too little — What 
 he said when he got too much — An Episcopal Presbyterian 
 Service — An Archiepiscopal Presbyterian Service — Bishops' 
 joy at the Primate's recovery — The unpresentable present 
 — Catching crabs and nearly being caught doing it — The 
 Criminal Chairman of Quarter Sessions — Does Providence 
 work in rhythmic periods? — Helston Corporators and the 
 Argyle Rooms — On^s chance comes at unknown times — 
 " D — d if I didn't think so" — Messrs. Coutts' shabby custo- 
 mer — Overend and Gurney's "bullion" drawer — Matthew 
 Marshall a Malmesbury — Taking a lion by the mane — 
 Hammering a bear's muzzle — The Rarey-fied zebra — Lord 
 Overstone's mistake — Archbishop Thomson's great sorrow 
 in life — Professor Freeman preaching to the Parson — How 
 to evict a trespasser — Our Vicar lessening his work in the 
 lessons — The two shortest epitaphs — Scenes in a village 
 church — Always " Crosse " — " He's tored his breeches " — 
 Dartmoor Prison and our "innocent man" — Our haunt in 
 the "fifties" — The end of the old College Fellow — " Kissing 
 my sisters" — "Look who your neighbours are before you 
 settle down at the Derby" — Photophone carries naughty 
 words — The Genesis of the Unionist Party — Courtesy in 
 Clubs, how to create it — Marquis and saveloy — Ducal 
 gets-up. 
 
 73 
 
74 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 YAWNING and Yarning are the most catch- 
 ing of all human ailments. The microbes 
 are communicated by mere sight — pass in, in 
 fact, by photophone ; they incubate directly on 
 contact — diffuse with alarming rapidity — are 
 neither checked nor subjugated by any known 
 remedies, and end their career only by dying 
 out from pure exhaustion. 
 
 Let any one, for instance, possessing that little 
 list towards mischief which, if not original sin 
 itself, is at all events congenital, go to the 
 Church of St. Wapshot-with-the- Wooden- Leg 
 when the eloquent Canon Nearrer is to fill the 
 pulpit, and place himself well forward in the 
 church. In due course the clear melodious 
 voice will, with well-modulated tones, approach 
 the long-led-up-to pathetic part of the oration. 
 This shall be, for instance, the butterfly at 
 Niagara — the joyous, heedless flight of that 
 universally accepted type of the Human Soul 
 towards the black chasm over which in thunder- 
 ing surges dash down the overflow waters of 
 half a continent — the toy-like insect's unthink- 
 ing flight over the " Hell of Waters where 
 they howl and hiss " — its onward course en- 
 feebled, nay, arrested, by dampened wings — the 
 spectator's fear for its safety — his heart-thrilling 
 doubt as to whether struggles so faint and 
 puny can avail aught against the maddening 
 swirl of the tempests raging round it — then 
 
YAWNING AND YARNING. 75 
 
 the lull ! the pause ! ! the sudden break in the 
 cloud, the dawn of hope, the gladdening spread 
 of the glorious sun-glint — the last struggle 
 for life — and " Oh, joy, joy ! my friends ! the 
 never hoped for deliverance ! " At this 
 moment let the listener, who has heard it all 
 before, indulge himself with a good yawn. Ere 
 his mouth is closed, a young lady's hand is 
 attempting to conceal that she is following suit ; 
 at the other end of the bench portly papa, 
 who wants his lunch, has gaped terribly ; in 
 no time at all it has reached the school- 
 children, with whom it is always dormant ; and 
 the sorely pained preacher, his sweet smile con- 
 verted into a sickly one, has marked with choked- 
 down fury the distorted features of the meekest 
 of all his curates, trying not only not to yawn, 
 but also not to let the Rector see him stifling it. 
 Equally catching is story-telling. Adam in 
 Paradise could not have half got through his 
 first story to Eve, or Ayesha, or Zoe, for all 
 three names are hers, before the gentle new- 
 born intellect was pondering how she could 
 best cap it. Assyrian tablets record for us the 
 yarns of five thousand years before our era — 
 the Turin Book of the Dead at 2000 B.C. keeps 
 alive for us a pretty little novel — Homer and 
 Herodotus kept the ball of tittle-tattle going 
 and so on to the present day of penny novels 
 and society journals. 
 
/6 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 In our Temple dinners, one idea naturally 
 arises when the head porter hands round to 
 each Mess a form on which each Member signs 
 his name, for the purpose of making up the 
 attendance books of the Students, who keep 
 their term in this way. Now a man's name is 
 a matter on which he is "jealous." He never 
 utters it for any purpose without a mental 
 wrench ; he can catch its sound, even when 
 pronounced in a whisper, a long way off. 
 Here, however, it is shyly written down and 
 shame - facedly handed back — Englishmen 
 having not yet recognised the value of the 
 Russian system under which, when two strangers 
 meet, they mutually introduce themselves. " I 
 am Stepan Buritzoff, Ruski, and I am Ortho- 
 dox " ; " I am Ruffin Pitrouski, Noble, Catholic, 
 and I am a Pole " ; and so on until a new-comer 
 arrives, and -the process is again repeated by 
 the three. This is at present confined to the 
 land where strawberry jam is put into tea — 
 both constituents damaged according to our 
 notions, alike, though the natives think other- 
 wise. 
 
 But in our Messes each man knows the 
 name of his messmates, and though he says 
 nothing, probably he, like the parrot, thinks 
 the more — it may be as to what joke or jingle 
 is crackable upon one of them. 
 
 I was long under the impression that my 
 
THE ARCHDEACON'S EPITAPH. 77 
 
 own name was unhittable but a correspondent 
 has corrected me. It is in connection with an 
 Archdeacon of Bristol, who, some thirty years 
 since, informed a Committee of the House of 
 Lords that " he could not tell how it came to 
 pass, but he always thought a Churchman was 
 honester than a Dissenter." Vials of wrath 
 were his portion for this, and it might be a 
 Liberationist who wrote his epitaph : — 
 
 " In preach and speech he vexed us sore, 
 And slanders at his hands we bore ; 
 Beneath this stone there lies a corpse, 
 Which we're not sorry's Tommy Thorpe's." 
 
 I once knew a gentleman who owned to me 
 that his name was a positive pain to him. He 
 was an accomplished man, had written a book 
 on butterflies, was Librarian of the Royal Geo- 
 graphical Society, and his name was Rye-^a 
 name apparently as blameless as Flower, Oates, 
 or Rice, but not so in its owner's eyes. 
 
 " My son is Maste-rj/, my daughter Mise-ry, 
 my mother Mumme-rj/ ; I myself am Myste-rj/ ; 
 surrounding me are Begga-ry, Snohhe-ry, 
 Foole-ry, Poltroone-rj/ ; lying in wait on me 
 are Knave-rj/, Robbe-rj/, and Burgla-rj/. Lee 
 is bad enough, where, by varying the incidence 
 of an accent, its owner may come in without 
 torturing undu-/}/ the form of speech, for the 
 appellatives Rash-/)/, Ug-fy, Noisi-/)/, Clumsi-/)/, 
 Greedi-ly, Beggar-/)/, Scoundrel-/;/, and so forth 
 
78 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 for a dozen more ; but it is not nearly so bad 
 as my name, for my speech may be curso-rj/, 
 my object in life devil-rj/. We are doomed 
 from our birth up ; whatever comes to me goes 
 a-wry, and my unhappy children are born with 
 wry necks, and our name itself impels people 
 to take a ' rise ' out of us." 
 
 The Solicitor's career for which he was 
 educated, admitted, and even had fair pro- 
 spects in, would be a perpetual blister under 
 circumstances which made Knave- rj/, Kogue-ry, 
 Perju-ry, brickbats preselit and ready to the 
 hand of the dullest of opponents, in Court and 
 out of it, and that without going far out of 
 the common parlance of life. He became 
 resigned to it. He accepted the disqualifi- 
 cation meekly, was not altogether uncheerful 
 generally, but his health was weak and he 
 died young. 
 
 My own name has, however, of late received 
 rehabilitation in the person of its much 
 slandered Chief Justice Sir William Thorpe, 
 to whom my Lord Campbell dealt out very 
 hard measure. " Plain John " left out of 
 view that the illustrious Bacon had been 
 condemned on a similar charge of taking 
 bribes ; that Lord Chancellor Macclesfield was 
 convicted of it in 1725 ; and had his Lord- 
 ship's book gone into a second edition and 
 been published after 1864, it must have in- 
 
DOCK AND ITS COUNSEL. 79 
 
 eluded the name of the first Lord Westbury, 
 compelled to resign the Marble Chair for a 
 similar cause. 
 
 The King, Edward III., restored Sir William 
 Thorpe to high office, and his shield-of-arms 
 has lately been put up in one of the windows 
 of the Great Hall in the High Court of Justice. 
 
 It is rare that a fault in early life destroys 
 a man's professional career, but it did so in 
 the case of Mr. Charles Phillips, the cele- 
 brated defender of Courvoisier, who personally 
 pledged himself for the innocence of his client, 
 and rested his appeal to the jury for acquittal 
 on his own private assurance of this ; unex- 
 pected circumstances coming to light just 
 before the jury retired, which led to the 
 conclusion that Mr. Phillips had challenged 
 his client on the point and knew he was 
 guilty. The brilliant advocate was then on 
 the high-road to a judgeship, but lost favour 
 with the public at once, and jtherefore with 
 the Solicitors, eventually retiring as a Chief 
 Commissioner in Bankruptcy. 
 
 Since that time Counsel will not risk an 
 interview with a criminal in his cell, and 
 receives his confidences, usually great and trans- 
 parent lies, over the. dock-rail. A somewhat 
 similar line of conduct adopted by Sir Fitzroy 
 Kelly in the defence of Tawell the Quaker, 
 
8o MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 prejudiced him greatly for long afterwards, but 
 it eventually died away. 
 
 The chief matters that stick in the public 
 gizzard are money transactions. A Lord 
 Chancellor may job to such an extent as to 
 get a name for it, but so far as he confines 
 himself to nepotism and eschews making 
 appointments upon which money changes 
 hands, little open notice is taken of it. Nor 
 does the public much concern itself with the 
 niceties of wills, and the effect upon the 
 devolution of ^100,000 or so, by the presence 
 or absence of a simple conjunction, as in the 
 case of Hymers' College, Hull. 
 
 The testator, of humble though respectable 
 extraction, is said by one account to have 
 gained his start in life by the Duke of Cleve- 
 land coming suddenly upon him (then a 
 gardener's boy in his service) studying conic 
 sections during dinner hour, having learned 
 the- three R's from an upper gardener. He 
 had originally been poultry-boy, but by civility 
 had got promoted, buying his books by 
 doing odd jobs for the neighbours, for which 
 they gave him a trifle. The story runs on 
 that the Duke sent him to Sedbergh School, 
 from whence he obtained a sizarship at 
 St. John's College, Cambridge, took a very 
 high degree, and thus found everything easy 
 sailing up to the tutorship and Presidency of 
 
NO NEW TRICKS FOR AN OLD DOG. 8i 
 
 the College, He wrote some mathematical 
 books, which yielded him ^1,000, lived most 
 penuriously, and as the profits of the tutorship 
 rolled up began to buy house property in 
 Cambridge. A new source of profitable invest- 
 ment accrued in 1839 by an acquaintance with 
 George Hudson, Railway King, and then 
 Chairman of the Eastern Counties Railway, 
 who put money in the way of the College 
 Don, to be subsequently returned with ample 
 interest when poverty came on him in France, 
 and Hymers went in person to visit and relieve 
 him. In due time the great Johnian living of 
 Brandesburton fell in — 700 souls and ^1,000 
 a year for looking after them, which, by the 
 way, Hymers mainly carried out by giving 
 packets of tea and sugar to the old women, 
 being not a success in the parochial line, nor 
 much consorting with his clerical brethren. He 
 was even heard to speak disparagingly of the 
 Rural Dean, and did not attend his meetings. 
 
 The change jarred, and the College Don 
 would fain have undone the bargain and gone 
 back to his beautiful rooms in St. John's New 
 Court, overlooking " The Wilderness," as the 
 Fellows' Garden is called. 
 
 But the terms were made too hard for him, 
 and the old man vegetated on, saving pennies 
 on cheque stamps, keeping his banker's balance 
 at the minimum the manager would stand, and 
 
 6 
 
82 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 living on ;^200 a year. All the balance of 
 income was piled up to buy land, and he 
 practised the dangerous economy of drafting 
 his own conveyances : and even engrossing 
 them himself — this last as well as any Law 
 Stationer could do it. Then he tempted the 
 Legal Themis, and Nemesis too, by making 
 his own Will, and there the offended Divinities 
 had him on toast. The document which dis- 
 posed of ^200,000 was written on a rough 
 piece of paper torn out of the end of a book, 
 and if there be a heaven for Lawyers, there 
 must have been joy there when the beautiful 
 technical point involved came up for considera- 
 tion. It looked as if the offended spirit of 
 English law had let the defaulter go on upon 
 his depraved and unnatural course, until he, in 
 due season, reached the point where she could 
 gather in all the money he had robbed her of 
 for all those years at one single swoop. 
 
 The Will, perfectly correctly drawn, signed, 
 and witnessed, left all his relations out in the 
 cold where he had kept them during his life : 
 and bequeathed all his realty and personalty 
 to the Corporation of Hull, to found "and" 
 endow a College in their town, to be called 
 after himself — " Hymers' College." 
 
 Had he but written "found or endow," the 
 Municipality had a decayed grammar school 
 to which the bequest-in-block would have 
 
A COSTLY CONJUNCTION. 83 
 
 fitted on. But the fatal conjunction "and" 
 brought in the Mortmain Act, and the whole 
 Will was bad altogether, every line of it. 
 
 Naturally enough the testator's family 
 availed themselves of the help which is always 
 forthcoming when there is money to pay for it, 
 the respectable Solicitor ; they firmly grasped 
 their happy chance — the Corporation was 
 powerless, for the testator had never before 
 done a foolish thing in his life, so far as could 
 be found out. The family, under these cir- 
 cumstances, agreed to a compromise by which 
 they gave up ;i^5o,ooo, insisting on its being 
 considered as their personal donation, so that 
 a part of the testator's pet scheme was carried 
 out, and Hymers' College, Hull, has just 
 been opened to educate, let us hope, many 
 more simple-minded, hard-headed Yorkshire- 
 men (Hymers' burr was a caution to hear), to 
 spread widely the good results of its founder's 
 perseverance, industry, and thrift — his sole 
 qualifications, for he was not by any means 
 a brilliant man. 
 
 This type of man is not uncommon among 
 the Johnian Dons, for Dr. Parkinson, also 
 tutor there, died the other day worth ^150,000 ; 
 but he took care to have his will made pro- 
 fessionally. 
 
 Nor is Dr. Hymers' start in life, if the news- 
 paper account above given be true, abnormal, 
 
84 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 A young Scotch gardener once plucked a 
 peach, placed it on a vine leaf, and presented 
 it to the Lord of Chatsworth with such 
 courtier-like grace as to become Sir Joseph 
 Paxton, Architect of the Crystal Palace. Joey 
 Hume's rise was due to the father of the late 
 Lord Panmure — not, however, on the " take- 
 care-of-Dowb " side of the family character, 
 but owing to a fit of drunken mischief. A poor 
 widow had a crockery stall at Brechin Fair 
 opposite the big hotel in the Market Place. 
 The young lairds had dined well and early, 
 and had exhausted pretty nearly all amuse- 
 ments practicable by day, while night was 
 " lang a-coming " for a different kind of kick-up. 
 Mr. Maule of Panmure and his friends had 
 swept up the whole available stock of coppers 
 in " the haill toun," warmed them up on the 
 fire shovels, and thrown them at their hottest 
 among the crowd. The coins were then pass- 
 ing over the whisky-shop counters, and until 
 they could be got together again and returned, 
 fun was getting low and things becoming dull. 
 Suddenly some one remarked the clean neat 
 crockery stall over the way, with the decent 
 widow-woman and her white-headed, bare- 
 legged bairn who tended it. Further search 
 found out, that outside the door were the 
 empty plates and dishes which had been used 
 at table, waiting removal downstairs, and in 
 
FORTUNE FROM SMASH. 85 
 
 less time than it takes to write it the unwashed 
 pottery was poured in a perpetual hail-storm 
 on the earthenware as yet unused. Such 
 pranks were, unhappily, too frequent, and the 
 poor widow sat down, threw her apron over 
 her head, and began to cry her heart out over 
 the loss of all her living. The men were 
 good-hearted at the bottom, and had not ex- 
 pected such an end of the frolic as that. 
 Ample money compensation at once followed, 
 the widow's stock was replenished, and her 
 son educated and started in life, where, after 
 a successful career in business, he became M.P. 
 and went into the Economist line of business. 
 
 But not only to will-makers is the difference 
 between "and" and "or" a material matter; 
 this was realised to an unpleasant extent by a 
 north-country millionaire who domiciled him- 
 self in South London, desiring to go to the 
 South of France for the winter. Disliking his 
 own society, of which he had had enough, 
 he advertised for a gentleman " and " lady 
 to accompany him — well-bred, accustomed to 
 good society, lively, young, agreeable, accom- 
 plished, and all the rest of it. The wicked 
 compositor set up "or'' for "and," and the 
 press-reader did not notice the mistake. The 
 postal authorities had, in consequence, to put 
 on an extra postman for the house, and subse- 
 quently to supply him with a hand-cart, this 
 
86 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 last rendered necessary by the quantity of 
 photographs of females in all states, all sizes, 
 and all lengths. The rash man fled the 
 country, but did not change his name, so that 
 he still remains exposed to offers of congenial 
 society from the fairer sex. He can under- 
 stand the feelings of the author who in his dis- 
 tress recalled a press error in the 119th Psalm, 
 " Printers have persecuted me without a cause " 
 — not Princes, as the Psalmist had indicated. 
 
 Our Mess waiter has just put down the soup 
 tureen on our table with a bang, and its 
 contents have washed over ; a napkin covers 
 up the stain left on the cloth, but the circum- 
 stance brings to mind some incidents in the 
 life of Bishop S. Wilberforce, whilome of 
 Winchester. He was especially fond of turtle 
 soup, and always liked a second supply, resent- 
 ing any attempt to deprive him of it. In 
 fact, on one occasion at Lambeth Palace the 
 Bishop's second service was overlooked, and 
 when he asked for it the supply proved to have 
 been exhausted — " there was no more." The 
 great Churchman bore his sufferings, apparently 
 with true spiritual meekness at the time, but 
 upon reaching his lodgings in Pall Mall, he 
 wrote at once to Mrs. Tait in order that she 
 might know that her natural thoughtfulness for 
 the comfort of her guests had not been carried 
 
THE HARMLESS NECESSARY " D." 87 
 
 out as completely as she could have desired, 
 owing to the neglect of her household. It was 
 said to be difficult to give the Bishop too much 
 of his favourite delicacy, yet on one occasion 
 he absolutely got much more than he liked 
 of it. At a great banquet at Muffin-Makers' 
 Hall the waiter serving him was jostled by a 
 colleague ; the plate tipped on one side, the 
 glutinous contents, with patches of luscious 
 green fat intermixed, trickled down the Bishop's 
 coat and waistcoat, and " even ran down to the 
 skirts of his apron." Silence was impossible. 
 Like the late Laureate's new-made widow, "He 
 must speak or he will die." But the Prelate 
 was a wonderful man, and reserved his thoughts 
 for his diary (a document which will some day, 
 it is to be hoped, see the light, as the extracts 
 given in his Life lead to a craving for more). 
 The Bishop merely said, " Will no layman 
 present say the word appropriate for such an 
 occasion ? " Had such layman so relieved the 
 spiritual person in his strait, there would probably 
 have recurred some such incident as that when 
 the Brighton Pullman train was hung up for 
 twenty minutes outside Victoria Station on 
 the day of the opening of the Imperial Institute. 
 A gentleman let fall in a low voice that naughty 
 little word, and a lady in the corner said, under 
 her breath, " Thank you." 
 
 One of the strongest points in the Bishop's 
 
88 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 character was his nimbleness at getting himself 
 out of "holes," which, as he was exceedingly- 
 unctuous and gushing, and spoke right off from 
 a few headings jotted down the moment before, 
 were not unfrequent. To see the man as he 
 wound up a meeting, 
 
 " Joyful in trust, exulting in hope, 
 Washing his hands with invisible soap 
 And imperceptible water," 
 
 was to know that he could thus account for his 
 name : " They call me Soapy Sam because ! am 
 always in hot water and always come out with 
 clean hands." The bold stroke, at a time when 
 the Archbishop of Canterbury was seriously 
 indisposed, of conducting the whole Morning 
 Service, sermon included, in a Presbyterian 
 Established Church in Scotland, where he was 
 staying at a country house close by — vested too 
 in his proper episcopal habit of apron, shorts, 
 silk stockings, and gaiters — was allowed to pass 
 unchallenged on his pleading that the prayer 
 itself was only an expansion of the English 
 Church Litany ; and this too by one of the most 
 sacerdotal of all Prelates; while Archbishop 
 Thomson, who, like the pieman at Mr. Jaggers', 
 was " in a general way anythink " when profit 
 to himself loomed large ahead, got smartly 
 mauled in the Church papers and elsewhere 
 for repeating the bold bid, immediately he 
 
FAMILY TIES "IN ISRAEL." 89 
 
 succeeded the Bishop as a visitor. (Whale and 
 thresher don't get on together, and the Bishop 
 had nimbly secured the earlier turn.) Time 
 was pressing then, as there had not as yet 
 occurred that happy change in the condition 
 of the Primate of all England which was to 
 relieve, and then to remove, for too long a time 
 to come, the dread fears which filled the breasts 
 of his Suffragans as to the loss of their father 
 in Israel. How odd it is, by the way, that both 
 Mrs. Tait and Mrs. Booth should have been 
 each described (from their respective pulpits 
 only) as mothers in that same, making them a 
 kind of sisters after a fashion ! And the present 
 occupant of Lambeth must have gone on a 
 similar idea, when he looked in upon General 
 Booth in Queen Victoria Street in a friendly 
 way, and proposed that amalgamation of their 
 respective organisations, which would have 
 been as funny as the J^ws' forgathering with 
 the Roman Catholics was the other day. How 
 quiet, moreover, his Grace has kept about that 
 unlucky little move ! and the General, too, does 
 not make so much of that acknowledgment of 
 his strength — an Archbishop coming to him 
 cap in hand, and saying " Let's hitch teams 
 together " — as he might do. Possibly he didn't 
 like it either ! 
 
 The antithesis between Bishop Wilberforce 
 at a missionary or diocesan meeting, and the 
 
go MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 same Bishop when the engine got off the line 
 outside London Bridge Station, so that he had 
 to take his own bag and walk in — for which 
 he demanded compensation ; between the 
 Churchman who pleaded for the restoration to 
 the Church of all taken from her, and had yet 
 invested his savings in the purchase of tithe 
 rent-charge to the tune of ;^6oo a year ; 
 between the pulpit advocate of the virtue of 
 humility, and the Prelate who would not travel 
 in the same carriage with his own servant, the 
 only first-class being full, — all show that men 
 are no better in shovel hats and aprons than 
 in any other dress. The sacerdotalism he 
 fostered at Cuddesdon came bitterly home to 
 him when his children 'verted to Rome — a not 
 uncommon comment nowadays on the way a 
 Bishop governs his own house, and practically 
 demonstrates in the eyes of those round him the 
 acting value of his own form of worship. How 
 many Bishops' sons have in late years gone over 
 to a form of belief which forces them, in almost 
 every act, to publicly hold up the fathers who 
 begot them as impostors of the deepest dye ! 
 Of another Church dignitary's son, similarly 
 bred, the story is told that he once asked some 
 friends of his old regiment to dine with him 
 at his cottage at Dorking. As his life had 
 lately been a mystery, all accepted ; the draw- 
 ing-room was vacant, but female occupancy 
 
FRIENDLY HELP JUST IN TIME. 91 
 
 patent. The door opened ; there appeared a 
 lady-like, admirably dressed little blonde, who 
 apologised for her husband's being late, as he 
 was dressing. All kept their countenances and 
 shook hands with the hostess, whom they all 
 knew well enough, till it came to d, big 
 " Heavy," who was struck dumb, until he by a 
 pull at his moustache brought himself to atten- 
 tion, and then he simply said, " Shoes, by 
 Jove ! " (only it wasn't Jove, you know), by 
 which name the little lady had gone in her 
 somewhat notorious St. John's Wood days 
 under Kate Hamilton. 
 
 Of course a great deal depends on picking 
 one's self up quick, or having it done for one. 
 H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh, when in 
 Ceylon, was magnificently entertained by De 
 Soyza, the great Singhalese millionaire. The 
 Duke naturally admired the magnificent silver 
 service of native manufacture set before him, 
 and innocently said so. In a burst of loyalty 
 the Kandyan Chief, whose head-comb sparkled 
 with diamonds, pearls, and sapphires, offered 
 it to the son of his Empress, and H.R.H. 
 unthinkingly accepted it — but did not delay 
 the Galateas starting to wait for its being 
 packed up, probably thinking the matter at 
 an end. It did, however, reach the Galatea 
 just as her anchor was tripped, but the 
 Governor had been at- the last moment 
 
92 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 apprised of the mistake, and had at once 
 sent off an Aide-de-Camp to remind the Duke 
 that he was an officer in command of a 
 Queen's ship, and hence could receive no 
 presents except for the purpose of handing 
 them over to H.M. Government. H.R.H. 
 at once warmly thanked his Excellency for the 
 timely reminder, and the ship was delayed until 
 the costly present, worth ^2,000 or more, was 
 sent back to shore in the craft which had brought 
 it, and which had been detained to carry it 
 back by the order of the Governor's A.D.C. 
 
 It is not uninteresting to remember by- 
 gone close-shaves, and the appearance at Mess 
 of the son of a well-known Stipendary Magis- 
 trate, reminded me of a very near one of 
 my own in which that most respected Beak 
 had borne a prominent part. It occurred in 
 the Isle of Man, on a boating excursion from 
 Douglas to the Calf, and might have had 
 serious results to the whole of the party, had 
 we not observed the eleventh commandment 
 and taken care they didn't catch us. The sail 
 was long and stupid, and for very weariness, 
 and to see what was inside it, we pulled up 
 and emptied one lobster pot. We had tasted 
 the apple, and, as a result, we did the like to 
 all we came to. Only when the boat was half 
 full, and some of the creatures got pinching 
 
FRIENDLY HELP DECLINED. 93 
 
 our legs, did our boatmen inform us that this 
 was the highest offence known against the 
 Manx Constitution, as being the most easily 
 committed, and robbing the largest number of 
 people ; moreover, that the sails which we sav/ 
 putting out from each tiny creek were impelled 
 by avengers full of wrath and quick to punish. 
 There was a panic. Our men saw their 
 chance, and for a most stupendous amount 
 (forty shillings apiece) the oarsmen promised to 
 get us sate ashore. But the difficulty was 
 our cargo : it must not stop in the boat, or 
 conviction would reach crew as well as 
 passengers ; no one could be asked to buy it, 
 or the whole thing would be known at once ; 
 for some reason or other the easy way of 
 starting it all overboard could not be adopted. 
 So we were carried ashore on the men's 
 shoulders, and the plunder turned loose in the 
 hotel vestibule, to the great consternation of 
 the ladies. However, we were not sent to jail, 
 as we had had a good chance of being. 
 
 These fine-run things, however, do not 
 always work out so smooth, and a painful in- 
 stance of it occurred lately. It is said that 
 Mr. G. W. Hastings, lately M.P. for Wor- 
 cestershire, but now doing five years' penal 
 servitude as a fraudulent trustee, would have 
 had the ^10,000 he was "short" in his trust 
 accounts made up by subscription among the 
 
94 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 party if he would only have resigned his seat. 
 He refused, and prepared for flight; previous 
 to which, however, he had, as his last act as 
 Chairman of Worcestershire Quarter Sessions, 
 to welcome the new Recorder, Mr. Amphlett, 
 Q.C., who had, but the week before, advised 
 that a warrant should be issued for his arrest. 
 The new Recorder's feelings must have been 
 funny on receiving a warm welcome from such 
 a Chairman of his own profession and his own 
 Inn ; but hardly so trying as the orator's own 
 subsequently, when, having been Legislator, 
 Jurist, and Chairman of a Criminal Court, he has 
 come to personally experience and work out on 
 himself the speculations of the International 
 Congress upon Prison Discipline, upon which, 
 held in London in this very Middle Temple Hall 
 of ours, he was Chairman. Fate has its dread- 
 ful ironies. His next appearance in Worcester 
 was not to fill a high judicial place, or to 
 express warm and genial compliments to a 
 colleague with whom he was for the first time 
 in touch, but to undergo his examination in 
 Bankruptcy ; taken down, too, in convict 
 dress, and with a pitying crowd awaiting the 
 arrival of the train, with its well-known Member 
 now in felon garb and his attendant warders. 
 One reads such things in novels, but the 
 agony of it, as Keats has tersely put it, " was 
 never told in rhyme." Only let us hope, with 
 
THE MYSTIC NUMBER THREE. 95 
 
 the over-sensitive author of " In a drear-nighted 
 December," that in this case there has been 
 " numbed sense to steal it." 
 
 It is very rare to absolutely fix upon any 
 determinate instances in which cause and effect 
 observe periodic and rhythmic law, but I may 
 here quote one which outwardly appears to be 
 such an occasion, the period of three years to a 
 day exactly corresponding between a wrongful 
 act and the death of its author. It occurred in 
 a country village, the parties being a person who 
 had let a house, and his tenant, the latter being, 
 although presumably of gentle birth, drunken, 
 dissolute, and bad in most of the relations of 
 life. It chanced that the former took a house 
 for the summer in the same village, and that 
 on the eve of his departure the latter, with the 
 help of some village ruffians, made a riot in 
 front of his residence — to the great alarm of 
 a quiet, peaceful family. It was September 
 nth, 1882 — the second Monday in the month, 
 and the day before the family was leaving ; 
 and on these three dates turns the whole con- 
 nection, if such there be. Police Court pro- 
 ceedings followed, at which the offender not 
 only suborned, but himself committed outrage- 
 ous perjury — failing, however, to save the 
 persons in the dock from heavy fines. 
 
 On September nth, 1885, three years to a 
 
95 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 day, the offender, who had removed some miles 
 off, was struck with paralysis and became 
 speechless ; three days afterwards (being the 
 second Monday in the month) he died, and my 
 friend accidentally calling at the house where 
 all this had occurred, to take leave before 
 returning to town on the next day, learned the 
 news of the death on the very spot. The 
 number "three" thus appears in the years 
 which intervened, and also the days of speech- 
 lessness between seizure and death, and the 
 spot itself comes in to clench it. 
 
 Of course the person who had suffered did 
 not presume to recognise in these singular 
 parallels, retribution for anything done to him- 
 self, but did consider it as a punishment by 
 Providence for the perjury which, in that part 
 of the country, is indigenous and thought little 
 of It is noted here with a view to elicit any 
 further instances there may be of " the wheels 
 of God grinding " exactly within a fixed period 
 of integral figures, and that cycle the mystic 
 number " three." 
 
 Horace was pleased to observe that change 
 of scene did not alter people's tempers, but 
 things have changed much since his day, as 
 locality does involve alterations of mind, speech, 
 and habit, even among the class which habitually 
 keeps these unruly members under the strictest 
 
RELIGIOUS "TEMPERS." 97 
 
 control — to wit, " religious persons." Such, for 
 instance, as the meek, devoted Missionary when, 
 glowing with zeal, he leaves the platform on 
 which he has taken his farewell of England 
 for at least the next three years — until, in fact, 
 the big house and the pony-carriage in China 
 have got tiresome and a change is required. 
 For all does not go on out there as peacefully 
 as the letters to Societies at home lead the ladies 
 to infer. Miss Bird, in her Travels in Persia, 
 records the words of an elderly clergyman pre- 
 siding over a Mission there : " The greatest 
 hindrances to Missionary work are Missionaries 
 themselves " — so ceaseless and never-ending 
 are the squabbles and petty jealousies about 
 nothing, which keep the little communities in 
 hot water. This applies to all the 'Doxies, and 
 a deceased cousin of mine, once a Sister of the 
 Dames Anglaises in Paris, had nothing to relate 
 to my aunt, and even myself, when we visited 
 her at the Convent grille, but petty spites 
 suffered and inflicted. Few travellers who 
 call at Mission Stations fail to comment upon 
 the unhappy " Missionary manners " which chill 
 a visitor who calls upon a countryman esta- 
 blished in the land ; while not unfrequently an 
 itching palm has brought about such a result 
 as obtains in the P. & O. Company, where 
 the Captain may be seen reading the Sunday 
 prayers, and the doctor the Sunday lessons, with 
 
 ; 
 
98 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 many a clergyman looking on idle. If any of 
 these gentlemen volunteer to take the service^ 
 everything is made easy for them ; otherwise 
 the practice is as stated, it being found that 
 clergymen who are asked to officiate sometimes 
 send in a claim for reduction of passage money, 
 on the ground that they have acted as Chaplain 
 during the voyage. Yes ! surrounding circum- 
 stances not only alter cases, but men as well. 
 The late Mr. Adolphus Young, formerly M.P. 
 for Helston, used to tell in the smoking-room 
 a delightful story of some members of the 
 Corporation of that ancient borough. It was 
 his custom annually to invite the Mayor and 
 some selected Corporators to pass a week with 
 him in London, where he entertained them 
 sumptuously. But one evening the guests 
 were all fidgety and wanted to be off early, so 
 much so that the host sent his butler after them 
 to see where so large a party had gone to. The 
 man returned. " Sir, they're all at the Argyle 
 Rooms." So Mr. Young followed them there, 
 and found the greater portion paired off in con- 
 versation, but not in counsel, with the Nymphs 
 of the place. He was, however, soon put at 
 his ease as regarded the hurry they had been 
 in to leave his dinner-table, as the Mayor, an 
 old man of eighty, long since deceased, left off 
 his conversation with a damsel of eighteen to 
 tell him they had only come there " to see 
 
LOOK BEFORE YOU SIT DOWN. 99 
 
 what it was like." Not a few clergymen, with 
 black ties replacing their white ones, have been 
 detected ripening their experience in a similar 
 way ; " how could they preach powerfully against 
 vice which they had not personally seen dis- 
 played in its most alluring form ? " 
 
 Among the many novel subjects which the 
 presence of so many Indian visitors brings up 
 at table, snakes and insect worries do not often 
 turn up ; but a visitor from Ceylon told us one 
 with a humorous aspect. He was staying up in 
 the hills, where creeping things cannot be kept 
 out of the bungalows, and in the rapidly declin- 
 ing tropic twilight, when dressing for dinner, sat 
 down on his bed to put on his lower garment. 
 However, he quickly jumped up again, with a 
 howl of anguish, and his hands applied to his 
 sitting apparatus. He had sat down on a 
 tarantula, and that very venomous spider had 
 made his fangs meet in him so that he was 
 very ill for three days afterwards. 
 
 It is to be hoped that Naturalists who study 
 snakes will try to settle the question as to 
 whether the killing a Cobra Capella brings 
 about the arrival of others to avenge its death. 
 One account from an Indian military station 
 speaks of the desertio;i of a house from this 
 cause, some eighteen being killed in the com- 
 pound and making for it. Another story comes 
 
100 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 from Ceylon, of a builder's native foreman who 
 had killed one, being beset by others to such 
 an extent that he had to quit his employment 
 and remove to another part of the island. 
 Singhalese themselves seem to look out for 
 such a vendetta, as they never kill a " Naga," 
 as they term it, but place it in a basket and 
 set it afloat on some river, making boatmen 
 upon the stream wary how they pick up such 
 a piece of flotsam and jetsam. The Cobra 
 itself always gets out of the way if it can, and 
 never begins a conflict ; in fact. Dr. Davey, 
 who had once resided in the house where I 
 stayed in Cinnamon Gardens, would catch one 
 by the tail as it was slipping into its hole in 
 the giant white ant-hills which abound there, 
 and run his other hand up till it reached behind 
 the hood, where the doctor enjoyed the hiss, 
 sounding like a hot iron plunged in hot water. 
 A snake hiss has a gruesome sound, and I had 
 the advantage, when in Ceylon, of hearing the 
 music of half a dozen death serpents close to 
 my ear. A collection had been formed to be 
 sent to the Zoo, and on raising the ear to the 
 wire which covered the box, not only could 
 the sibil be heard, but the reptile's hot breath, 
 and even its forked and clammy tongue, could 
 be felt. The swirly hiss of the most dangerous 
 of Indian Thanatophids, the " Daboia," was 
 thrilling. 
 
BUY WHEN THINGS ARE LOW. 
 
 At the Bar, as everywhere else, a man's 
 chance comes to him if he has the wit to recog- 
 nise and lay hold of it, but it comes like death, 
 at various times in life. Over forty years ago I 
 met in Ceylon an Australian on his way home 
 who told this story of how he had grasped its 
 skirts. His name was Philcox, his story the old 
 one of having gone out to Australia with a few 
 thousands which he forthwith invested in sheep- 
 farming and lost every penny of it. Let it be 
 remembered this was in 185 1, before the gold 
 had been found, or Australian tallow driven 
 Russian out of the market. His fate was the 
 usual one, where men without a knowledge of 
 how to make threehalfpence into twopence 
 undertake trade, without knowing that saving 
 means success, that the man who has fewest 
 wants becomes richest in the long run. A few 
 years found him with a wife, six children, a 
 heavy debt to the bank, and half-a-crown in 
 coin, which last, being a conscientious man, 
 he handed over to his wife, considering that 
 " Poor devil, she would want it more than he 
 did." He went down to Melbourne, where the 
 only opening for him was to go about the 
 country and dun people for the debts they 
 owed the bank, receiving commission on what 
 he recovered. Being a business man and 
 " woke-up " a good deal by his own experience, 
 he soon found that, though money was not to 
 
 m^ 
 
102 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 be had from the debtors, things were to be got 
 which might be made very valuable. Among 
 other things Equities of Redemption upon Mel- 
 bourne house property were to be had for a 
 song. My informant picked up some in good 
 situations, and soon found he could place them 
 to good profit ; the process went on until he 
 was able to hold some, of course the best, for 
 himself; and as a result he was at that time 
 very comfortably off, and taking a run home to 
 England for a change. His first idea when he 
 landed was to have a rump-steak pudding at the 
 " Cheshire Cheese " in Fleet Street, as he vowed 
 they could not make such things in Australia. 
 If he retained his investments in Collins Street 
 he would have been a marvellously rich man 
 in a very few years' time from then. 
 
 We have occasionally Navy men who join us, 
 and it is curious to notice the way in which they 
 speak of their ship and her behaviour, as if she 
 were a sentient being. 
 
 I remember an incident in which a ship, 
 deserted by her crew, made a gallant and 
 nearly successful attempt to save herself It 
 was a vessel called the Glen Lee, homeward 
 bound from Madras with cotton and hides. 
 She got dismasted in the "roaring forties," 
 and though no leak was sprung, and she 
 kept as tight as a drum, the captain and 
 
AFFIDAVIT SWORN IN MORNING SERVICE. 103 
 
 crew abandoned her, and were taken off by 
 a passing vessel. The gallant craft then 
 navigated herself, and was boarded by vessel 
 after vessel, who reported her " making no 
 water " ; but the visitors were either too timid 
 or too weak-handed to rig up a jury rudder 
 and keep her head homeward, of which jour- 
 ney she had already run off two hundred miles 
 on her own account. The underwriters des- 
 patched a powerful tug to the spot where she 
 had been seen last, but only to find and run 
 down a trail of burnt cotton and wreckage. It 
 is difficult to think but that the poor ship had 
 tried to save herself, just as an animal would do. 
 
 Our Members who attend in Hall are not 
 as a rule regular attendants in the Temple 
 Church, so few stories of clerical mishaps 
 during service drift our way, but one has 
 been told which is natural and not unlikely 
 to have really occurred. 
 
 The long-winded prayer for the two legis- 
 lative bodies was once the occasion of a 
 strange aberration of thought in the curate of 
 a country church, where the vicar's garden 
 surrounded one side of the sacred edifice, and 
 was indeed visible from the reading-desk. 
 The congregation noticed the reader's voice 
 gradually slackening, and his face turn to the 
 windows with increasing interest. The fact 
 
104 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 was that the cook was pulling rhubarb and 
 had got to some tough stalks, necessitating 
 a good long 'hold and a long lean-back to 
 get them up. The curate was watching the 
 operation, and wondering what would come 
 of it. Hence he went on : " more especially 
 for the High Court of Parliament — under our 
 
 most — religious — and gracious " "D d 
 
 if I didn't think so ! " The stalk had yielded 
 to a powerful pull, the woman had gone back 
 and turned right over. 
 
 Few men in these days come to the Bar 
 after having been long concerned in City life, 
 and yet a brilliant precedent existed in the late 
 Lord Bramwell ; and my friend Mr. W. Willis, 
 Q.C., has found both fame and fortune, and a 
 seat in Parliament, after a start in life in Old 
 Change. Hence few stories of City life circu- 
 late at Mess ; though what heaps of good 
 tales must lie hid in the annals of the old 
 private banks, waiting for such an unveiler as 
 my friend Mr. Hilton Price, with his " History 
 of Childs' " ! Yet there must be both sadness 
 as well as mirth in the telling of them. It is 
 within the memory of this generation that 
 junior partners in both Messrs. Coutts and 
 Messrs. Hoares, not content to wait for the 
 princely incomes which must naturally come 
 to them with seniority, having, too, the best 
 
DECEPTIVE APPEARANCES. 105 
 
 obtainable information and advice at their 
 command, lost fortunes in the Stock Exchange, 
 and had to be discarded, not only when at 
 the gates, but within the enchanted walls of 
 " Thomas Tiddler, Hys Ground." 
 
 Why has no historian of Messrs. Coutts 
 arisen to tell the all-absorbing tale of how 
 money makes money, and also (as a member of 
 the great house in New Court told a friend of 
 mine) that there is only one thing more difficult 
 than making money, and that is how to keep 
 it ? When that chronicler does arise here is a 
 contribution for him, of date seventy years back. 
 
 There was an old Indian miser called 
 Swinhoe. He had made his money by having 
 few wants, and leaving many of these un- 
 satisfied. So parsimonious was he that he 
 never paid for any tea, but went about in the 
 bazaar getting samples to taste. All his 
 savings went home to Coutts', and when he 
 himself reached England he went there at 
 once. They knew his handwriting well enough, 
 but would have nothing to say to the shabby old 
 man who gave them the well-known name to 
 whose credit there showed so goodly a balance 
 in their ledger; indeed, they repulsed him 
 from the counter ; and then he meekly asked if 
 he might draw a little cheque for £2 \os. od., 
 as he required a little money. The cheque 
 was tossed over to him, more to get rid of 
 
io6 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 him than with any serious purpose of honour- 
 ing it ; the old man painfully filled it up and 
 presented it for payment. The cashier glanced 
 at it ; recognised the handwriting as that which 
 had a quarter of a million sterling below it in 
 balance of current account, as well as half a 
 million Consols invested for it by the firm ; 
 rushed away to Mr. Coutts himself, and said, 
 "He's come, sir; won't you come and have a 
 look at him ? " It was then Mr. Coutts' turn 
 to bow and beg his millionaire customer to 
 step into the parlour. 
 
 And when will that box be opened which 
 contains the certificate of the marriage of 
 George IV. and Mrs. Fitzherbert ? It was 
 deposited there by the great Duke of Welling- 
 ton, and his refusal to part with it procured 
 for him the undying hostility of the King's last 
 mistress. Lady Conyngham. 
 
 Lord Macaulay was a customer of my old 
 friends Messrs. Williams, Deacon, & Co., and 
 to them he paid over the ;i^20,ooo which 
 Messrs. Longmans sent him as the first instal- 
 ment of profits of his History of England. 
 The largest cheque I ever heard of was for 
 three millions sterling, paid to the London and 
 County Bank by the Indian Council for the 
 purchase of an Indian Railway. 
 
BETTER THAN GOLD. 107 
 
 I was a customer of Overend, Gurney, & 
 Co., and knew my way about their parlour. 
 Among other things, I was able to identify 
 that famous drawer which old Sam Gurney — 
 the man who made the money which his 
 successors fooled away — was said to call his 
 " bullion " drawer. It contained the forgeries, 
 and with them the liberty (not so long before, 
 the lives as well), of a good many well-thought- 
 of people. Fauntleroy had been hanged for it 
 so late as 1824. Irr fact, judicious forgery was 
 then regarded as a means of procuring tem- 
 porary loans to tide over an emergency, as at 
 that time the bills could all be taken up before 
 due, and others substituted in their place. 
 
 Early in the fifties, however, the Bank of 
 England had refused to allow any bills to be 
 taken up before maturity, so that no forgery 
 could be taken out and replaced. Once inside 
 the Old Lady's bill cases, bills must be pre- 
 sented to their ostensible acceptors, who must 
 therefore perforce discover that their names 
 had been made use of without their consent ; 
 most bills at that time got round to Thread- 
 needle Street, so this fresh source of producing 
 capital had to dry up. But I had an amusing 
 adventure with one bill at that very bank. All 
 my Indian remittances were made in the form 
 of six months' drafts drawn by the Oriental 
 Bank Corporation and accepted by the Union 
 
io8 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 Bank of London, and this double bank 
 guarantee made my paper rather liked. So 
 I was surprised when I got a mysterious note 
 from Overend's : " Friend Thorpe, will thee call 
 on us at once ? " My puzzlement was greater 
 when I got there, as Edmund Gurney, acting 
 head of the firm, handed me one of these 
 very bills for some ;^400, which the Bank of 
 England would not pay, although due. It was 
 endorsed to W. G. Thorpe, Esq., but the 
 Threadneedle Street cashier chose to read the 
 " Esq." as "Junior," and refused to cash it as 
 wrongly endorsed. I said something very 
 inappropriate for Quaker ears, but Mr. Gurney 
 astonished me by handing me the bill (all the 
 security he had) : " Friend Thorpe, thee take 
 that bill to the Bank of England ; it is under- 
 stood thee either sets it right, or gives us thy 
 cheque in bank hours." This extraordinary 
 piece of confidence made me even more angry. 
 I went at once to the Bank, forced my way 
 from official to official till I found myself in the 
 sanctum of Matthew Marshall, Chief Cashier, 
 whom I there and then called a " Malmesbury." 
 This was the name of the then Foreign 
 Secretary, and was at the time rather ringing 
 about the town in consequence of a joke of 
 Shirley Brooks' in Punch. The Peer in question 
 had declined to produce in the House of Lords 
 the exact text of an official telegram, lest foreign 
 
THE FOREIGN OFFICE CIPHER. 109 
 
 Powers should by such means get to read our 
 cipher. Punch indignantly commented : — 
 
 " Not know our cipher ? They know it full well 
 In Berlin, Vienna, and Paris — 
 For its name it is James Howard Harris." 
 
 However, my storm blew itself out, and I 
 was back at Overend's in twenty minutes with 
 the bill marked for payment. " Thank thee, 
 friend Thorpe ; I knew thee'd soon set it 
 right." 
 
 Confidence such as that with people who 
 were known, was not uncommon in those 
 days, but I fear that dealing on a man's word 
 without writing is now almost as extinct as 
 the Dodo, and bargains by telephone not 
 considered worth much without a signature. 
 
 Another memory of this time is a quiet 
 Sunday at the Zoo. There was nobody about, 
 and I had a long talk with the then head 
 keeper Coxhead, renowned to all time there 
 for an act of quiet courage and cold blood : it 
 was done some fifty years ago, but will bear 
 re-telling. 
 
 They had just taken in a new lion, whose 
 character and disposition were as yet mysteries, 
 likewise his tricks. He was put into a cage, 
 secured, it hardly seems credible to say, by a 
 common ordinary "tower" or door-bolt work- 
 
no MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 ing horizontally ; and one fine May morning, 
 Coxhead, then a young hand, making his 
 rounds, found the beast had been fidgeting 
 about, shot the bolt back, and walked out 
 through the open door. It could not have 
 been done long, as his Majesty was opposite 
 his own cage and sniffing about uneasily, 
 possibly as much scared at the position as 
 was his keeper ; who, however, seized the 
 animal by the mane, and with the help of 
 sundry punches of his knee forced the lion 
 back into its cage, shot the bolt, and then 
 fainted right off, from the force of the re- 
 action. 
 
 Presence of mind in such cases is valuable 
 to keepers as well as to the public, and my 
 friend the late M. Huard told me a story of 
 the same kind, of which he knew the truth. 
 
 It occurred in Belgium in a travelling 
 menagerie, one cage of which contained, in 
 separate compartments, a tiger and a bear. 
 During the night the owner was aroused by 
 an "Animal Bedlam broke loose," and, 
 getting up to see what it was, found that the 
 tiger had been sharpening his claws on the 
 wooden partition and torn most of it down ; 
 only to discover on the other side of it, not 
 freedom, but the bear, who was sitting in a 
 corner swearing ferociously ; the tiger mean- 
 while growling deeply, and all the rest of the 
 
HAMMERING A BEAR. in 
 
 animals expressing their ideas according to 
 their various vocal forms of expression. 
 
 The owner at once entered the cage and 
 proceeded to nail up the partition, without 
 interference from either occupant, who con- 
 tinued their mutual abuse. As he feared the 
 tiger more than the bear, he did the work 
 from Bruin's side. The work finished in a 
 rough way, he passed the hammer back through 
 the bars and proceeded to let himself out. But 
 the bear stood up on end and barred the way, 
 doing this three times, till the owner was con- 
 vinced that he meant mischief and not play. 
 So he called for the hammer back, told the 
 men to be handy in opening the door and 
 shutting it the moment he got out, and then 
 went towards it for a fourth time. Again the 
 beast stood up and barred the way, only to 
 receive a blow on the snout with the full force 
 of the hammer. Up went the paws at once to 
 the injured member, the door opened, the man 
 went out, but the three men had to do all they 
 knew to keep the door shut and the animal in, 
 such was the rush the bear made. Luckily the 
 irons had been heated, and his nose could be 
 touched with them. 
 
 The zebra at that time at the Zoo was the 
 one on which Rarey had performed his hanky- 
 panky tricks. The animal got rather tired of 
 it in time, and after allowing his leg to be tied 
 
112 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 up, and himself to be thrown down and prac- 
 tised on, got up and Hstened attentively to the 
 subsequent lecture on him, until the Professor 
 in the course of his demonstration came in a 
 direct line with his tail. Then he threw out 
 his hind legs, launched out too with such force 
 that had his enemy been six inches nearer, the 
 nature and quality of his brains would have 
 been examinable. 
 
 The striped one had attained his end : he 
 was nevermore demonstrated on, but pointed 
 out as a brilliant instance of the success of the 
 treatment, on whom no further experiment was 
 necessary. 
 
 I occasionally used to fall in with the late 
 Lord Overstone, who got to the City from 
 Carlton Gardens by first riding round the Park, 
 dismounting at Westminster Bridge, and then 
 taking the penny boat to London Bridge, by 
 way of an airing before business. He was 
 bitterly opposed to Joint Stock Banking at 
 its first outset, and, when the London and 
 Westminster Bank commenced its building 
 next door to him in Lothbury, would go on 
 the ground and carefully inspect the way in 
 which they were putting in the foundations. 
 The workmen did not like it, and after a time 
 asked him what he came to look at, receiving 
 the answer : " I want to see that they are put in 
 
7-00 RAPID BY HALF. 113 
 
 soundly, as the place will soon belong to me." 
 The boot, however, was on the other leg, for 
 the London and Westminster swallowed up his 
 premises, instead of being themselves devoured 
 by Jones, Loyd, & Co. 
 
 All narrow squeaks are of human interest ; 
 here is one of the nastiest I ever had to 
 meet. 
 
 I had Indian correspondents to whom I used 
 to forward goods sold them by other people, 
 including a firm in Glasgow now extinct. 
 The parcels were usually small and came at 
 irregular intervals, so I made no provision 
 for insuring them — indeed, they came south by 
 all routes. About this time the Saturday half- 
 holiday was just being commenced ; no fixed 
 rule had been adopted, and offices were kept 
 open or closed according to individuals own 
 pleasure. So on one December Saturday I 
 ran down to Brighton and had a pleasant 
 though stormy time, little thinking that ^2,000 
 for which I might possibly be liable was then 
 on board a ship called The Rapid, which was 
 " rapidly " sinking down into the " Cross Sand " 
 at Yarmouth. On my return to town on Monday 
 morning I found an advice of the shipment of 
 the amount named, and a telegram from the 
 Glaskie bodies — " Of course you have insured ? " 
 Of course I hadn't, knowing nothing of the 
 
 8 
 
114 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 goods coming nor how much to insure for. 
 However I might stand myself, the goods 
 were plainly at the risk of the Indian people, 
 who owed me so much that I was practically 
 deeply concerned in a loss of that size. Down 
 I went to Yarmouth on a winter's night to look 
 after the goods on behalf of whomsoever might 
 ultimately have to pay the piper, and luckily 
 went to the wrong hotel ; all the other parties, 
 who had planned a little game for my benefit, 
 being at the other. Everything turned on the 
 time this precious letter of advice was delivered 
 at my office, whether before the hour when 
 Lloyds closed or not, though of course I was 
 not bound to be always in to attend to it. The 
 seductive forms in which that information was 
 fished for were most amusing, until it took the 
 form of sending a Solicitor to pump me, which 
 manoeuvre wound up in the very rapid with- 
 drawal of that legal gent, so soon as I grasped 
 the intense impudence of the move. There 
 was much bandying about of so heavy a loss, 
 but while the dispute was raging the Indian 
 consignees settled the matter by going bank- 
 rupt. How much of my own ;/i^5,ooo loss by 
 them was due to this Yarmouth business I 
 never cared to work out, still less as to who 
 was the unintentional cause of the mischief 
 
 These questions of casuistry are very seduc- 
 tive. I have known Lord Coleridge, in his 
 
ARCHBISHOP THOMSON'S GREAT SORHOIV. 115 
 
 silveriest tones, lay it down that, if a person be 
 asked a question by another person who has 
 not the right to put it, the individual in- 
 terrogated was held by some people (he was 
 careful to guard himself as not one of the 
 number) to be justified in giving a reply which 
 would put upon the facts the complexion the 
 answerer wished placed upon them, without 
 regard to what neutral persons might consider 
 their truthful or real aspect. 
 
 Not many years afterwards I asked an opinion 
 about this liability of a little-known but very 
 eminent man in his way — old Wolff the corn- 
 cutter of Leadenhall Street, who piled up 
 ^100,000 in half a century of work wholly 
 given up to chiropody. 
 
 He was a kind of Father Confessor in his 
 way, and after Archbishop Thomson's failure 
 to convert him from Judaism to Christianity, 
 stopped by the hint "If your Grace will go 
 on talking I shall cut you," the Lord of 
 Bishopthorpe frequently laid bare his troubles 
 to the old man, calling as he did at 8 a.m., just 
 when the Prelate was thinking of getting up. 
 
 The Archbishop opened out to Wolff] as he 
 did to every one else, the great sorrow of his 
 life. It was the injustice and wrong under 
 which he suffered in that, while his brethren 
 of Canterbury, London, Winchester, etc., had 
 town houses, he of York had none, but must 
 
ii6 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 perforce go to an hotel when summoned to 
 town for public duty in Parliament. He con- 
 sidered this as nothing less than a " National 
 Disgrace," and one which he had brought be- 
 fore each successive Prime Minister, but with- 
 out the wrong being redressed. In fact, a 
 smile had seemed to play upon their faces, and 
 " Thus the Primate of England still had to go 
 to an inn." 
 
 Wolff was also a forgotten benefactor to 
 humanity, ascribing his own longevity and 
 excellent health to his giving thirty-five chews 
 to each morsel he took into his mouth, a dis- 
 covery since attributed to a later marvel of 
 physical strength in old age, in the person of 
 Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 Archbishop Thomson was an exceedingly 
 arrogant and overbearing man, and from the 
 accident of his position and his general bounce, 
 unhappily did not often meet with the salutary 
 friction which constrains so many of us to 
 civility. Such, for instance, as befell the late 
 Professor Freeman, the historian, who invari- 
 ably exhibited his vagaries of rudeness at Society 
 meetings, and as invariably came in for snubs 
 which would have annihilated any man not 
 trebly sheathed in conceit. On one occasion, 
 at a village church near Hereford, he was airing 
 his wrath and denouncing a meek man who 
 had dared to question his statements. While 
 
FREEMAN SLAVE TO TEMPER. 117 
 
 in one of his most aggravating fits of a temper 
 naturally bad, he was quietly corrected by a 
 gentleman just come in, not over well dressed, 
 and with a wisp round his neck that might once 
 have been a white tie. All he did was merely 
 to point out a tablet giving the history of the 
 matter. On this vials of wrath were poured 
 upon him. 
 
 " The peace and order of the Association 
 were habitually destroyed by a set of ignorant 
 interlopers, who must be put down with a strong 
 hand. If that impertinent person did not at 
 once leave the church, he (Freeman) would 
 have him removed." 
 
 On this the person left the church, and was 
 duly crowed over. But when the speaker 
 stopped to recover breath, the President took 
 up his parable in a whisper. 
 
 " I say. Freeman, the man you have been 
 pitching into is the Rev. Archer Clive, a big 
 Squire close by. He has opened a tumulus 
 for us, and asked us all to lunch. The whole 
 place about belongs to him. Don't you think 
 you had better go and make it up ? " 
 
 Freeman, with a very bad grace, had of 
 course to do so, as he had done on a former 
 occasion, and under precisely similar circum- 
 stances, to Colonel Hambro, in Dorsetshire. 
 
 English Land Tenures are of four kinds : 
 
ii8 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 freehold, copyhold, leasehold, and catch-hold, 
 or possession pure and simple, now practically 
 giving legal rights after a term of twelve years ; 
 and I was once a party to an amusing incident 
 of this last estate some quarter of a century 
 ago. 
 
 A near relative, for whom I used to act, held 
 a piece of freehold ground situated in a high 
 street in a suburb, adjoining which was a strip 
 of ground not built on. A squatter had got 
 hold of a shanty upon it, and also a beer licence, 
 through the medium of which the plot of land 
 became a lay-up for cheap-jacks and vans by 
 day, and the scene of such abominations after 
 dark that the tradesmen about memorialised 
 my friend to enclose it, as he had a right of 
 way over it. He found his tenant quite willing 
 to carry this out ; I saw no objection to it, but 
 said that anything that was done must be done 
 in my presence as representing the owner. 
 
 Accordingly, on a given Sunday about noon, 
 I went there, and found apparently a riot going 
 on. A fence of board had been run across the 
 front of the plot, and while some men were 
 holding it " stayed up " by poles, others were 
 fixing more permanent supports. Outside the 
 fence, hammering at it and trying to pull it 
 down, were a man and a woman. Outside 
 them again a line of police keeping back a mob 
 looked quietly on. I entered the beleaguered 
 
ABATING A NUISANCE. 119 
 
 garrison through another part, with a small boy 
 of mine, who was soon unnerved by the hubbub 
 and began to cry piteously. A few words 
 made me aware of what had happened. The 
 beer-shop and shanty were wrapped in slumber 
 at 8 a.m., when there came a rap at the door. 
 " Bill, Bill, d'ye hear ? get up, you're wanted." 
 "Wot the (sanguinary) blazes do you want?" 
 " Why, Bill, it's your hold huncle at 'Omerton ; 
 he's took very bad and wants to see yer before 
 he hooks it. He says if yer ain't there he'll 
 alter his will, and he's sent a cab for yer ; so if 
 yer don't go, yer'll lose the money." "I'm 
 a-comin', I'm a-comin'"; and off he went to 
 the north-east of London. An hour elapsed ; 
 again the door was thumped at. " Sail, Sail, 
 get up, you're wanted." "Who wants me?" 
 " Why, Sail, that there (sanguinary) cab, what 
 they fetched Bill in, the wheel come off", and 
 he's got tipped over and broke his leg, and he 
 wants yer to go to 'im." " How'm I to go?" 
 "He's sent another cab for yer as was standin' 
 close by when it 'appened." "I'm comin'. 
 Master " ; and off" she went for a couple of hours' 
 drive north-west, Chalk Farm way. As soon as 
 both squatters were well off the premises the 
 door was made fast, and men appeared to put 
 up the fence, which had been prepared. Holes 
 were dug for the posts, and the fence had been 
 run across, when a cab drove up at a furious 
 
120 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 rate. Bill, when nearing his uncle's house and 
 reckoning up how much was likely to fall to 
 him and what he would do with it when he got 
 it, gasped to see that relative on the pavement, 
 quietly going to chapel, with no trace of any 
 illness about him. The good man's placid walk 
 as he conversed with one of the deacons of 
 Salem Chapel was interrupted by a cab, out of 
 which came the words, " Hie, uncle, huncle 
 Silas I say, hie," uttered by a half-dressed man, 
 unkempt and unshorn, inside whom evidently 
 remained a good portion of last night's drink. 
 The rencontre itself was unpleasant enough, 
 but when the nephew explained the reason 
 for his visit, the uncle found it even more 
 distasteful, and with one of those curious forms 
 of practical swearing by which the " unco guid " 
 blow off the steam, he announced his intention 
 of at once renouncing such a relative and 
 replacing him as residuary legatee by the 
 trustees of Salem Chapel. 
 
 Infuriated alike by the cutting off and by the 
 
 sell, as to the whole of which he was as 
 
 yet in the dark, the beer-seller returned to his 
 home, falling in on his way with the outward 
 bound cab containing his wife, whose story 
 mystified matters even more, though he felt 
 bound to tell her that he had a good mind to 
 knock her (sanguinary) head off for believing 
 such a lie. Arrived on the spot, however. 
 
"GIVE 'EM SOME BEER!" 121 
 
 all was clear. Man and woman rushed at the 
 fence, and the scene worked itself up as has 
 been described. There seemed no then present 
 solution to it ; but there occurred to me an 
 incident in " The Caxtons " where a similar 
 dilemma was solved by the Squire's son saying 
 " Give them some beer, sir." I looked at my 
 watch, and it was just one ; I hinted this to the 
 tenant, who spoke to a very fine fellow hard at 
 work close by. 
 
 The man nodded, something passed into his 
 hands, and in two minutes a discreditable scare- 
 crow with torn clothes and black face joined 
 the two outside. " Sail and Bill," it said, "I'm 
 a-going to help yer, and we'll have this 'ere 
 (sanguinary) fence down like a shot ; let's go 
 and have a drink afore we smashes them all 
 up." Within twenty minutes the pair came 
 back again, reeling drunk, and found the fence 
 made complete. The tenant asked me if I 
 approved, on behalf of the owner, what had 
 been done, and I merely suggested in reply 
 that, while the squatters must on no account 
 be admitted to their shanty, all their property 
 should be handed over to them, fair value paid 
 for any fittings, etc., and perhaps a little money 
 given them to start with, which I believe was 
 done, and a terrible nuisance abated. 
 
 The humours of a Devon village are few, 
 
122 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 but when the two leading authorities, the 
 doctor and parson, become demoralised, the 
 natural list towards mischief gets much accented. 
 A case of this kind occurred some years ago. 
 The place I speak of sets up in the minds of 
 most people who have to do with it the mental 
 temper which a Railway Manager holds to- 
 wards claimants for accidents ; such, for in- 
 stance, as developed itself in the Chief of the 
 South-Eastern Railway when, after an accident 
 at the Borough Market, he received more 
 claims for compensation than there were pas- 
 sengers in the train. Dishonesty, however, 
 prevails in the district, and it is related of a 
 deceased saddler in its market town that, when 
 in the hurry of Newton fair-day his boy forgot 
 to whom he had just sold a saddle, he charged 
 thirteen to as many different customers, and got 
 paid for eleven of them. 
 
 The village has one other Semitic inherit- 
 ance — " Punic faith," at that time much aggra- 
 vated by the place having long been in bad 
 hands, and the two natural leaders, parson 
 and doctor, both bad specimens. The medical 
 man went in more for drink than drugs, drams 
 than scruples. The Vicar was a lamentable 
 example of everything to be avoided, his 
 curates bibulous and addicted to borrowing. 
 He had directed his grave to be dug at the 
 side of the ancient preaching-cross in the 
 
CROSS AND THE SQUARE. 123 
 
 churchyard ; and after he had occupied it, 
 the only position he had ever filled with 
 benefit to the parish, the following epigram 
 was written : — 
 
 " Our Vicar, when thinking of leaving the place 
 
 Where he'd caused so much mischief and loss, 
 Directed the sexton : ' When making my grave, 
 
 Let me lie at the foot of the cross.' 
 Such matchless consistence in death and in life 
 
 To find in such persons is rare. 
 For up to the close of his ill-ordered life 
 
 He'd gone more on the cross than the square." 
 
 When the Vicar got short-breathed he re- 
 served to himself the prayers, and handed over 
 the lesson-reading to a person whose classical 
 lore was imperfect. 
 
 This jarred on sensitive nerves : one could 
 bear the story of the Apostle Paul's shipwreck 
 going on thus, " and the name of the highland 
 was called Mileeta," but " thy mother Loys 
 and thy grandmother you-nice " (Eunice) were 
 trials, and the agony piled up when Philemon's 
 run-away slave became, not Onesimus, but 
 " Wun Symus." This last ended matters. 
 The people are anything but fanatics in soap, 
 and a somewhat energetic young locum tenens 
 of our doctor was brought to a gasp by the 
 inquiry, " Doctor, the baby's been born a 
 fortnight ; may we wash her face ? " 
 
 But the low moral tone of the people round 
 
124 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 about was put on record two hundred years ago, 
 by the parson of an adjoining parish, who, 
 utilising the old altar slab, with its five con- 
 secration crosses or wounds, to cover his grave, 
 caused to be cut upon it the following epitaph, 
 his name, be it said, being Goswell : — 
 
 " With simple heart, a Trinity of Grace, 
 Faith, Hope, and Charity, held here their place. 
 Ne'er shall his body find a deeper Hell, 
 But Angels to his soul say, ' All goes well.' " 
 
 A simple pun this last, but recording its 
 Pastor's opinion that Torbrian was not at that 
 time the little earthly paradise it looks ; in fact, 
 people who have to do with it now sometimes 
 think that the Vicar defunct had a right judg- 
 ment in this if not in all things. 
 
 The present clerk of this parish is a man 
 of simple but determined character. On one 
 occasion, the fact that Special Psalms were 
 appointed for the day had not occurred to 
 him ; so when the Rector led off with verse i 
 he got no response from the clerk, and as the 
 congregation only numbered five, all told, the 
 silence jarred ; but he manfully took up verse 3, 
 the clerk's voice still not responding, but his 
 features displaying a look of puzzlement, while 
 his hand stole up to scratch his head. So 
 verse 5 was read, and then the clerk spake : 
 " I say, Meenister, this bain't in my book." 
 So the Rector had to step down from the 
 
TWELVE CWT. A TON. 125 
 
 reading-desk, take his clerk's book, and turn 
 up the place, after which all went easily 
 enough. 
 
 And this clerk is a man of action, as well 
 as of speech. The strange list towards ritual, 
 which is preparing so much trouble in time to 
 come for the Church, got hold of the Rector 
 to such an extent that he placed candles upon 
 the Communion Table, and lit them, afterwards 
 kneeling down and preparing to commence the 
 Communion Service. The clerk noticed it, 
 arose, went inside the rails, blew out the 
 candles, and walked off with them into the 
 vestry, saying, " Us bain't going to have no 
 Popery in this place while us is here." He 
 locked them up in the vestry (where they have 
 since remained), returning into church and 
 buttoning up his pocket, in which he had placed 
 the key. 
 
 A recently departed worthy of the village 
 came into collision with a Manchester doctor 
 living close by on a matter of avoirdupois 
 weight. The deal was for mangel-wurzel, 
 and the price was so much per ton. The first 
 cart-load was dumped down, and the purchaser 
 asked, "How much is there?" " That bee a 
 toon." " Don't look like it ; I'll weigh it. Why 
 it's 1 2 cwt. ! " All the subsequent deliveries 
 were on the same basis ; and the vendor's 
 opinion of the purchaser had a strong flavour 
 
126 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 of the Commination Service about it, and was 
 so expressed. 
 
 Short weight, which the late Mr. John 
 Bright, M.P., used to define as one form of 
 competition, is one of the curses of the country ; 
 and great was the uproar in another village, 
 many miles off, when an Australian settler had 
 everything he bought weighed upon delivery. 
 The local butcher found it necessary to charge 
 him special and enhanced prices in order to get 
 a profit out of him — at all events, he said so. 
 
 Glancing back to the subject of epitaphs, 
 let us include here the two tersest known, 
 each of them on boys who died by mis- 
 adventure. 
 
 "Boy 
 Gun 
 
 Joy 
 
 Fun 
 
 "Gun 
 Bust 
 Boy 
 Dust " 
 
 The other is somewhat longer — 
 
 " Little boy. 
 Box o' paints ; 
 Sucked the brush, 
 Joined the Saints." 
 
 There, is a stock story on the South- Eastern 
 Railway of a local train once chasing a cow. 
 
THE PAISLEY MAN. \i>j 
 
 with the result that, after two distinct efforts, 
 they could not catch the creature up. I once 
 told this story to a fellow-traveller on the Great 
 Northern Scotch Express. We were coming 
 south from Peterboro, and my companion said 
 "Ah" somewhat absently. Silence resumed 
 her sway for one whole hour, when the other 
 man was suddenly seized with a series of 
 internal convulsions, terminating in hoarse 
 screams of laughter. I was puzzled, but 
 decided it could not be an epileptic fit, for 
 he neither fell down nor foamed at the mouth ; 
 paralysis it certainly was not — quite the other 
 way indeed. So I did not communicate with 
 the guard, but waited until the spasms were 
 abated, and then their victim could explain 
 himself " Maun," he said, " I see about the 
 coo ; it was a jock ye were telling me," and 
 then he relapsed. I was curious on one further 
 point only: "Sir, may I ask if you come from 
 Paisley?" "Eh, maun, yer richt, that's whar 
 I kim frae." The whole matter cleared up, 
 and with it the reason why the joke had taken 
 an hour to operate. Paisley is the Gotham of 
 Scotland for general dulness, and it is on 
 record that a boy, apprehended in Edinburgh, 
 steadfastly refused to disclose his place of birth, 
 until, wearied out, he confessed to the police- 
 man, " Weel, if ye maun hae it, I kim frae 
 Paisley, but I canna help it ! " 
 
128 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 There is a Rector near my Devon place who 
 is a wag in his way, which is dry. I was 
 passing his parsonage in the wet summer of 
 1889; he came out, and in the local accent 
 which he affects asked, "Well, how be you on 
 the hill ? Washed away a'most ? " " Pretty 
 nearly so ; it makes my wife like the present 
 Secretary for India." He walked into the 
 trap like a tame monkey behind an organ. 
 " What be that ? " " Always Cross(e)," said I. 
 " Damn the fellow," said he. 
 
 Simple things, however, please the people. 
 One Sunday I went to a church a long way off, 
 and getting over a hedge met with an accident 
 of so slight a nature that I thought nobody 
 would notice it, so I entered, and as luck would 
 have it took my place in front of the school- 
 children. I had my doubts as to whether I 
 ought to stand up, but concluded to chance it, 
 only to induce such a fit of giggling as to bring 
 the Vicar's daughter down upon them. Her 
 presence quieted the children, when an apolo- 
 gist at the back said, distinctly audible in the 
 midst of the second lesson, " He's tored his 
 breeches ! " Expulsion at once resulted for 
 that boy. 
 
 I once went through Dartmoor Prison under 
 exceptionally favourable circumstances in the 
 company of the son of a high Government 
 
PREACHING OUT OF PLACE. 129 
 
 official. He was a capital companion and a 
 fair whist player, but rather cracky upon 
 " Evangelising," and had actually got leave to 
 try his tinkering on the eight hundred human 
 wild-beasts caged up there. It was a strange 
 craze ; something like Miss Marsden's going in 
 the dark into a Siberian ostrog, and distributing 
 two hundred New Testaments to the chained 
 murderers whom she could not even see. No- 
 body at the prison much liked his visit, and the 
 Governor gently hinted that a few weeks before 
 Lord and Lady H. Cholmondeley (he afterwards 
 became Marquis of that ilk) had gone through 
 the walls, and even addressed the convicts in 
 the Chapel, with the result of making them 
 almost ungovernable. The lash had had to be 
 freely used for assaults on warders, and in fact 
 the triangles were ready for use again. But the 
 hint was useless ; even when it was added that 
 they had no telegraph to Tavistock and the 
 armed guard was below its usual strength. It 
 was no good : that fatal gift of the gab, which 
 has done such terrible and persistent harm in so 
 many places, must have its innings, even if it in- 
 volved an outbreak and loss of human life. The 
 debate was closing, when suddenly a drop or 
 two of rain fell on the window. The Governor 
 smiled, summoned the head warder and left us 
 in his charge, and as we started the prison bell 
 rang. We were shown everything we desired to 
 
 9 
 
130 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 see, and some things we did not, but in nearly 
 all the wards the men were few ; our guide 
 accounting for this that, as rain had suddenly 
 come on, the men had been called in from the 
 fields, and were now in Chapel, into which he 
 could not take us without a special order from 
 the Governor, who, it seems, had driven into 
 Tavistock, and would not be back till night. 
 
 It was one of the neatest humbuggings I 
 remember. The Bible had to be pocketed 
 and the discourse unpreached. But our old 
 Hussar guide, who admitted his own fear of an 
 outbreak, struck fresh ground and said to me, 
 "If the men were not in Chapel, I could have 
 shown you our innocent man." " What ! an 
 innocent man here ? Nonsense ! " " We have 
 nearly always one, and have had three at one 
 time." "How soon do you find them out?" 
 " Mostly the day they come in, but I was once 
 three days before I was sure." " Well, but how 
 do you find them out?" (Scornfully) "Find 
 them out ! why, by the .yw^// of them, sir. You 
 don't suppose we live among eight hundred 
 of the greatest villains of this earth without 
 knowing the smell of an honest man ! " " Well, 
 granted all that ; what do you do then ? " 
 " Tell the Deputy Governor, who at once turns 
 up their papers. ' There's another of them, 
 sir, No. 645 — come in last night.' " " Yes, 
 and then ? " Why, it turns out that these con- 
 
THE INNOCENT CONVICT. 131 
 
 victions are as clear as the day, and as likely 
 as not, if the Judge was one as had a turn for 
 preaching, he'd let them have a sermon on the 
 wickedness of their ways. "But what do you 
 do then — you surely do something ? " " Yes, 
 we lets them know as it isn't right, worries 'em 
 to get good marks, and doesn't give 'em bad 
 ones, if we can see our way to looking over 'em. 
 Then we gets 'em a Blue Cap, as soon as we 
 can." This last involves many privileges, and 
 " Hope." But the story is a sad commentary 
 upon the practice of the Criminal Law. A 
 similar case was mentioned in Parliament last 
 year. 
 
 The street rowdyism which disgraced the 
 early years of the present reign is inconceivable 
 to a generation like the present, but was a 
 terrible nuisance while it lasted. The first real 
 check given to it was the sentence upon Mr. 
 Fitzroy Somerset, afterwards the second Lord 
 Raglan, to fourteen days' " hard " in Pentonville. 
 At the opening of the Great Exhibition in 
 May '51 he persisted in breaking the rank in 
 which the carriages were marshalled, and laid 
 about the head of a policeman who seized his 
 reins with a four-in-hand whip. The proceed- 
 ing was common enough in those days, and 
 usually squared by a subsequent sovereign to 
 the man assailed. For some cause or other a 
 
132 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 different course was taken, and great was the 
 consternation when the Magistrate refused to 
 inflict a fine. It was the eldest son of the 
 Duke of Wellington's right-hand man who 
 was thus compelled to have his hair cut and 
 pass a fortnight on skilly, but the Court wisely 
 decided not to interfere, and society of the 
 class aimed at had to take its revenge by 
 nicknaming the House of Correction, Cold 
 Bath Fields, Somerset House. 
 
 A man who remembers the stupendous change 
 which passed over society during the first 
 twenty years of the present reign, may recall 
 the disappearance of a peculiar but by no means 
 hurtful form of night-house. Such places are 
 enshrined for all time in Thackeray as " The 
 Haunt," and under the changed aspect of 
 manners have become " Clubs," especially in 
 the Press quarter of the town, where such a 
 thing must exist. There were then, however, a 
 dozen or more such places, where supper could 
 be had at 4 a.m., and all ordinary liquors. The 
 frequenters were mostly known to each other, 
 and came to be on tolerably intimate terms. 
 The house I used to turn into for oysters or a 
 lobster in the small hours was in a narrow part 
 of the Strand. It was kept by three sisters, 
 thoroughly respectable women in every way, 
 but who were naturally not much shocked at 
 free speech or anecdote, and could send back 
 
AN OLD COLLEGE FELLOW. 133 
 
 a rejoinder to a joke that would have shocked 
 Sunday School teachers. It went by the name 
 of " The Fishery," and admission to the little 
 parlour behind the shop was only obtainable 
 by introduction, and on probation. Thackeray 
 must have been there, as he gives a sketch of a 
 regular habitiid, Mr. Bellamy — son of a former 
 Head Master of Merchant Taylors, and a Fellow 
 of St. John's College, Oxford. Thackeray's 
 account of him is accurate. He dined at his 
 Club, and with his skin full of port, carried those 
 two bottles inside him to his chambers in the 
 Temple, stopping on his way at " The Fishery " 
 for his top-up in the shape of one, two, or three 
 (he was never allowed more) glasses of brandy 
 and water. He was to be seen in all stages, 
 according to the quality of the wine, the 
 weather, and the number of the tumbler he 
 was on, and also between the two poles of 
 keen, sparkling wit and a quiet stupor in his 
 chair. At last he would make an effort and 
 walk steadily home to his chambers, for, 
 whatever else failed him, his legs did not. 
 But the sodden powers of life were becoming 
 steadily undermined, and one night, after reach- 
 ing his rooms and accomplishing the feats of 
 unlocking and shutting his door, paralysis seized 
 him, and he lay on the floor through the long 
 dreary winter night till his laundress came in 
 the morning. One of the frequenters was 
 
134 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 " Billy Hale," son of the notorious pluralist 
 of those days of whom Ptinch could write, that 
 a Sunday service was held at which the prayers 
 were read by the Archdeacon of Middlesex, 
 sermon by the Master of the Charterhouse, 
 afternoon prayers by a Canon Residentiary of 
 St. Paul's, sermonby the Chancellor of Peterboro', 
 evening prayers by the Rector of a great City 
 parish, and sermon by a Prebendary of Lichfield, 
 and after this exceptionally hard day's work 
 the one individual who united in himself all 
 these great pieces of preferment had felt pretty 
 considerably done up. His son was a member 
 of the Bar, and held some good appointments 
 in his father's gift. He had a very disgusted 
 look one evening when he turned up. He 
 was forthwith called to account, and asked what 
 he had been doing. " Kissing my sisters," was 
 the reply, evoking from the presiding, or rather 
 waiting sister, " Ah, Billy, my boy, that ain't 
 half as nice as kissing other people's, is it ? " 
 I have known some nights in my life when 
 no one ever thought of going to bed, such as 
 the Queen's Banquet in the City in 1851 and 
 the Peace Rejoicings after the Russian War. 
 After this last I was desirous of some supper 
 at 4 a.m., and on reaching the gate of King's 
 College, on my way to " The Fishery," I heard 
 the voice of Morgan John O'Connell, M.P., 
 intoning at his fullest strength " The Night 
 
UNPLEASANT FIX AT THE DERBY. 135 
 
 before Larry was Stretched." Many years ago 
 Albemarle Street used to re-echo similar songs 
 from the Grafton at a similar hour. 
 
 I remember an amusing misplacement at one 
 Derby I attended. I went to it with a party of 
 ordinarily very serious people, to whom the 
 very idea of going imparted that delicious 
 aroma of "wickedness" which adds a furtive 
 joy to so many things : witness the actress 
 who wished it was wicked to eat ices, and the 
 man fond of pork who wished he was a Jew, so 
 that it might taste cheesier, because forbidden. 
 Lord Palmerston, in fact, used to say that 
 everything really good was either too expen- 
 sive, so that you couldn't afford it, or else it 
 disagreed with you, or else it was wicked. 
 
 To go back to the Derby. The carriage got 
 a good place on the hill, but did not quite butt 
 up to the end of that in front of it ; so into this 
 gap there squeezed itself a later arrival un- 
 mistakably hailing from St. John's Wood, and 
 filled with damsels unexceptionable both as to 
 looks and toilet. 
 
 But though everything was to their liking, 
 even as if it had been Laura Bell (I mean the 
 lady in " Pendennis,'' not the one from whom 
 Thackeray with grim humour took the name), 
 something had gone wrong ; the gentleman in 
 charge of the bevy was not to be found. " Long, 
 
136 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 long did the ladies sit " and watch for him. We 
 in the next carriage heard, in four different 
 keys, " Where can George be gone ? " At last 
 a race-glass detected him at a distance, and 
 two of the ladies set off to show him where 
 their carriage was. Captured and brought back 
 exultantly — for the damsels were hungry, and it 
 never would have done to have begun lunch 
 without the founder of the feast, who, for his 
 sins, had asked no other man to join them, and 
 thus take off what ultimately proved to be "a 
 nasty predicament " — the gentleman appeared 
 to be evidently embarrassed ; but the feeling 
 soon spread to our carriage, where the lady 
 presiding gave a cough, and said, with an 
 accent of wonder, " Why, it is George Long, I 
 declare " (the name is fictitious). Bit by bit we 
 heard the rest of it. The gentleman in ques- 
 tion was an office-bearer of a Wesleyan com- 
 munity in a great Midland town, noted for his 
 enthusiasm in the cause of Foreign Missions 
 and their development through Methodist 
 channels in Bengal ; while the lady who was 
 so struck with amazement was daughter and 
 sister of two ex-Presidents of the Conference. 
 " Dear, dear me," said the lady in her distress, 
 " it was only last Thursday he came to me about 
 the urgent necessity for a special Mission to the 
 fishermen at Chutneypore, and to-day he is here 
 with such people as that ! I never could have 
 
SWEARING BY PHOTOPHONE. 137 
 
 thought it ; he is going out to India next mail. 
 What would his wife say if she knew it ? " 
 
 The matter, as often happens, worked out 
 its own solution. The looks which, in spite of 
 everything, passed between the two acquaint- 
 ances, were not unnoticed ; and when the 
 champagne had loosened the tongues of the 
 guests, a wild proposal that they should drink 
 the health of his mother-in-law over there, 
 spurred him into having the horses put to, and 
 removing what certainly was not a pleasant 
 proximity for two persons whose last meeting 
 had been so different. 
 
 This brings me to an instance where my 
 thirst for scientific information led to my 
 getting personally reviled. A friend who had 
 dined at the pleasant table-d'hote at the Savile 
 Club took me with him to the Institution 
 of Civil Engineers, where was a lecture on the 
 photophone by Professor Bell, inventor thereof 
 The lecturer's experiments succeeded well, and 
 then visitors were invited to try it for them- 
 selves, by speaking a nursery rhyme into the 
 selenium disk receiver placed below stairs, and to 
 be transmitted by photophone to the auditor on 
 the floor above. My contribution ran thus : — 
 
 " There was a Professor Bell, 
 Who worked a selenium cell. 
 And in order to stump any 
 Thieves, he'd a company " 
 
138 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 I had no doubt my message had passed 
 accurately, for whilst cogitating the next jingle 
 the receiver held to my ear brought " Damn 
 the fellow." Bell himself was at the other end. 
 
 It is not often in these days that Clubs make 
 history, and yet the " Reform " has made it, 
 and that at the present day and hour. I 
 happened to enter the morning-room when 
 there was evidently a ferment. Six Liberals 
 had voted with the Tories the previous night, 
 and one of them, Mr. Alfred Barnes, then 
 M.P. for Chesterfield, was sitting at the round 
 table in an evidently combative mood. Man 
 after man went up and whispered something to 
 him, and at last Mr. Barnes struck the table 
 with his fist and spoke in his slight burr : 
 " Well, I know I did vote against the Liberal 
 Government last night, and if it cooms again 
 I'll do the saam thing, and you may turn me 
 out for it if you loik." 
 
 Nod after nod went round, and man after 
 man went up and whispered to him that if 
 everybody who thought like him was to be 
 turned out the Club would be a wilderness. 
 
 It was the commencement of the great Liberal 
 split, the beginning of the Unionist party ; and 
 the end is not yet. 
 
 The Club, however, has recently experienced 
 
INDUCEMENTS TO COURTESY IN CLUBS. 139 
 
 a novel sensation. An old Member who made 
 no pretence of wealth sat down to breakfast at 
 an hotel where he was staying, and as he did 
 not get on with it, the waiter sought to attract 
 his attention, and found he was dead. So 
 far, nothing was out of the common ; he died 
 perhaps the death most of us would choose if 
 we had a voice in it. 
 
 But his will was the sensation. He left 
 ;^50,ooo to the National Lifeboat Society, to 
 establish twenty -five lifeboats which should bear 
 his name and be numbered " James Stephens i 
 to 25." He left ;^20,ooo to another maritime 
 charity, and then ;^2,ooo apiece to five Members 
 of the Club, of whom I grieve to say I was not 
 one. This does not diminish my regret that 
 these legacies are deferred and come behind the 
 others specified above ; can even be postponed 
 for seven years if needful ; and as some ;^8o,ooo 
 will be required for the preferred legacies and 
 the death duties thereon, and as some ;^20,ooo 
 more of the property is said to be in Australian 
 bank deposits, the fortunate legatees will have 
 to exercise both patience and fortitude, perhaps 
 philosophy too. 
 
 But the fact is worth recording, as tending 
 to promote courtesy and social amenity in this 
 and all other Clubs : the thought "He may 
 perhaps leave me something " itself induces 
 civility. Had that social virtue been more 
 
HO MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 practised in our Club the late Mr. O Reily 
 Dease, also Member there, might not have 
 been driven to the terrible necessity of" leaving 
 his ;^7o,ooo to the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 for the reduction of the National Debt, to the 
 entire exclusion of any of his fellow-Members. 
 It is true he had done no more for his own 
 relations ; perhaps they had been no civiller. 
 
 The first Marquis of Westminster, who 
 figures on the walls of the Reform Club in 
 the dress of a Knight of the Garter, and looks 
 horribly disgusted at the expensive fal-de-lals 
 in which they have got him up, had many 
 queer economies. 
 
 His coachman's disgust when he asked for a 
 new great-coat, and received a second-hand one 
 bought in Monmouth Street by the coroneted 
 head of a Norman house, was delicious. 
 
 The story of his buying a penny saveloy for 
 lunch, taking it home, having it served up on 
 ancestral plate, eating half, and ordering the 
 butler to keep the other till he came next up 
 to town, has been told elsewhere. 
 
 On one occasion his surveyor, now dead, 
 received a call from his own father, likewise a 
 surveyor. This father of his was afterwards to 
 meet a terrible end, by stepping off the portico 
 of Stafford House, two storeys high. He was 
 directing some work upon it, and, forgetting 
 where he was, stepped backward off the 
 
THE VINTAGE OF GINGER. 141 
 
 parapet. He alighted on- his feet, apparently 
 unhurt, but the internal injuries were so great 
 that he died after two days. 
 
 On this occasion father and son were crossing 
 the lawn at Motcomb when one of the Ladies 
 Grosvenor came to them : " Oh, Mr. Fish ! is 
 that your father? Would he like a piece of 
 cake and a glass of wine ? " 
 
 General Booth, Canon Wilberforce, or even 
 the great Sir Wilfred himself might be for- 
 given for accepting such a thing from the ducal 
 daughter of a Norman house. At all events the 
 old gentleman did, finding it hard to suppress a 
 grimace when he got it, for it was ginger. 
 
 Other Lords are known by their disregard of 
 their dress. I remember a Peer's then architect 
 telling me twenty years ago that he was 
 walking along St. James' Street with his head 
 down, when he saw a pair of trousers. " Dear 
 me ! those trousers are as bad as the Duke of 
 Sutherland's." He looked up ; it was his Grace 
 himself! In fact his general get-up made him 
 undistinguishable among a crowd of bargees on 
 a Lynn Canal — and he acted as engine-driver 
 frequently without change of attire either on 
 getting on or coming off. 
 
 The first Lord Brougham was similarly 
 recognisable by his worn-out pantaloons of 
 shepherd's plaid. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The public man who wrote the " Little Book " about the Church, 
 and what came to him in life — " Which of us is it?" — Pious 
 Peer and Derby sweep — Ruined by a thunderclap: (l) The 
 youngster just come into his kingdom,, (2) The bidder at 
 auction, (3) The lady and her Tinto's — The Judge on the 
 Mill, and what was said to him, thereon — The little omnibus 
 take-in — Temple Church become a hospital — The Reform. 
 Club and its hustler — Mossing trees out of existence — 
 Dispiriting Public Spirit — " Suppose your servants all go at 
 once ? " — Mr. Justice Mathew upon " rights of way," and 
 the man who acted on his advice — Legal slips, and who 
 pays for them — Maoris and a little game at cards — 
 " Here's a penny for you " — A long epigram — Why the 
 great orator takes such a lot of snuff — What saying 
 ^'nothing" may bring about — Suppose George II L had 
 married the mother of the Napiers — Bank of England 
 Managers and Australian ditto, are they looked after on 
 the same principles? — The winking cat which fetched 
 £i,o — The Man in the Moon eclipsed — The man who 
 really did refuse £^00 for his vote, and held out too long — 
 The great surgeon and his £1,000 fee — The largest medical 
 fee ever given — The perils of operating on a king — Bygone 
 medical sources of income. 
 
 IT is rare that a sermon in the Temple 
 Church causes amusement, still less that it 
 should be matter for discussion after, but one 
 pulpit exercise of this nature formed an ex- 
 ception. It was preached by a high dignitary 
 
 142 
 
" THOV ART THE MAN." 143 
 
 in the Church, and as his manner was dry 
 and harsh, and the pronunciation distinctly 
 Northumbrian, the question of beating an 
 immediate retreat came practically forward. 
 The text was given in a rough patois. 
 " Haast thou killed, and taakken possession ? " 
 was also an unfavourable opening. But the first 
 few sentences were evidently written with care, 
 and pointed and counterpointed as carefully 
 almost as the strophe and antistrophe of the 
 Book of Comparisons — otherwise Proverbs — 
 and this work of immense labour was kept up 
 to the end. The discourse was really ana- 
 logical to politics ; and this once realised, 
 interest was aroused, and rippling smiles broke 
 out on faces made up, as usual, for refreshing 
 slumber. It was the old, old story of Naboth's 
 vineyard, but how that was to be got into the 
 sphere of current strife seemed a puzzle. But 
 got in it was, boots and all ; and the scheme 
 of the composition led up to an epilogue 
 brought in suddenly and with great art. This 
 is a summary of how it was brought up to that 
 point, where for many of us, a hearty laugh 
 had to be severely choked down. Ahab was 
 supposed to soliloquise on the occasion of his 
 entering upon property escheated for the public 
 use, as a result of the death of its late owner, 
 by the operation of Hebrew law. 
 
 " The Toun has long wanted a Public Pairk, 
 
144 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 wheech in the speerit of the praisent time is 
 imperrateevely demanded, and canna be logner 
 denied to the intelligent woorking man of the 
 Ceety. A spaace for health and recreation for 
 himself, his several waives, and their familees 
 could no longer be withheld from him by the 
 paternal othoritees of the plaace. There was 
 none so suitable as this, it being central to the 
 haill toun and absolutely joining my palace 
 ground. It had long been judged necessairy 
 for the public weal, but there was one oold 
 long-standing obstacle in the vara objectionable 
 form of vaisted interest, or rather something 
 even more reedeeculous — the refusal to pairt 
 with it because it had belonged to an ancestor, 
 as though such a conseederation could be 
 allowed, in these dayes of progress, to interfere 
 with a great local improvement. As he was 
 vara stupid about it, the airm of the law had to 
 be invoaked to eleemenate him ; and my wife 
 (it was not me) managed that vary neatly. 
 Perhaps it might not have been worked, out 
 in an exactly regular waay, and he decidedly 
 did not desairve to be stoaned for that ; but, 
 as my wife pointed out, if he did not desairve 
 to be stoaned on the People's Pairk question, 
 there can be no manner of doot but that in the 
 course of his life he had done plenty of other 
 things for which he did desairve it. So I'll 
 just walk round the place and think what I 
 
THE "LITTLE BUIK." 145 
 
 shall say when I formally open it, and they 
 male me the praisent o' an address and a 
 silver key." 
 
 Then came a fine passage describing the 
 sudden advent and springforward of the Bedawee 
 prophet — " Haast thou killed, and taakken 
 possession ? " — and his decidedly uncomfortable 
 forecast of what was in store for the Roya,l 
 family in the near future. 
 
 The preacher, like his Scotch fellow-minister 
 at the Cumbraes in the matter of the puir deil, 
 tried to lament over Ahab's fall. " There was 
 a time when he was a good young man, eager 
 in the persuit of all that was richt and guid and 
 sanctified by age," until his unhappy union with 
 Jezebel, whose name possibly meant in its first 
 form " The Strength of Baal," but was certainly 
 applied in the Apocalypse to the Bishopess of 
 Thyatira, and will be ever with us under its 
 pretty modern form of " Isabel " (this last 
 clause, by the way, was not in the sermon). 
 The wail, however, over Ahab went on : "It 
 may well be that traces of his devotion for the 
 worship of the God of Israel took even more 
 tangible forms, and that, if we could only 
 regain, access to the leeterature of the period, 
 we might find in its bibliography that, in the 
 impulse of generous early manhood, he had 
 written a Utile buik upholding the eentegrety of 
 that great National Church which, in his worse 
 
 10 
 
146 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 and later years, he seestematically set himself 
 the noo to degraad and destroy." 
 
 Here a palpable choke was heard, and the 
 preacher paused a moment, as if a new thought 
 had occurred, whereon the discourse rounded 
 off abruptly towards an end. 
 
 Blathers, Q.C., was once addressing a jury, 
 when one of the jurors posed him with an 
 awkward question. He turned round to his 
 junior : "I want to turn their minds off that 
 point. Tell me something to say, quick." 
 
 " Tell them I'm a damned fool." 
 
 " My dear fellow, they've seen that long 
 since. That won't throw their minds out of 
 gear." 
 
 " Well, then tell them you're a damned 
 fool." 
 
 " That won't do either, because they're sure 
 to be unanimous the other way." 
 
 An ancient and pious Peer, not long de- 
 ceased, and most punctual and careful in the 
 economy and government of his house, once 
 received a sudden shock in both of these easily 
 affected nervous centres. Accidentally going 
 into his daughters' sitting-room, he found open 
 upon the table a prospectus of "A Derby 
 Sweep," managed by that eminent milliner, 
 Madame Silvine, of Viceroy Crescent, W, It 
 
SWEEEP. H7 
 
 not only announced that that most estimable 
 lady (whose name and address in these pages 
 are fictitious) received the names of ladies who 
 wished to subscribe, but also, in her, Madame 
 Silvine's opinion, that " Liver-and-lights-come- 
 up " would be found to be in the nature of a 
 multiplying machine to those who invested a 
 little money on him at the then current price of 
 twenty-five to one, which formula, the ladies 
 were further informed, consisted in putting 
 down four sovereigns and receiving a bank- 
 note for ;^IOO. 
 
 . This shocked the good man the more as a 
 similar document, though not from a milliner, 
 had recently been discovered to have effected 
 the financial ruin of an elderly, but up to then 
 estimable. Missionary, who had lately come 
 home first-class passenger on furlough from 
 China. So when the young ladies were hunted 
 up, and pertinacious denials of all knowledge 
 of the document was all his Lordship could get 
 out of them, the Peer went off to have the 
 matter out, anything but quietly, with the 
 offending modiste. Arrived there, he was at 
 once shown to the lady — a large-patterned 
 foreigner, with an undersized husband, evidently 
 of the Jewish persuasion. 
 
 "Woman, what do you mean by sending 
 your infamous gambling circulars to my inno- 
 cent and pure-minded daughters ? Ladies 
 
148 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 whom I have shielded from every idea of a 
 vice hateful in all, but eminently so in women ! " 
 
 The Peer in question was not speaking with- 
 out knowledge of the subject himself, having 
 had in his early days as a guardsman much 
 familiarity with the gambling-tables kept by 
 some of the king's mistresses and other ladies 
 of title. In spite of this, however, the storm 
 continued, and Monsieur Silvine, fearing lest 
 the two combatants might collide, prudently 
 withdrew his small person. But in his wrath 
 his Lordship had said, " I will expose you as 
 a cheat and swindler." On this the other 
 disputant, who had kept her gifts of speech 
 in discreet reserve, lost both temper and the 
 power of silence. 
 
 " Me sheet ? me swindlare ? it ish your doch- 
 ters who are de sheets, de swindlares ; dey 
 come, buy things, never pay, my only shance 
 of any ready money is de sweep ; dey pawn de 
 jewellery I send dem ; if dey win in de sweep 
 1 keep de money." 
 
 "Woman, you lie; my daughters have their 
 allowance of ;^i50 each for dress, which they 
 never exceed, they have assured me 30 just 
 now." 
 
 "Not exchede? Chust you look in my 
 book. Your ladies owe me ;^3,ooo, and they 
 say you so mean you never give them any 
 money at all." 
 
DOWN WITH IHE DUST. 149 
 
 Horror-struck, the Peer withdrew before the 
 fire of polyglot vituperation he had raised up, 
 and when there popped up remembrances of 
 sundry new dresses he had occasionally seen, 
 with mental perturbation as to how they had 
 been come by, likewise of loud jewellery some- 
 what ill-suited to the repose which marks the 
 caste of " Vere-de-Vere," he determined to sleep 
 on it before entering on the domestic inquisition 
 now unavoidable. The morning brought more 
 misgivings, and also Madame Silvine's bill, as 
 long as a builder-financing Solicitor's. The 
 matter had to be faced, and a heavy cheque 
 sent to the milliner ; while as to the jewellery, 
 carefully " planted " by a traveller introduced 
 by the ladies' maid, and subsequently pawned 
 by the same intermediary, the cost was even 
 heavier, as the aristocratic damsels had com- 
 mitted a criminal offence. 
 
 Ruin, in the great majority of instances, is 
 a slow, dragging process, arising chiefly in the 
 great catastrophes which, like the Baring crash, 
 are world-wide in their calamity. It springs 
 originally from the fear of looking some little 
 present loss in the face, neglecting the whole- 
 some precept often on the lips of the great 
 Nathan ■ Meyer de Rothschild, " Cut a loss and 
 let a profit run." The desire to recover a loss 
 of ;^3,ooo in a French canal scheme, and the 
 
ISO MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 drain consequent on carrying it out, brought 
 down the old banking house of Strahan & 
 Paul. The same cause has brought about the 
 downfall of any quantity of others, which did 
 not however, like theirs, lead through the dock 
 of the Old Bailey to Portland Prison. 
 
 But it is not often that one false step destroys 
 everything in a moment, and lands the sufferer 
 in instant poverty. I remember two instances, 
 one of a Member of the Bar to whom his 
 father, an old Calcutta tradesman, had left 
 ^20,000, which his trustees had, during his 
 minority, increased to ;^26,ooo. The man 
 came of age in April 1866, and the money 
 was transferred to him. Within one month 
 the whole was lost, and a liability of ;i^300,ooo 
 took its place. The young fellow had put it 
 all into shares of financial corporations, which 
 had melted away like snow before a hot sun 
 after that fatal Black Friday. 
 
 Another case was that of a tradesman in a 
 large provincial town. It was the beginning 
 of the Sugar Grind, when the effect of the 
 German Bounty upon beetroot was distracting 
 Mauritius and the West Indies by the fall in 
 prices. It had caused a local sugar refinery to 
 close its doors, and its premises were put up at 
 auction. Now no person on earth is so buoyant 
 as a newly made bankrupt, and all parties 
 concerned were full of schemes for re-construc- 
 
THE BIDDER KNOCKED DOWN. 151 
 
 tion. Hence, when the property was put up, 
 visions of making a big profit rose before the 
 mind of Mr. Pike (name fictitious, as usual), 
 and when the biddings slackened — ^8,700, once, 
 twice, and for the last time — " ;^50," said the 
 plunger, and his it was. He had not money 
 enough even to pay the 10 per cent, deposit, 
 and prayed piteously to be let off his flutter, but 
 the last few bids had been bogus ones from the 
 auctioneer's own tools. Moreover, the sale was 
 under the Court, to which he was duly returned 
 as purchaser. All he had in the world did 
 that same Court exact towards payment for the 
 property — ultimately sacrificed for ^5,000, all 
 buyers fighting shy of so hot a potato. In fact 
 they looked as " down " over making a bid as a 
 Devon acquaintance of mine has subsequently 
 come to do. He was determined that a man 
 whom he hated should not get lot 5 too cheap, 
 so topped his bid. After it was knocked down 
 he explained to the auctioneer that he thought 
 he was bidding for lot 5 and lot 6 together, but 
 the auctioneer was up to these little local tricks. 
 And an even harder case occurs to me. A 
 lady had a tenant who died suddenly ; she 
 befriended the family, and found the son a 
 clerkship in London, becoming security for him. 
 He occasionally wrote to his benefactress, and, 
 amongst other news, detailed the story of the 
 Copper Ring, of the large gains made by 
 
152 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 purchasers of Rio Tinto shares. The poor 
 lady was bitten by the craze, and through her 
 broker bought some shares ; they went up, more 
 were bought, and the gains were so large that 
 there must be a little trip to town, to enjoy the 
 operation to the full. It was a sad journey, 
 for the shares fell as soon as she had started. 
 Shall I not sell, and save some little profit ? 
 No, rather buy more. In a week's time the 
 whole block, in default of her finding cover, 
 was closed at 12. The differences could just 
 be satisfied by a mortgage on a fine little free- 
 hold estate, and the Solicitor's bill for ^350 
 for effecting same had to be satisfied by a bill 
 of sale on the furniture. Since then the 
 mortgagees have taken possession. 
 
 One of the most able and conscientious 
 Judges then on the Bench found himself one 
 day, many years ago, at Barchester, as Judge 
 of Assize there. He went through the prison, 
 and found himself at last opposite the tread- 
 mill, in full work. The rough, but not 
 unpleasant voice, which it seems hard to 
 remember, when at the Bar, was wont to pour 
 out streams of witticisms, said, " I should like 
 to try what that is like " ; and when the round 
 came to an end the representative of Her 
 Majesty mounted the step, laid hold of the 
 rail, and said gruffly, " Go on." Before it 
 
ENDS OF THE COURT MEET. 153 
 
 Started he gave a glance at his next neighbour, 
 whom he recognised as a Mr. William Sykes 
 to whom he had on the previous day awarded 
 " eighteen months' hard " for his possession of 
 implements maliciously sworn to as available 
 on occasion for house-breaking. 
 
 The recognition was mutual, though both 
 parties had yesterday worn different clothing : 
 one had then worn scarlet and ermine ; the 
 other had been dressed in corduroys, but now 
 wore the Queen's grey, with broad arrows 
 stamped on it. Both touched, and each shrank 
 from the contact. Both spoke, contrary to 
 the strict law of silence laid on all treadmill 
 men. Mr. Sykes said, " Golly " ; the Judge 
 said, " Stop ! let me get off." But it was too 
 late ; the wheel had started, and the legs of 
 Judge and convict obeyed the common law 
 of necessity, and tramped — at first in silence, 
 but after three rounds the Judge shouted out, 
 " Stop ! let me get off." The bystanders, 
 however, looked helplessly on, without stretch- 
 ing out a hand or even moving a muscle — 
 except of the mouth, when the fun of it began 
 to dawn upon them. The machine went on 
 for twenty minutes at a stretch, and could not 
 be stopped. Bit by bit the judicial legs wearied 
 and gave way ; not so, however, Mr. Sykes' 
 practised limbs, which soon buckled to the 
 well-remembered tramp, and took it in the 
 
154 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 easy form which comes from long habit. At 
 last the ermined one began to groan aloud, 
 and then came consolation not of a comforting 
 kind from his neighbour. 
 
 " 'Opes yer like it, you (sanguinary) old 
 beggar, what guv me two years' stretch — 'opes 
 yer like it ! Wishes yer had two year hard ; 
 but, golly ! who'd ever thought yer such a 
 blazing fool as to 'a' come on it o' yer own 
 accord ! Yer might have had the whole mill 
 to yerself, and welcome, for me." 
 
 After twenty minutes the turn came to an 
 end, and the Judge retired to his lodgings, 
 but took no more exercise that day. 
 
 This same Judge was once residing with his 
 wife in a boarding-house in a small Sussex 
 watering-place, where no one knew him except 
 my informant, who, as a Barrister, was more 
 than ever bound to respect his privacy. The 
 company was mixed, the weather bad, and the 
 (unknown) dignitary unbent and took part in 
 the general conversation. Hence he was able 
 to hear some curious unfolding of tricks upon 
 travellers let out by a Yankee rolling-stone who 
 was lying low in these parts. Ccwd stratagems 
 were of course lost upon him, but one little 
 omnibus take-in greatly amused the judicial 
 mind. It required several factors in order to 
 come off" well : thus a person at the farther 
 end must want change for half-a-crown, and 
 
SUFFERING CHURCHMEN. I55 
 
 pass it down to the conductor ; the operator 
 must be close to the door, hand over the money, 
 receive the change, pass up fivepence and the 
 ticket, retain the florin, stop the bus, and get 
 clear off before explanations could be made. 
 But the Amurican declared he could make ten 
 shillings a day at it. The Judge pondered 
 what he should do with him when they next 
 came together at the opposite ends of a 
 criminal court. 
 
 At one time, the preachers in the Temple 
 Church were of mixed qualities. There was 
 a Bishop who illustrated the fourth 'command- 
 ment by coming down in his landau and pair ; 
 there was an Archdeacon who preached fifty 
 minutes, and upset everybody's trains ; there 
 was another dignitary whose voice was an 
 unhappy mixture of snarl, squeak, and roar ; and 
 another Prelate whose very name called up an 
 automatically consequential epithet, much in the 
 mouths since then of the Licensed Victuallers' 
 Alliance, " Trop de Gine," — so that some of 
 those who remained did so to scoff, and not 
 to pray. Under these circumstances people 
 tried to get out, but were severely repelled by 
 the porter at the door. A lady argued it out 
 with him : — 
 
 Lady. I want to go out, please. 
 
 Porter. You can't. Look at that board. 
 
1S6 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 Lady. The church is neither a prison nor 
 a hospital ; besides, I feel unwell. 
 
 Porter. Then, Mum, it is certainly a 
 hospital. 
 
 The Inner Temple people, who control the 
 great door, are now, however, more sweetly 
 reasonable. 
 
 A short time ago the Reform Club en- 
 joyed the personal attentions of a " Hustler," 
 who practised near it with considerable skill, 
 relieving several Members as they came out 
 of sums up to two pounds or more, but not dis- 
 daining the lowly half-sovereign. The opera- 
 tion which extracted that sum from my pocket 
 was short and simple. It was a Saturday 
 afternoon, and I was going eastward along Pall 
 Mall from the Club, when a seedily dressed 
 man, who had evidently once been a gentleman, 
 accosted me and insisted on shaking hands. 
 He said, "Going to the Club?" "No, just 
 come from there. You going in?" "Not now. 
 The fact is I have a few things to get and am 
 ten shillings short, and don't want to go home 
 for it. Could you lend it to me ? " and with 
 this he pulled out some gold, or what looked 
 like it. This of course disarmed suspicion. I 
 produced the coin, and said, " Leave it with 
 the hall porter. By the way, what's your 
 name ? " He hesitated, and then said, 
 
BARK AND BITE. 157 
 
 " Palmer." This settled it, and in the words of 
 an old parody of " She wore a wreath of roses," 
 
 " I saw it for a moment — 
 How I wish I saw it now ! — 
 As he buttoned up his pockets 
 With a condescending bow." 
 
 The best things are easiest turned round. 
 One version of this sweetly pretty ballad was 
 "He wore a coat of Moses ! " 
 
 The other day I met a friend who had 
 sustained a tremendous upset of fortune 
 without fault of his own. He had held a good 
 appointment in Ceylon, had saved money there, 
 and was on the point of getting it home — a 
 feat safely accomplished by very few whom 
 I have known. At the last moment he was 
 fetched by the idea of Cinchona Planting near 
 Newera Elliya, the Central Sanatorium. The 
 trees grew splendidly, and soon ran to bark — 
 the first returns showing a splendid percentage 
 of alkaloid. Everything looked rosy, especially 
 when he got a bid of ;^ 10,000 for the estate 
 with all its liabilities — probably ;^7,ooo clear. 
 It was declined — " If it is worth that to 
 Tomkinson it is worth that to me " — but before 
 the year was out there had appeared on the 
 branches a species of Spanish moss, common 
 enough in the jungle, and apparently only too 
 anxious to get out of it ; for it quickly seized 
 
IS8 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 Upon the Cinchona, and in another two years the 
 trees, wholly smothered, had given up the ghost. 
 
 Our Benchers some years ago were called 
 upon to exercise their powers of refusing to 
 call a student to the Bar, at very short notice. 
 Two days before the ceremony they received 
 a letter from a Barrister of the Inn, laying 
 certain facts before them which bore strongly 
 on the fitness of one of the candidates — who 
 had passed all the exams., paid the fees, and 
 was apparently quite in order. The com- 
 plainant was called upon to prove his case, 
 the Bench sitting four or five hours hearing 
 it, and the rebutting evidence adduced — the 
 matter finally standing adjourned till the follow- 
 ing day, when they kept us waiting for dinner 
 a whole hour. Eventually they declined the 
 " call," and the student appealed to the Judges, 
 under the idea that they had jurisdiction over 
 calls to the Bar, as well as over removals by 
 disbarral. This, however, proved not to be 
 the case ; the Benchers' exercise of discretion 
 in the matter was upheld, and the public spirit 
 of the objecting Barrister duly commended, 
 though the Bench declined to recoup him any 
 of the considerable outlay to which he had been 
 put — a check to public spirit for the future. 
 
 There was a country Rector whose family 
 was not a very happy one, owing to the prying 
 
BIBLE AND SCREW. 159 
 
 propensities of its head, whose great delight 
 was to frequent the kitchen and offices, inso- 
 much that he found it difficult to keep servants 
 at all, and indeed got his name on the Black 
 List, which last brought about a little coup de 
 thddtre at the rectory. The dinner was an 
 early one, and as soon as it was over the 
 servants, headed by the footman and cook, 
 proceeded to the Rector's study and asked for 
 their wages, as they were all about to leave, 
 and a cart had come for their boxes ; there it 
 was at the back door. Expostulation from 
 the sister-housekeeper, and swearing from the 
 Rector himself, were equally useless ; but the 
 ecclesiastic lost his head in the row and 
 actually paid the wages, in place of referring 
 the claimants to the County Court and setting 
 up a cross claim for damages for leaving without 
 notice, which would have turned the tables. 
 
 The clergy have sometimes good memories 
 for what nearly concerns themselves. Witness 
 the case of that Ruridecanal Meeting, some 
 forty strong, where a text in the Bible was 
 referred to, which it was desired to verify. 
 Each reverend gent put his hand in his pocket 
 as if to produce The Book, but no Bibles were 
 to be found, and each hand brought out a cork- 
 screw instead. 
 
 Here a mild Hindoo cut in with " I've heard 
 that in Burmah," 
 
i6o MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 Rights of way are ticklish things at all times, 
 especially after Mr. Justice Mathews comment 
 on them. He was one day trying a case of 
 this nature, wherein the plaintiff relied on his 
 having put up a board with the inscription 
 " Private Road" as an important support to 
 his case. Whereupon that exceptionally strong 
 Judge broke in, "What's the good of that! 
 Whenever I see ' Private Road ' stuck up I 
 know it is a short and easy cut, and go down 
 it. Why did you not build a wall across it ? " 
 Obiter dicta are very often open to animad- 
 version, and especially the obvious one that, 
 if the Judge's ruling were taken, the owner 
 would be cutting off his nose to spite his face, 
 and depriving himself of the use of it. But 
 its full defects are not seen till we narrate a case 
 where this was done, and also what came of it. 
 
 Many years ago a Monmouthshire Squire, 
 now deceased, tried to stop a road through Tiis 
 land which saved foot-passengers a quarter of a 
 mile. He first put up a board " No Road this 
 Way," which drew a lot of people to go through 
 it who otherwise would not have known of the 
 short cut. Then the gate was locked, and 
 forthwith broken down. It was re-erected and 
 spikes put on the top ; they were forthwith 
 knocked off. Then tar was put on, which re- 
 sulted in the gate, tar and all, being burnt. 
 Then the owner anticipated Mr. Justice 
 
HALVES IN A TERM OF TRANSPORTATION. i6i 
 
 Mathew's advice to build a wall across it, 
 tarring it liberally on top and sides. This was 
 blown up by dynamite, with a liberal smashing 
 of glass in the Manor House windows from the 
 concussion. Eventually a sporting Solicitor 
 was found, a subscription set on foot, twenty 
 years' user by the public without let or 
 hindrance established, and the amount of the 
 costs made it necessary for the Squire to go» 
 abroad for a couple of years. 
 
 An interesting book, and not a small one 
 either, might be written upon the slips of the 
 law. Here is a case from the Law Reports. 
 It was to set aside the sale of a property sold by 
 order of the Court and upon conditions framed 
 by one of its Conveyancing Counsel. It turned 
 out that that gentleman, though handsomely 
 fee'd to do so, had not read through the whole 
 will, and that the bequest which he had taken 
 as of the freehold was only an estate for the life 
 of a man who was dead. The purchaser had 
 paid his money, and lost every farthing of it. 
 
 Another and more ludicrous instance occurs 
 in the Registration Act (52 George III., chap. 
 156), which carefully provides for the division 
 of the penalties to be recovered under it in 
 equal moieties between the informer and certain 
 specified charities ; the only penalty under the 
 Act being fourteen years' transportation. 
 
 I \ 
 
1 62 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 And the Chancery Division text-books find 
 it necessary to set it out what course to adopt 
 when the money has been paid by the Court to 
 the wrong person, and how the butter is to be 
 equitably got out of the Black Dog's throat. 
 
 The- son of a Peer, an utterly worthless and 
 idle spendthrift, was sent out to a large New 
 Zealand sheep-farmer to be got out of the way. 
 Beyond continual drunkenness, he had not much 
 opportunity for going astray, till there came a 
 day on which his host had to pay to the Maori 
 owners, rent for their land occupied by him. 
 The amount was considerable, some .^700, 
 and payment was made in cash or notes. The 
 distinguished aristocrat turned up at the spot in 
 the evening of that pay-day, just when the Chiefs 
 were sitting down to cards. He managed to 
 rook them out of the whole of the money just 
 then paid them, and, turning up at the station 
 next day, told the matter as a good joke. He 
 was somewhat startled by being told at once to 
 leave the place, for the farmer's sake as well as 
 for his own, as he would certainly be shot at 
 the earliest opportunity, and the station burnt 
 over their heads if he were found upon it. 
 
 There came one night to our Mess a man 
 who bore all things meekly and orderly, till a 
 Devonshire man, who had come up to add to 
 
OH! THE DREARY, DREARY MOORLAND. 163 
 
 his local importance as a J. P. by taking the 
 Bar degree, let fall the name of " Dartmoor," 
 which acted upon the silent one almost as a 
 mild earthquake shock. For his utterances as 
 to " the cold, miserable, howling wilderness " 
 were of the strongest kind, and it took some little 
 time to calm him down and ascertain why this 
 was thus. It seemed that he had gone down 
 with the Inns of Court Volunteers to some 
 autumn manoeuvres performed there in 1872, and 
 never repeated since. In fact, they never were 
 carried out then, as the weather set in for its 
 very worst, and even parades became impossible 
 much less marches-out and tactical evolutions. 
 The men were cooped up in their tents, having 
 to camp down on the damp ground, while 
 cooking, owing to the wet, was impossible, 
 even if there had been anything to cook. In 
 fact, a friend of mine used to have cutlets dressed 
 at his home in London and sent down as letters, 
 there being no Parcels Post at that time. 
 When the dreary fortnight was over the men 
 were perfectly ravenous, and another friend, 
 also there-, who came to visit me in what was 
 left of his uniform, had an amusing adven- 
 ture. As his baggage had been sent to my 
 house he had no alternative but to come there 
 in regimentals, saturated with Dartmoor mud, 
 making him such a scarecrow that a native of 
 my village mistook his inquiry for my place as 
 
164 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 begging, and absolutely gave him a penny. 
 His state must have been indeed deplorable to 
 bring about such a result in a village where 
 " us never gives nothing to nobody." 
 
 May a Latin epigram come in here ? 
 
 " On a very tall Barrister, Mr. Long. 
 
 " Longe longorum longissime Longe virorum, 
 Die mihi te quseso num Breve quicquid habes ? 
 
 May it be translated thus ? — 
 
 " Longest of Longs, ere long may come relief. 
 And to long longings come along a Brief." 
 
 Of this most trenchant form of satire our Mess 
 dinners and the Bar generally are innocent. 
 Epigram seems to be a lost science, and yet 
 it is the most telling form of sarcasm known. 
 On the principle of " hitting a man who can't 
 hit you back," it is especially valuable for taking 
 a rise out of the clergy, who are to a man 
 incapable of answering it. Sometimes, too, it 
 works for good, as when a graduate of King's 
 College, London, lost touch of his Latin quan- 
 tities, if he ever had any, in reading the Lessons, 
 and was brought to his bearings by the common 
 halfpenny postcard thuswise : — 
 
 " It's bad enough to hear him preach, 
 Drone prayers, and lessons gabble on ; 
 But it's enough to make one screech 
 When he calls Zebulun ' Zabbylon.' " 
 
WHY DIDN'T HE MARRY HER ? 165 
 
 Our nearest approach to the epigram is some 
 such statement, as that one of the greatest 
 orators now at the Bar, takes snuff as copiously 
 as he does in order to sneeze off the phlegm 
 accumulated at the base of the brain by his 
 impetuosity (in other words, temper). And 
 then comes the comment, " Well, no wonder 
 he has to take such a lot of it ; and after all 
 the effect is not realised." 
 
 The might-have-beens of history form one 
 of its most charming studies. Consider, for 
 instance, how changed things would have 
 been had George III. married anybody but 
 Charlotte of Mecklenburg ? — that is, if he did 
 really marry her, with the Quakeress Hannah 
 Lightfoot, his admittedly previous-married wife, 
 still alive at Clapton Road, where she was to 
 live quietly for many years to come. When 
 her death did happen, however, the Queen 
 made things safe for the future by compelling 
 him to go through the marriage ceremony 
 again, thus saving the legitimacy of at least 
 the Duke of Cumberland and all who came 
 after him. George III. did not mind the 
 bigamy, and had previously tried for a second 
 English wife, the Royal Marriage Act not 
 then existing. The dull young man was 
 deeply smitten with the beauty of Lady Sarah 
 Lennox — in whom were reproduced the fascina- 
 
1 66 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 tions of her maternal grandmother, Louise de 
 Querouille, ancestress of three English ducal 
 families, all handsomely provided for at the 
 public expense. As the young King rode by 
 the grounds of Holland Park, Lady Sarah, in 
 a Watteau- Shepherdess dress, was making hay 
 in the grounds. So brilliant a vision, in what 
 Sir Walter Scott calls " the air of deep 
 seclusion which is spread round the domain," 
 enhanced by the natural skill of a born actress 
 of the first rank, fetched the monarch ; and, 
 disregarding his lady-mother and her favourite. 
 Lord Bute, he made the damsel an offer of 
 marriage — first through her cousin, and then 
 personally at a Court Ball, in a bow- window. 
 But the lady had not the courage to catch 
 at such a splendid offer, and her intriguing 
 relatives, the Foxes, were not on the spot. 
 When the King asked her what she thought of 
 his message, as his happiness depended upon 
 it, she only said, "Nothing, Sir." "Nothing 
 comes of nothing," said the King, turning away 
 in manifest vexation. Now George II L was 
 never angry without something coming of it, 
 and though he manifested great interest when 
 subsequently she met with an accident, he took 
 his revenge by naming her as a bridesmaid 
 on his marriage. Matters here, however, 
 righted themselves, and Lady Sarah shone as 
 "chief angel," so Walpole says; completely 
 
THE BLOOM OF UGLINESS. 167 
 
 eclipsing the very plain bride, the bloom of 
 whose ugliness was not to fade for many years 
 to come. 
 
 In 1 78 1, or twenty years later, her loveliness 
 was even then admired by that eminent judge 
 of female beauty, George, afterwards Prince 
 Regent. In due time she married, and became 
 the mother of illustrious heroes. Twice on 
 the evening of a victory did Lord Wellington 
 snatch a moment to let her know that her two 
 Napiers had been gloriously wounded ; within 
 a few hours of the storming of Ciudad Rodrigo, 
 the second of her three sons wrote with his left 
 hand to tell her he had lost his right arm at 
 the head of the breach when leading the forlorn 
 hope. 
 
 Her two elder sisters had also sons of mark, 
 in the persons of Charles James Fox and 
 Lord Edward Fitzgerald, leader of the Irish 
 Rebellion ; but the names of Lady Sarah 
 Napier's sons must ever live in the records of 
 the British army. 
 
 Try to work out how things might have run 
 in the history of the world if the lady had said 
 " Yes " in the place of " Nothing." Firstly, 
 the Fox interest having a friend in the King's 
 closet, there might have been no American 
 Revolution.- The horrors of the French one 
 would have been mitigated if there had been 
 no coalition of kings to irritate and inflame it ; 
 
i68 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 there would have been no Napoleons, no large 
 National Debt, but continents like Australia 
 filled up generations before our time — the 
 prospect is overpowering from the people's 
 point of view. But look what a change there 
 would have been in the personality of the 
 Royal family itself Imagine gorgeous George 
 the Dandy replaced by tough old Charlie 
 Napier, with his cake of soap and two towels 
 for his sole outfit in the campaign. Imagine 
 on the steps of the throne, the historian of the 
 Peninsular War, so handsome that an officer 
 who saw him left for dead under a tree at 
 Casale Noval thought him the handsomest man 
 he had ever dreamed of. Even in extreme 
 old age he was the most distinguished-looking 
 man whom the writer saw at the Duke of 
 Wellington's funeral in 1852 ; and yet one of 
 the gentlest, too. When his wife was dying 
 he caused himself, with a life before him of but 
 one week, to be carried into her room. Fancy 
 such a man filling the place of the Duke of 
 York, Patron of Mrs. Clarke, Vendor of Com- 
 missions in a British Army, of a considerable 
 part of which he had brought about the shame- 
 ful and disgraceful surrender ! 
 
 There are not many wealthy men at our 
 Mess table, but the Australian bank failures 
 met with some comment, and from the incident 
 
AUSTRALIA AND ENGLAND MUCH ALIKE. 169 
 
 noted below it would seem as if the local Bank 
 Managers out there were not much better looked 
 after than the Chief Cashier of the Bank of 
 England by the Directors of the Old Lady of 
 Threadneedle Street. 
 
 There was an Inspector of Branches of a 
 Bank of Woolloomoolloo who had been absent 
 from his post in the performance of his duties 
 as a member of the Australian Cricket Team 
 visiting this country. When he got back he 
 wanted change of air and scene, and so pro- 
 ceeded to look up some of the hundred 
 and fifty branches which he had to supervise. 
 So he took the train for, let us say, Duxville. 
 Arrived there, he sought the bank, and was 
 told that the Manager had a garden-party on ; 
 would he mind stepping round and seeing him 
 on the ground ? He found him just com- 
 mencing a fresh set of tennis, and, after warm 
 greetings, was asked if he would join them ? 
 but business being pleaded the local man asked 
 him to stay until the set was finished, which 
 he won in splendid form. He then, still in 
 his whites, after seeing his guests off took 
 the visitor to the bank, and coolly said: " Here 
 are the keys. You will find everything right 
 except my cash ; it is ^3,000 short. You 
 have never been near me for four years, and 
 I began to think it -would be all gone before 
 you turned up. Only please make no noise 
 
170 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 about it here ; let me send my wife and family 
 off to Sydney. We can pass the evening 
 together ; you can sleep in the same room 
 with me if you like, and I will go with you 
 to the station in the morning." All which 
 programme was duly carried out, and. the 
 Manager is now placidly doing his five years. 
 
 So quickly have things changed since the 
 passing of the Corrupt Practices Act, that it 
 seems hard to believe that, until some dozen 
 years ago, votes were more or less openly sold. 
 It is my fortune to live not far from two towns, 
 both sufficiently infamous in regard to venality, 
 and we may record a few incidents of the two 
 last elections, which fairly tired out public 
 patience, and compelled their disfranchisement. 
 I personally knew three actors on the occasion. 
 
 One was the celebrated Cat, which could wink 
 independently with both eyes ; for this prodigy 
 of nature, outwardly yellow and with a sus- 
 picion of mange about it, ;^50 was paid in 
 bank-notes at 3.30 on the polling day, which 
 then closed at 4 p.m. The purchaser, however, 
 never came to take him away, and he remained 
 in the vendor's possession. 
 
 The second was the celebrated Man in the 
 Moon, whose face no voter ever saw, as he 
 was required to turn his back on entering a 
 certain room in a modest public-house, and go 
 
^500 FOR MY VOTE? NO. 171 
 
 a-tail till something stopped him. He then 
 put his hand behind him, and in it was placed 
 the previously agreed sum. ^4,000 was got 
 rid of in this way. And the Man in the 
 Moon had to go on a visit to America till 
 the parliamentary inquiry was over. Then he 
 came back and lived quietly some distance ofif, 
 occasionally revisiting Totnes ; for, as my 
 informant said, " he hadn't got no need to do 
 no work now." 
 
 The third was an Influential Tradesman in 
 the town, now deceased, and his story about the 
 election is unique in the whole affair, because, 
 as the Commissioner found out, it was the 
 only incident of the kind in the investigation 
 really and unmistakably, nay verbally, true. 
 The old man stuck out to the last that Totnes 
 was unfairly punished, and went on to say 
 thus : " Why, sir, I had them come to me and 
 offer ;^5oo for my vote just before the poll 
 closed, and I refused it." He really had been 
 offered the bank-notes at 3.30, had refused 
 them, and his vote was never polled. Mr. 
 Hume, the Clerk of the Commissioner, Sir 
 Thomas Chambers, cleared up the mystery. 
 " You see, sir, both sides had already polled 
 all their men, or next to it, and there were six 
 of them as held out and wanted £2>^o apiece. 
 Now, if the old man in Fore Street could be 
 got to vote, five of the chapel people would 
 
172 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 follow him for a /lo note, so in this way 
 they cost ;^55o in place of ;^i,8oo. The old 
 boy knew what they were at, and sprung 
 his price to ^700. Just as they was on the 
 point of giving it him, in comes a man to 
 whisper that the original six had got to hear 
 of the little game, and how they was to be left 
 out of it ; so they gets in a funk, because the 
 old man had been too many for them once 
 afore, and they absolutely takes a ;^ioo apiece. 
 As soon as they was paid and polled, they 
 didn't want the old man in Fore Street, so 
 they sent word round just in time. He nearly 
 had a fit over it when four o'clock struck and 
 they hadn't come back to fetch him." 
 
 There are still people in Totnes who talk 
 with regret of the brave days of old, and the 
 portrait of the candidate whose return cost him 
 some ;^ 1 7,000 still hangs up in many of the 
 parlours inside the shop. 
 
 In the day when it was understood that the 
 preservation of human life, the alleviation of 
 human suffering, warranted experiments, strictly 
 for the relief of human pain, upon animals 
 lower in the scale of existence, a great surgeon 
 would not infrequently practise in advance 
 upon one of his dogs. This was especially the 
 case with the once famous Sir Astley Cooper, 
 of whom it is recorded that, previous to his 
 
TIE ME, TIE MY DOG, BUT DOG FIRST. 173 
 
 great operation of tying the aorta, he repeatedly 
 ligatured the principal, arteries of the pointers 
 which he kept for sporting purposes at Hemel 
 Hempstead. The result was curious : the 
 animals were perfectly willing to "point" or 
 do any other part of canine duty except go 
 near their master, any approach to whom was 
 carefully shunned. 
 
 Stories of this great surgeon have died 
 out, even from the place of his glory, Guy's 
 Hospital, and it is only from members of it 
 who succeeded to the generation which knew 
 him that some flashes of his wit can yet be 
 recovered : such, for instance, as the answer 
 to the meek, spectacled, flaxen-haired young 
 student who blushingly asked the Professor 
 on his rounds, " What is the best remedy for 
 rheumatic fever ? " " Six weeks," was the 
 straight answer. 
 
 Sir Astley was not a rough speaker, 
 though he inherited many of the traditions 
 of Lettsom and Abernethy, the last of 
 whom was positively brutal. How long, for 
 instance, would Sir Saville Rowe, Bart., in the 
 present day be permitted to say to a patient 
 who complained that it hurt him when he 
 lifted up his arm, " What the devil do you do 
 it for, then ? " Sir Astley bore himself quite 
 differently to his patients, soothed and humoured 
 their fads in every way, with, in one instance 
 
174 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 at least, a money loss to himself. A patient 
 on whom he had long attended possessed 
 a large historical picture on which he set an 
 enormous value. The smooth-tongued surgeon 
 brightened the patient by continually forcing up 
 this hypothetical estimate, and so committed 
 himself that he had to accept the daub in 
 question in place of his fee. Similarly did he 
 carry himself to Hyatt, the great West India 
 sugar king, on whom he operated for stone, 
 brought on by too much pepper-pot and " main 
 sheet " (this last is a compound of iced water 
 and limes with just one glass of new rum, a 
 most exquisite tipple — can be consumed in 
 gallons, and fills the part of Permanent Master 
 of the Ceremonies to Yellow Jack). The great 
 surgeon called for the last time to report that he 
 was about to discharge himself The ex-patient 
 warmly thanked him, and, taking off the night- 
 cap he wore, threw it at his healer. " Take 
 that for it ! " " No, no, I won't deprive you of 
 the cap," — out of which he took the ^i,ooo 
 cheque before he handed it back. Hyatt, be 
 it said, had previously given his two physicians 
 ^300 apiece. 
 
 We may note here that the largest fee ever 
 given to any medical man was that given 
 to Baron Dimsdale in 1769 for inoculating 
 Catherine II. of Russia and her favourite 
 Potemkin for the small-pox. It was ;^ 12,000 
 
KINGS ARE KITTLE CATTLE. 175 
 
 in cash, and an annuity of ^500 a year for 
 life, the title of " Baron " being thrown in. 
 
 Sir Astley had in his busiest days the gift 
 of " sleep-at- will "—could sit down in an easy- 
 chair and say, " I will sleep for ten minutes," 
 and wake up at the exact moment. 
 
 It was a curious life that of Sir Astley. 
 Son of a Yarmouth Vicar, he came to town 
 as an apprentice ; for surgeons then were but 
 members of the Barber-Surgeons' Company, 
 and were, in the eyes of the law, tradesmen, 
 and nothing else. The College of Surgeons 
 did not exist. When the youngster started for 
 himself, it was in Jeffrey's Square, St. Mary 
 Axe, just as Sir Andrew Clark began his 
 brilliant career in Fetter Lane. His first year's 
 gains were ;^55, and it was ten years before he 
 became Surgeon to Guy's and made ;^ 700. 
 
 His greatest trial, however, was on the 
 occasion when George IV. had a large tumour 
 on the scalp, of which, after much trepidation 
 and delay, he desired the removal, and for 
 the work he selected Cooper, at that time the 
 man in most repute. But Cooper did not like 
 the honour. The King's habit of body was 
 notoriously cachectic, and as soon as the knife 
 had done its work erysipelas was as likely as 
 not, or more likely than not, to supervene. 
 The, time, too, was just after the death of the 
 Princess Charlotte, when Croft, overwhelmed 
 
176 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 with public execration for supposed want of 
 nerve at the critical moment, had ended his 
 life and his practice by his own hand. The 
 usual multitude of counsellors in the shape of 
 physicians was gathered in the King's rooms. 
 Cooper flatly refused to take the knife, and 
 left the room, only to be followed by Sir H. 
 Halford, with the words, " The King says 
 you're to do it." He returned, took the knife, 
 made the incision, emptied the tumour, then 
 strapped and bound up the wound, leaving in 
 an agony of mind. The next day the King 
 sent for him, and he at once went, returning 
 more distressed than ever, for symptoms of 
 the dreaded and much-feared sequelae were 
 visible. He mentioned this to his assistant, 
 adding, " The King is in the d~est funk ; but 
 what could make him so short and touchy with 
 me?" "Well, sir, you might have put on a 
 clean shirt before you went, and washed the 
 blood off your hands." In fact, Sir Astley's 
 shirt was excessively dirty ; stains of blood 
 appeared on the wristband and were visible on 
 his hands also. His fears as to the King grew 
 daily, as the patient was unmanageable as to diet 
 and drink where this complaint was concerned ; 
 but eventually the King's great toe reddened, an 
 explosion of gout took place, and the erysipelas, 
 as to the presence of which all the doctors were 
 unanimous, vanished in the commotion set up. 
 
AN EXPLODED INDUSTRY. 177 
 
 It is as great a risk now as ever to be the 
 physician of a king ; formerly his life was 
 in danger, now it is his Hving, aggravated 
 by the fact that in those days great surgeons 
 received no fees for attending royalty ; and when 
 one longsuffering man, boldly daring, handed 
 in a note of the said fees, he was never sent 
 for again to Court, and was practically ruined, 
 for the world of fashion soon noticed that his 
 star had set at Windsor. 
 
 In connection with medical enterprise, there 
 existed at that date one form of it which was 
 very busy and lucrative in its day, but is now 
 and for ever gone. We are not alluding to the 
 resurrection-men in search for subjects for the 
 great medical hospitals, when loose bricks were 
 placed upon the enclosing walls of quiet church- 
 yards so as to prevent their being scaled, spring- 
 guns placed upon the grave-mounds, and the 
 interior garrisoned by men with loaded pistols. 
 This was a different and more useful mystery, 
 though a somewhat nasty one : the supply of 
 human teeth. For this traffic men attached 
 themselves to Lord Wellington's armies in the 
 Peninsula, and as soon as the battle was over, 
 and darkness fell on the scene of slaughter, 
 went out on the field with their forceps to abstract 
 the molars of the young and healthy dead. 
 These men took out licences as regular sutlers ; 
 but, once on the field, they plundered the 
 
 T2 
 
178 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 pockets, as well as the mouth, of their contents, 
 and were suspected of not infrequently giving 
 
 " Another stab to make the case more sure." 
 
 It was a risky trade, for any soldier who saw 
 them practising their hideous traffic would at 
 once bestow a bullet on them. Yet it paid 
 well. Harnett, one of the greatest exploiters 
 of it, died worth ;^7,ooo ; and another of them, 
 Crouch, got so much money by it as to be able 
 to build an hotel at Margate ; which prospered 
 until his former occupation came out, when it 
 was at once shunned, and he had to leave it. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 A barrister criminal — How he worked the forgeries — Falling 
 into his own trap — Archbishop Thomson — Cause and 
 effect — The alphabetical bishops — The Ven. Archdeaconess 
 — A " drop in " on a Sunday evening — The medical student 
 and Covent Garden Concerts — The medical man and his 
 long-deferred bill — The Empress of Russia — " Don't use 
 words unless you know what they mean " — The drink stopped 
 in Hme — A contrary operation — Cardin.J and Rabbi -The 
 late Lord Beaconsfield— Does much writing congest the 
 liver? — " Central Railway" and the ;^5o,ooo Consols which 
 went astray — A good excuse for getting up late — The fight 
 between Sayers and Heenan — A terrible form of insanity — 
 Why used jute always to get on fire whenever the price went 
 down ? — Playing with fire — One of the latest booms in 
 indigo — Three compensations in five years — The boiled baby 
 — The parish clerk and the salmon — How to get into a closed 
 hotel — Sir Richard Owen — County Court Judges shouldn't 
 travel third class — Science in beer. 
 
 AS a rule, the average barrister keeps him- 
 self out of the wrong eiid of a criminal 
 court, but there have been one or two instances 
 in which, as in every other, the profession 
 has had to blush for its black sheep. The 
 most notorious case was that of Jim the Pen- 
 man, dramatised on the stage, and novelized 
 by Miss Braddon ; but in neither case has 
 
 the man's real but misguided genius been 
 
 179 
 
i8o MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 shown to the extent that it really merited. His 
 name was James Townsend Saward. He had 
 been called to the Bar in the Inner Temple in 
 1840, and had for years been connected with 
 thieves, one of his largest operations being 
 in connection with the South-Eastern bullion 
 robbery, when Agar and Pierce, who had 
 abstracted ;i^i 2,000 in gold and coin, found 
 it needful to hand ;^2,500 of it to Saward for 
 some reason or other. 
 
 But his strong point was forgery. Shops 
 were broken into — cheques, both blank and 
 cancelled, forming part of the booty : the 
 cheques were then filled up on the model of 
 the cancelled ones with marvellous similarity. 
 Advertisements were put in country papers 
 for young men in search of situations, the 
 answerers invited to call at a certain address, 
 their services engaged, and then sent, as their 
 first job, to the bank to get change for a 
 cheque. Saward waited for the young man 
 as he left the banking-house ; and if the cheque 
 was paid, received the money from him ; if 
 the bearer was detained, he would scent the 
 fact and make off For each of these trans- 
 actions a new lodging was engaged, so that 
 whether the forgery was detected at once or 
 later on there was no track to follow up. 
 
 Thus the second transaction entered on was 
 a failure; the forgery was discovered, the 
 
THE VALUE OF CANCELLED CHEQUES. i8i 
 
 young man detained, and Saward went no 
 more back to those lodgings. After this there 
 was a new modification, and he became the 
 purchaser of stolen cheque-books and cheques, 
 even, as we have already said, cancelled ones, 
 as these would serve as models on which to 
 forge bills of exchange. In this branch of the 
 business he could operate for higher amounts, 
 and soon an acceptance for some ^400 was 
 presented at the bankers of a large City firm. 
 The bill was impounded ; but as Saward was 
 in the bank in disguise when this occurred, he 
 was able to make oif, never returning to the 
 address where he had engaged the messenger. 
 This style of business required continual fresh 
 adaptation, and pocket-picking was the new 
 form it took. A solicitor's pocket was picked 
 in Cornhill ; it contained two blank cheques, 
 which most people would think valueless, as 
 no model existed on which to fill them up ; but 
 the pocket-book contained the owner's name 
 and address, and Saward's ingenuity was equal 
 to the rest. It requires no introduction in 
 order to enter a solicitor's office, and hence one 
 of the gang could go to that same solicitor's 
 place of business with a bogus I.O.U., for 
 which the solicito.; was directed to demand 
 payment ; the idea being that if the amount 
 was paid at once and left for some days un- 
 claimed, the solicitor would pay the amount 
 
i82 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 into his bankers, and give his client a cheque 
 for it when he came for the money. Never was 
 I.O.U. more speedily paid ; but, unfortunately, 
 all the trouble had been taken for nothing, 
 as the solicitor's clerk paid the amount, some 
 ;^35, in cash. Saward coolly remarked, "Well, 
 we must wait a little, and then try it again." 
 
 So another fictitious I.O.U. was prepared, 
 and the solicitor's services again made use of. 
 The amount, ;^i03, was allowed to remain in 
 his hands for some days ; and when the client 
 called to know the result, he was paid with a 
 cheque on the solicitor's banker. No time was 
 lost, and on this model two cheques were pre- 
 pared upon the forms taken out of the stolen 
 pocket-book, one of them for the considerable 
 sum of;^4io. A fresh lodging was secured for 
 the occasion, and the young man engaged for 
 this job took the document to Messrs. Wood- 
 heads. They had a partner of the name of 
 Sharp, but he had gone out to lunch, so they 
 paid the amount, and it was divided between 
 the barrister and his two confederates, Hard- 
 wicke and Anderson. 
 
 The second attempt was on a still larger 
 scale. Hardwicke, who was a returned convict, 
 had brought back with him from Australia a 
 bill for ;^200 on a City firm, who had accepted 
 it payable at their bankers, thus giving two 
 all-important factors hitherto unavailable. On 
 
THE "CHEQUERS" INN. 183 
 
 this model Saward prepared a bill for ;^ 1,000 ; 
 and having heard a light porter in the street 
 say he was in want of a situation, they engaged 
 him at once, and sent him with it to the bank. 
 Anderson, disguised, accompanied him in the 
 omnibus, and Hardwicke was in the bank 
 watching for the result. The cashier examined 
 the signature, and had actually counted out the 
 notes ; but just as he was about to hand them 
 over a lingering doubt struck him, and he went 
 away to compare the bill with others. Hard- 
 wicke at once decamped, and Anderson entered 
 precisely in time to see the porter detained, — 
 the stroke had failed. 
 
 But the next one was more successful, owing 
 to a change in the way of working it. He 
 prepared two cheques of ;^ioo each, and one 
 of ;!^5o. They put up under fresh names at 
 three different hotels in Bishopsgate Street, 
 and sent the porters thereof to present the 
 forgeries, of which two were paid. This was 
 on a Saturday ; and by the time the two 
 watchers had returned to their several hotels 
 to receive the money, it was too late to present 
 a third. A fresh hotel was selected for the 
 purpose ; but when on the Monday the porter 
 presented it at Messrs. Hankey's, the previous 
 two had been discovered, and the watchers had 
 to decamp without the coin. 
 
 By this time London was getting somewhat 
 
1 84 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 warm, and Saward determined to try the 
 country for a season — in this case Yarmouth. 
 A sum of ;^250 was paid to the London agents 
 of a bank there for the credit of one Ralph, 
 a name taken by Hardwicke. He paid it in 
 under the name of Whiting, but forgot to give 
 the name of Ralph as the receiver of it, so it 
 went down to the credit of Whiting, without 
 whose signature the Yarmouth bank would not 
 pay. On this being reported to Saward, he 
 sent Anderson to Messrs. Barclay's to get 
 back the money ; but that firm refused, and 
 insisted that " Mr. Whiting " should come 
 himself and explain the difficulty. To ordinary 
 people it seems easy for Hardwicke to have 
 gone to that firm, get himself recognised, give 
 particulars of the items of which the payment 
 consisted, and possibly be allowed to write a 
 second, and corrected, paying-in slip ; but 
 Saward did not much care about confronting 
 bankers whose suspicions were aroused. Still, 
 the .^250 was in jeopardy, and he wrote 
 complicated instructions to Hardwicke how 
 to endeavour to get it paid in Yarmouth. But 
 it was too late. The two banks had exchanged 
 confidences ; Hardwicke and Anderson had 
 been apprehended on suspicion of forgery or 
 conspiracy, so that Saward's letter to Hard-, 
 wicke fell into the hands of the police, who 
 had now clues which they could follow up. 
 
CAUGHT BY HIS OWN BAIT. 185 
 
 Hardwicke and Anderson were at once put 
 on their trial, and sentenced to transportation 
 for life, being kept in Newgate until the appre- 
 hension of their accomplice some two or three 
 months later, when they willingly appeared as 
 approvers. 
 
 The trial of Saward was a protracted one, 
 on account of the long string of witnesses 
 necessary to make out so complicated a proof 
 as has just been detailed ; but the result was 
 clear from the first ; and on his transportation 
 for life, disbarral removed from the Law List 
 the name of James Townsend Saward. It is 
 curious to' remark the constantly recurring fact 
 that, though this man had plundered bankers 
 to the extent of some thousands a year for 
 many years, his share of the plunder was wholly 
 exhausted in low gaming-houses and other 
 vicious pursuits, so that he had absolutely no 
 money to retain counsel to defend him, though 
 the briefs were ready for delivery. 
 
 The case is interesting as one of the very 
 few on record in which a thief has absolutely 
 paid money out of pocket to bait the trap into 
 which he himself was to fall. 
 
 Archbishop Thomson was in the habit of 
 observing that, on the occasion of every rise 
 in his life, there was born to him a child, to 
 wit : — 
 
i86 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 (i) On his becoming Provost of Queen's 
 College, Oxford ; 
 
 (2) On his becoming Bishop of Gloucester 
 and Bristol ; 
 
 (3) On his attaining the Northern Primacy. 
 Bishop S. Wilberforce drily asked, " Do you 
 
 think Mrs. Thomson is past child-bearing ? 
 She has only two more opportunities for any 
 fresh promotions, should they happen to come 
 off. (i) There's Canterbury, which he will 
 never get ; (2) there's heaven, which he will 
 never be fit for." 
 
 Thomson was rather given to borrowing 
 money, and somewhat slow in paying it back. 
 On the occasion of the Lambeth Pan-Anglican 
 Conference, the then Bishop of Winchester, 
 who hated him mortally, said, " We have some 
 curious Sees represented here : one is the 
 Bishop of (Ohio) O.I.O. ; another the Bishop 
 of (loway) I.O.A. ; but where is the Archbishop 
 of I.O.U.?" 
 
 A clergyman in the Oxford Diocese named 
 Bosticul was promoted to be an Archdeacon, 
 and on the strength of it he shortly after 
 married a lady twenty years older than himself 
 On one occasion they went out to dinner, 
 and the manservant was carefully cautioned 
 as to giving the new dignitary his proper 
 prefix, so he thus announced the newly married 
 
MEDICAL VICISSITUDES. 187 
 
 pair : " Archdek'n and the Venerable Mrs. 
 Bosticul." 
 
 It is terrible to think of the domestic calami- 
 ties of common life. A medical man told me 
 that his maiden aunt once dropped in upon 
 him to ask him to take her to chapel. She 
 had never before visited his " diggings " on a 
 Sunday evening, and, considering it free, he 
 had invited sundry other fellow-students to 
 join in a friendly game at " Pig," which was 
 in full blast when the " second mother " entered. 
 Much entreaty, with humiliation, kept her 
 ^5,000 in the family, and saved it from the 
 missionary society ; but my friend was left 
 out in the cold, and his eldest son will reap 
 the benefit of principal and piled-up interest 
 when of age. 
 
 Even worse, however, was the fate of an- 
 other medical friend. He was a practical 
 chemist, and nearly brought the late M. Jullien 
 to his death from apoplexy by a simple experi- 
 ment performed at one of his Covent Garden 
 Promenade Concerts. In the several entrances, 
 where was the tramp of many feet, he dropped 
 small parcels of "hellebore," and waited, with 
 the devotion of a savant, till the tramping 
 had raised the dust and the people began to 
 sneeze — which that drug has the property of 
 bringing on irresistibly. He had not long to 
 
1 88 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 wait. Bang went a signal-gun from a short 
 black-bearded, hook-nosed Hebrew; from a 
 spruce damsel followed a " sneee-ish " ; from 
 another entrance file-firing broke out — the 
 contagion spread — and a grand "tissh-shaw" 
 chorus was imported unanimously into the 
 British Army Quadrille, all the more audible 
 because the music was pianissimo, representing 
 the approach of the enemy just at the break 
 of dawn. The cornet had to " sound the 
 alarm " to the slumbering camp — his instrument 
 was at his lips, when instead of the flute-like, 
 bell-toned call in which few could imitate 
 Herr Koenig, the instrument dropped from his 
 mouth, and there came, after a prolonged and 
 painful struggle, a German variety of " Tissch- 
 tissch-tissch shnorr." The Maestro broke loose 
 at this, — baton upraised, and coat-tails flying 
 he thus addressed the audience : " You plac 
 carts ! " when suddenly the raving stopped — 
 nature asserted herself, the head flew back, 
 the frame convulsively quivered, the baton 
 drooped, and there burst forth a Gallic, squeaky 
 " Teesh-eesh-eesh-ish stragh." The police 
 were paralysed ; whoever appealed to one, 
 sneezed in his face and got a " tisch-shaw " 
 back in return. Then some one began to 
 laugh, for the wind instruments were paralysed, 
 and the strings fingering anywhere but where 
 the note was to be produced. The vocalist. 
 
CHIEFLY CATAGRAPHIC. 189 
 
 Madame Bishop, could do nothing but laugh 
 and sneeze alternately, while some strong- 
 headed (or nosed) persons made free with the 
 refreshment-counter tills — there was nothing 
 for it but to close the entertainment, no one 
 knowing at the time what the cause of it was, 
 and every one keeping their own counsel about 
 it when the cause did come to light, for fear 
 of " Da Capo " another evening. 
 
 But my friend who had practised on 
 humanity with such impunity was to find his 
 Nemesis in the shape of a common cat. Peter 
 was yellow in colour, enormous in size, surly 
 to the last degree, and the inseparable com- 
 panion of Miss Martha Tibbets, my friend's 
 aunt, who had sent him to the Hospital and 
 had promised to buy him a practice when duly 
 qualified. Consequently every Thursday the 
 nephew paid a duty-visit to Homerton, and 
 after tea played cribbage with his aunt till the 
 supper-tray came in. Now, the feline race have 
 a strange liking for valerian, and will nuzzle 
 a root of it till, at a certain point, they become 
 seized with acute mania, and at once proceed 
 to " make things fly." The rising pathologist 
 conceived the idea of exhibiting it on Peter, 
 and took the opportunity of his aunt's absence 
 to place a piece before him. Peter at once 
 seized and began to lick it, purring vociferously. 
 For two hours nothing happened. The aunt 
 
190 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 by the help of a marvellous crib had pegged 
 out and won three-halfpence. The door had 
 opened to admit the prim domestic with the 
 tray of sheep's trotters and Welsh rabbit, 
 when Peter gave a ferocious waul, jumped at 
 the old lady, scratched first her face, then her 
 cap off; sprang from the old lady's bald head 
 to the gas globe, which he shivered ; then on 
 to the supper-tray, which he overturned, servant 
 and all ; and then fled to the wilds of Hoxton, 
 to return no more. Medical aid was at once 
 summoned, and my friend tried to confer with 
 his fully qualified brother upon the sudden 
 outburst of feline rabies in Peter. But, alas 
 for professional good faith ! the medical adviser 
 had expectations from this old lady himself, 
 which would enlarge by the elimination of the 
 heir-expectant — he picked up the gnawed and 
 splintered fragment, and explained its effect 
 upon Toms and Tabbies. There was another 
 martyrdom in the cause of science ; beyond 
 the bare sum needed to complete his educa- 
 tion my friend received nothing more. It 
 is fair to add, however, that the informer 
 did not benefit directly, as the money went to 
 the Decayed Muffin-Makers' Mothers-in- Laws' 
 Model Home. But, of course, the medical man 
 could soothe his injured feelings when he came 
 to make up his bill, which the M.M.M.H. paid 
 without dispute or cavil, enormous as it was. 
 
MEDICAL MOURNERS. 191 
 
 But people should not be hard upon a 
 medical attendant. In too many instances, 
 especially when the illness has been long, he 
 is the only one who truly mourns for the dear 
 departed. Can he be blamed for seeking con- 
 solation in the secrecy of his day-book, and in 
 due time, and when the will is proved, openly 
 adding it up in his bill ? I once knew a dear old 
 lady who lived on her annuity, and who had 
 promised to all around her — servants, clergymen 
 and their families, and all her friends, in fact — 
 plentiful provision in her will. Her temper 
 was a trifle trying, and one or two of the 
 clerics worked out the sum — thought of the 
 quarter of a century during which the little 
 theorem had already operated with nothing as 
 yet coming out of it, looked up the 6'86 years' 
 expectation of life against her age in the 
 Government Annuitants' Table, glanced at the 
 Share List and noted the selling price of what 
 the old lady fondly termed "them Argentines" 
 — then, on the next snub she gave them, walked 
 out, and breathed the air of freedom and self- 
 respect once more. The rest looked on, sighed, 
 and waited on still — but continued to turn up 
 on the Tuesday evening's duty visit ; every 
 one that dropped out was a gain to the rest, 
 and so no one did drop out. Not among these, 
 however, Dr. Oudydoo — friendly, cheery, and 
 always coming in every Sunday afternoon to 
 
192 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 sit two hours with the old lady, charging it, 
 naturally, as special visit. He never sent in her 
 bill. " Lord love you," he took the sovereign 
 or two she gave him occasionally, and the 
 handsome new umbrella got from the stores 
 for a Christmas present ; the old lady, in her 
 autocratic way, considering the sovereign as 
 payment in full up to date, and the medical 
 man looking on it as a payment on account 
 only. 
 
 There is a meeting of ideas as well as a 
 meeting of waters, and occasionally a com- 
 motion at the junction. The old lady's affairs 
 after her death had to be administered by 
 her adopted son, Vicar of St. Wapshot-by-the- 
 Waterside, and that divine was greatly exercised 
 by the magnitude of the claims, both legal and 
 equitable, which had to be satisfied before his 
 special little bequest, of the residue, could come 
 into sight at all. Servants, to whom furniture 
 thirty years old had been bequeathed, found it 
 not worth the warehousing charges ; while the 
 "Argentines" were as unsaleable as were the 
 shares in the company of which he himself 
 was a director. Loud were the moanings 
 from all sides — and as the life interest had 
 dropped, there was little coming in to meet 
 them. Matters got very gloomy, and the Vicar 
 one day talked it over with Dr. Oudydoo, who 
 had attended the patient's cremation, and 
 
BILLS DEFERRED MOUNT UP. 193 
 
 wept SO copiously that the Woking people 
 feared it might damp the fire if they let him 
 get too near. On this occasion the Doctor 
 looked very grave, and said, to the astonish- 
 ment of the ecclesiastic, " By the way, you'll 
 want my little bill ? " "I thought she paid you 
 periodically." " Oh dear no. She gave me 
 little sums from time to time ; but I was afraid 
 my bill might make her heart uneasy, so, with 
 her consent, I did not send it in. I'll let you 
 have it." Here it is as it reached the Executor 
 in due course : — 
 
 The Exor. of the late Mrs. Munkyphase to Dr. Oudydoo. 
 
 To Medical Attendance upon the £, s. d. 
 
 deceased, and medicine from ist 
 
 Oct., 1867 — March 31st, 1894. 
 
 26| years ..... 996 14 6 
 Less by payments on account, of 
 
 which particulars if requested . 134 o o 
 
 Balance . . . £?>(i2 14 6 
 
 Now this sum would swamp all that was left 
 for everything and everybody, so the claim was 
 resisted, more with the idea of " funking " the 
 medico into a compromise than anything else. 
 The usual opportunity of "settling" was afforded 
 to the litigants, at the usual period, when the 
 main part of the costs had been incurred ; but 
 the old rancour, always dormant between body- 
 healer and soul-physician, had intervened, and 
 
 13 
 
194 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 the Judge, in summing up, told the jury that 
 the retainer was proved, the attendance vouched 
 by a large tradesman's ledger, and the payments 
 could not be checked by reason of the old lady 
 having kept no accounts, so must pass unchal- 
 lenged. The Judge went on to say that the case 
 was incontestable, and practically undefended ; 
 the only matter for comment was Dr. Oudydoo's 
 keeping back his bill so long, as to which he, 
 the Judge, proposed, at the proper time, to show 
 his feeling on the matter. When the jury had 
 returned their verdict, the Judge did accord- 
 ingly deprive the plaintiff of his costs, and the 
 matter worked out thus : The Doctor's costs 
 came to £'^\2 13J. Zd., leaving ;^550 to come 
 to him, if he could get it. Practically the sweep- 
 up of everything Mrs. Munkyphase had left 
 behind, her yielded him net .^280, while all 
 her other legatees were left out of it altogether. 
 The moral, of course, is always to ask for your 
 Doctor's bill, and for every other creditor's — 
 not least of all, your Solicitor's. 
 
 But sometimes contretemps occur as the out- 
 come of zeal without discretion — a distemper 
 which, with its half-sister "good intentions," is 
 responsible for ten times as much human misery 
 as all the downright mischief ever devised. It 
 very often occurs in very high places, but 
 seldom so harmlessly as with the present 
 
THE EMPRESS OF RUSSIA'S MISTAKE. 195 
 
 'Empress of Russia, who, born a Dane, took 
 effusively to the language of her new home, and 
 strove assiduously to perfect herself in it. Now 
 the Winter Palace at St. Petersburg abuts on 
 the street, and from the lower windows the 
 conversation of bystanders is distinctly audible. 
 Here H.I.M. heard an animated discussion 
 going on beneath, and noted the frequency with 
 which one word repeated itself It was the 
 salient feature in the talk ; hence the great lady 
 noted down the word, never doubting but that 
 it would produce a great effect when she " let 
 it off"." The opportunity soon occurred, at an 
 evening reception. The Foreign Minister ap- 
 proached to compliment the Empress, when 
 H.M., sweetly smiling, said to him, " Jebarniya 
 Matusch." 
 
 Now a diplomatist is not worth a rap if his 
 countenance lets people find out that he has 
 just had a sharp kick behind, so the Minister, 
 after a pause, smiled and moved on. The Court 
 Chamberlain, ignorant of what had happened, 
 moved up, to receive the same greeting ; and so 
 it went on until the (somewhat late) arrival of 
 Makariotatos Basilios, Metropolitan of Moscow 
 and President of the Holy Synod, who fairly 
 jumped when he was greeted just as had been 
 all his predecessors. This sudden move- 
 ment called the attention of the Emperor 
 himself, who came up quickly to see what had 
 
196 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK 
 
 caused this spasm. His Blessedness was for 
 the moment paralysed. The Empress was still 
 radiant and well on to the spot, delighting in 
 the success of her diligence, and as the Czar 
 approached he too was met with " Jebarniya 
 Matusch.'' He, however, saw what it all meant, 
 and exploded with laughter. The phrase is 
 untranslatable, even unhintable at, as it is the 
 cabmen's curse in a land where execration is 
 a fine art. 
 
 Yet another instance of zeal without dis- 
 cretion, but where the good angel got back 
 just in time. When Dr. Dewar was giving 
 his first lecture on the liquefaction of gases, 
 he handed the Chairman, Lord Kelvin, a wine- 
 glass full of liquid air, which the President was 
 about, unthinkingly, to taste. Had he done so 
 the intense cold would have burnt like fire, his 
 lips, palate, and oesophagus — in fact, wherever 
 it touched. 
 
 But sometimes the angel is too late. 
 
 Dr. Bernays of Westminster Hospital mixed 
 iodine of potassium with chloride of mercury, 
 added still more potash salt, the result being 
 a liquid clear as water and easily mistaken for 
 such. He must have thought it to have been 
 water, for he was found on the floor of his 
 laboratory dying. All their remedies were 
 useless, but just as life was passing, the Chemist 
 pulled himself together and said to the man 
 
CARDINAL AND CHIEF RABBI. 197 
 
 who supported his head, "It is iodide of 
 mercury, that's what it is." 
 
 Some men are true to the last, and die with the 
 thought of their work as their latest utterance. 
 
 An old Eton Cricket Match contains the 
 following score : Gladstone o, caught Manning, 
 b. Wilberforce. The Cardinal was often him- 
 self subsequently caught, but hardly ever more 
 neatly than at a Mansion House dinner, eaten 
 to celebrate that most stupendous religious 
 head-over-heels, the presentation of a congratu- 
 latory address by the Jews to the representative 
 of a power which in former days had burned 
 them by millions, and in the last days of the 
 Pope's kingship had torn the baby Mortara from 
 his mother's arms. The reconciliation appeared 
 to be perfect. Cardinal and Chief Rabbi sat 
 side by side, and soon found an .opening for 
 the " peck at each other." The Churchman 
 playfully recommended to the descendant of 
 Aaron, " Do try some of that dish of pork. 
 When will you give over your ancient 
 prejudices ? " 
 
 " When your Eminence gets married." 
 
 But the Jews generally are good at repartee, 
 whether spoken or acted, and among them in 
 that regard stood foremost that standing enigma, 
 at all events for our age, Lord Beaconsfield. 
 
igS MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 A son of mine, taken into the House of 
 Commons when a boy of six, had his head 
 patted by the then Prime Minister : " You're 
 a young 'un to come in here, anyhow." The 
 boy, now a man, is immensely proud of his 
 benediction by this man of pure and simple 
 genius — used with such success as not only 
 to convert his own party, but even invert it. 
 Whether he was so clever as to deceive himself 
 is a problem, but the equation to his life may 
 be expressed as a compound of selfishness and 
 sneer, one of the very best specimens of this 
 last being shown by his appointment made to the 
 bishopric of Liverpool on its first creation. The 
 funds for its support had been entirely provided 
 by the High Church Party, so the Minister 
 thought it a good opportunity to " ryle " them 
 doubly by appointing a Protestant contro- 
 versialist of that very name. The man's 
 hunger for popularity was ludicrous. As he 
 walked down to the House from Pall Mall, 
 leaning on Lord Rowton's arm, the look 
 bestowed on passers-by was almost imploring 
 for a salute, and showed disappointment when 
 that same was not forthcoming. Had he been 
 an actor, as in fact in one sense he was, his 
 success would have been immense. 
 
 And yet how well he stood up and took 
 his punishment when it came. By D'Orsay's 
 advice he had married a rich vulgar widow 
 
DISREALITY. 199 
 
 twice his age. Originally a milkmaid who had 
 rebuffed an elderly admirer until he worked 
 himself up to matrimony, she led her second 
 " wenture " a terrible life, until he became 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1852. In his 
 own words, " To be married is to be managed." 
 But he hugged his chain, and went about with 
 her, although her gaucheries and bad tempers 
 must have made his back ache. Take, for 
 instance, the scene which his latest biographer. 
 Sir William Fraser, records, on the authority 
 of the son of the house where it occurred. It 
 was one of the stateliest historic homes of 
 England, with a chatelaine of presence and 
 dignity well becoming it, to whom, at breakfast, 
 Mrs. Disraeli opened out : — 
 
 " Lady , I find your house is full of 
 
 indecent pictures ; there is a most horrible one 
 in our room. D. says it's Venus and Adonis, 
 and I laid awake half the night trying to 
 prevent his looking at it." 
 
 There was any quantity of this kind of 
 thing, and Bernal Osborne once asked Disraeli, 
 " What on earth can bind you to that woman ? " 
 The answer was, " Gratitude." But even to 
 the last days of her life " Humbug " exerted 
 its natural power over him, and he would creep 
 up behind the old lady and snatch a kiss from a 
 woman twenty-five years his senior. 
 
 The biographer quoted lays down his pen, 
 
20O MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 with an intimation that the final impression 
 left on his mind by his subject is Pity. 
 
 He wrote a good deal. Could this have 
 played any part in his idiosyncrasy ? In the 
 case of Gamgee v. Ward, the defendant's wife, 
 a most voluminous correspondent, gave evi- 
 dence on oath to the effect that too much 
 letter-writing brings on congestion of the liver. 
 At all events, in 1844 the late Sir Robert Peel 
 came in for much of Disraeli's spleen. 
 
 Perhaps the result of Mrs. Wyndham Lewis's 
 marriage may have been the reason why Mr. 
 Mitchell, once M.P. for Bridport, who had 
 married a " fetching " Jermyn Street barmaid 
 under conditions similar to the milkmaid match, 
 left all his property to the Metropolitan Board 
 of Works, with only a life interest in half of it 
 to his widow ! 
 
 Having regard, however, to the way the 
 L.C.C. are going it, such marriages are 
 certainly not to be discouraged, if the results 
 could only be the same. 
 
 When the next railway crash comes, the 
 question of the accounts will be the puzzling 
 one. A Barrister of our Inn was once Director 
 of a short line promoted by the great Central 
 Railway. There had to be a deposit of ;^50,oOo 
 Consols placed in his and another name, and 
 
£S0,cxso CONSOLS FORGOTTEN/ 201 
 
 they gave a Power of Attorney to a City Bank 
 to receive the dividends periodically. When 
 six half-years', say jiC 4,300, remained unclaimed, 
 it came to the Barrister's ears. For safety's 
 sake, he cancelled the power, and waited half 
 a year to see what would result. Nothing came 
 of it but an extra unclaimed warrant for ^750. 
 Then he moved in the matter, and found this 
 state of things — iAe Solicitor had never sent the 
 power to the Bank. The little item of ;^5o,ooo 
 Consols had been borrowed and forgotten ! 
 the commission to the Insurance Offices paid 
 twice over, and the interest paid those asso- 
 ciations, without these items coming before the 
 auditors of the great railway; and not know- 
 ing that the stock existed, those scrutineers 
 had never asked where the dividends on it 
 were, although they had vouched the payments 
 of interest on the loan ; and this had gone on 
 for four years at ^1,500 a year. But the 
 ;^ 50,000 belonged to somebody : how came he 
 to overlook it ? 
 
 At a recent election Lord Rivulet was 
 a candidate, and his very charming lady was 
 doing her best to win him votes. In her 
 canvas she tackled a very sturdy working man, 
 smoking a short clay pipe and wearing a 
 Keir-Hardie cloth cap. " Would he vote for 
 Rivulet ? " " Noa, he wouldn't ; Lord Rafflet 
 
202 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 was one of them there chaps as did not get 
 up till 1 2 o'clock, when he'd done half a day's 
 work. Noa ; he wouldn't." " Oh, but you 
 are quite mistaken, I assure you. I know that 
 Lord Rivulet gets up quite early." " How 
 do yer know that ?" " Because I'm his wife." 
 The pipe was removed from the mouth, the 
 Keir-Hardie cap moved a little to allow a 
 pensive scratch of the head with the other 
 hand, and from the lips came out, " If oi wor he, 
 I doan't think I should want to get up all day!" 
 It was a parallel compliment to the coal- 
 heaver's request, at the great Westminster 
 election, to Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, 
 " Bless your eyes. Mum ; let me light my pipe 
 at 'em." 
 
 The late Mr. Cipriani Potter, a well-known 
 Professor of Music thirty years ago, and whose 
 name is kept green by a scholarship in the 
 Royal Academy of Music, used to tell a pathetic 
 little story of Beethoven, whom he had known 
 in his last days when he had become quite deaf. 
 He had stood by the Master's pianoforte, when 
 he was striking a soft note and looking up into 
 his auditor's face, to see if the latter had heard 
 the sound the great musician himself was too 
 deaf to hear. Not unfrequently a burst of 
 tears at his own failing powers, would follow 
 the gentle shake of the head. 
 
THE BISHOP AT THE GREAl FIGHT. 203 
 
 Near Farnborough Station is a famous field, 
 which deserves the pubHcity I have never yet 
 seen given it in print. It is the third field 
 looking north from the South-Western Railway, 
 and abuts on the South-Eastern branch line, 
 which crosses there at right angles. It was there, 
 a generation ago, that Sayers fought Heenan ; 
 and it is worth while to turn up the Times of 
 that date for the Homeric language in which 
 the combat is recorded, especially the knock- 
 down blow given by the Englishman with his 
 left — Auctioneer, he called it, which sounded 
 all over the field, and would have felled a 
 bullock. The affair had caused immense excite^ 
 ment among all classes. The special train (^2 2^^. 
 a head, the destination being printed " Excur- 
 sion ") was mobbed, and after the fight was 
 over a great many of the better class were 
 openly robbed of their yatches and purses. And 
 there was a good deal of the cream of society 
 present there too, the report of the day being 
 that Bishop S. Wilberforce was amongst them. 
 
 I have been spared during my life from 
 much contact with the insane, but a friend of 
 mine gave me a very unpleasant five minutes. 
 I was advising him about some affairs ; for it 
 was an hereditary friendship — the sons con- 
 tinuing it as the fathers had done — but I had 
 not inherited gout from my father, as he had 
 
204 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 done from his, to the weakening of his brain 
 power. He came to me one day to say he 
 must part from his wife, who had deceived 
 him. I knew the poor lady well, and had 
 often pitied her. Then the unhappy man went 
 on, " All the three children are by other men ; 
 none of them are mine. I've told her so, and 
 she does not deny it." " No," I said, " poor 
 soul, I don't suppose she does — and no one 
 would believe her if she admitted it." "Well," 
 said the man, " this morning I loaded my 
 revolver to shoot her, the nurse, and the three 
 boys ; but I thought I'd come to you first." 
 And then he produced the sickening thing, 
 which I made him at once repocket. I, of 
 course, got rid of him as soon as I could, and 
 was greatly exercised as to where my path of 
 duty lay, and how I should look or feel if 
 bloodshed came of it. However, he was soon 
 put in an asylum, and then I had to visit him 
 — in order, as he said, to procure his release, 
 which was the last thing on earth I thought 
 of doing, unless treatment should have by that 
 time materially altered his state of mind. The 
 place was a large park in a beautiful country, 
 with haymakers at work, and no sign whatever 
 of restraint, that I could see. Suddenly a quiet, 
 gentlemanly-looking man we met in a walk 
 shouted out, " A million pieces of artillery," and 
 started off at a run. In his headlong course 
 
A STRANGE CRAZE. 205 
 
 he had to pass a rustic summer-house where 
 my poor friend and I had sat, while I was 
 trying to find if the homicidal mania still 
 remained ; and just as the poor lunatic reached 
 it, there turned the corner, cool, smiling, and 
 adjusting his buttonhole, the calm, imperturb- 
 able, strong-jawed, keen-eyed man who had 
 answered my card an hour before, the resident 
 physician. The collapse was as sudden as the 
 outbreak. " Why, Johnson, my dear fellow, 
 how active you are this morning ! Let us take 
 it a little more quietly together." I tried hard 
 to get the doctor, in our parting interview, to 
 tell me how I had personally been guarded, 
 during an hour or more's interview of occa- 
 sionally heated argument, from the poor fellow 
 I had come to see ; but he told me that though 
 very few visitors had the free and unrestrained 
 access which I had demanded and received, 
 yet, had a blow been struck, or the semblance 
 of one, help would have been forthcoming as 
 soon as wanted. The special form of insanity 
 seemed to be near running out, and the doctor 
 hoped it might pass off, which, as a matter of 
 fact, it did — and the poor fellow's death-bed, 
 some years after, was carefully tended by his 
 devoted wife. 
 
 In a former book of mine I detailed my 
 feelings when in company with Sir E. Landseer, 
 in his last decay, and the asylum door closed 
 
2o6 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 on him for the last time ; but his face haunts 
 me still — the rheumy eyes, slobbering mouth, 
 fallen-down cheeks and chin, and the terrible 
 leer, with a kind of beaten-hound look in it. 
 
 As a merchant I had little experience in the 
 way of losses by dock and warehouse fires. 
 In fact, I did not do anything in the great 
 article for conflagration — ^jute. Its great pecu- 
 liarity was that it never got on fire when prices 
 were going up, but the moment they began to 
 go down the stuff lighted up spontaneously. 
 I had, however, some goods burnt in the 
 Cotton's Wharf blaze where poor Braidwood 
 was killed, and when the flaming tallow floated 
 on the top of the Thames for miles. 
 
 But I was once witness to a party playing 
 with fire of another kind, which might have 
 had very serious results — happily averted. 
 I was staying with an old schoolfellow at his 
 father's house on the Clyde. It was a beautiful 
 autumn day, and neighbours came in, so that it 
 was a houseful of big boys and girls. The father 
 and mother having gone out to dinner, and 
 high spirits having the fullest fling — we had 
 danced, acted charades, and had had a regular 
 enjoyable evening — when some (Englishmen, 
 of course) talked about Scotch marriages. One 
 thing led to another, and we eventually paired 
 off, had the servants up as witnesses, and 
 
PLAYING AT SCOTCH MARRIAGES. 207 
 
 actually went, every pair of us, save one, myself 
 and the daughter of the house,, through the 
 formula which makes a marriage binding north 
 of the Tweed. I should have liked it well 
 enough, but did not feel justified in going that 
 length. When the witnesses had gone off, 
 choking with laughter, all looked very blue, 
 till one demure little damsel blurted out, in 
 slight Glaswegian burr, " My ! what will 
 Momma say ? " — the said parent being a rich 
 shipbuilderess, and not given to picking her 
 words when put out. The first thing that 
 suggested itself was, " Have 'em all up 
 again and tell 'em we didn't mean it " — which 
 was forthwith done ; but the witnesses' 
 demeanour was not exulting this time, and 
 there were whispers, " They canna undow it." 
 In the midst of all the quake, in came the 
 house parents, and the scene was awful. It 
 came first on their own daughter, but we got 
 out clear, the servants shouting out, "Miss 
 Lizzie and her mon there stood out o' it a'." 
 However, when things calmed down, the 
 couples were made severally to repeat before 
 the witnesses that there was no intent to marry 
 — and a friendly bailie came in the next day, 
 before whom the witnesses made a solemn 
 declaration in that peculiar lingo known as law 
 Scotch. All parties held their tongues, and 
 the matter died out ; though some of the men's 
 
2o8 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 wives, in after years, might have wished 
 to do what Queen Charlotte did, when she 
 heard of the death of Hannah Lightfoot the 
 Quakeress, to whom there is no manner of 
 doubt George III. had been legally married — 
 have the ceremony gone through again. 
 
 There still exists at Cape Town a family 
 founded by one George Rex, who was always 
 held to be the son of Hannah Lightfoot, and 
 who strikingly resembled George HI. The 
 King must have been precocious to have 
 married at sixteen, but credit was given for 
 the whole affair to Miss Chudleigh, his 
 mother's maid of honour, afterwards Duchess 
 of Kingston, and a very notorious person in 
 after years. On the Duke of Edinburgh's 
 visit to Cape Town, he was entertained by the 
 Rexes. 
 
 A leading broker at the time told me a 
 story of a great boom in indigo. He went to 
 a very rich man and suggested that the figures 
 were favourable, and a big buy might be worth 
 considering, whereupon the man telegraphed 
 out to Calcutta to buy ;if 100,000 worth, and 
 draw on him. While this was in progress on 
 the other side, the broker went to the largest 
 holder on this, and got from him a list of all, 
 he had to sell — with power to pick out parcels 
 if he thought well. He then offered him 
 
THREE COMPENSATIONS IN FIVE YEARS. 309 
 
 2d. a lb. less than the existing market price, 
 which was very low. The bid accepted, the 
 broker quietly said, " I take the whole." Con- 
 sternation followed. " There is only one man 
 in London who can do it." "Just so, and this 
 is the man." " Promise me one thing — that 
 you'll buy no more to-day " — a promise readily 
 given, as the order was exhausted. Then the 
 man who had been cleared out went into 
 Mincing Lane to pick up all he could, but long 
 before it was over wires were sent to Calcutta 
 — " Great Indigo Speculation, 2d. up all 
 round." In Calcutta prices rose at once, and 
 rose so quickly that the purchaser had to find 
 "no cover" (i.e., margin between cost of the 
 goods and amount the banks would lend on 
 bills of lading). The parcel bought in 
 London was sold at 9^. advance, or ;^ 12,000 
 profit, and the goods bought in Calcutta 
 realised as much more out there, the broker 
 earning ;^2,ooo commission. 
 
 One of the best instances of the power of 
 an easement was told me by a retired Solicitor 
 as we were travelling from Waterloo past 
 Vauxhall, thirty years since. The conver- 
 sation opened with his soliloquy, " Ah, Long 
 Hedge Farm — three compensations in five 
 years! lucky fellow ! " One thing led to another, 
 till he warmed up and told me the story of the 
 
 14 
 
2IO MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 burning of Covent Garden Theatre in 1808. 
 That theatre was approached like the Pit 
 Entrance of the Lyceum is now, by a passage 
 under a public-house. As soon as the fire was 
 out and the ddbris cleared away, the burnt-out 
 landlord brought a cask of beer and some 
 benches, and began again vending on the 
 premises. He was promptly ordered off, and 
 as promptly declined to go. So they changed 
 their attack, and asked him what he would 
 take. He had never heard of the Sibyl and 
 her corner in magical books, but he replied, 
 " £\ to-day, £2 to-morrow, £&, the day after," 
 and so on, like the nails in Mr. Weller's horse- 
 shoe. They had to pay smartly to get him out, 
 and his leasehold interest brought him his own 
 price, enough to set him up in business hand- 
 somely again not far off Had he lived in these 
 days he would have bought up all the corner lots 
 on every new suburban estate for public-house 
 sites, though there may be some who wouldn't 
 have them at any price, just like Charles Lamb, 
 who, when he was worried by a lady to tell her 
 how he liked babies best, stammered, "We — we — 
 well . . . b — b — b — BOILED, madam ! " 
 
 Though n6 fisherman, it was hardly possible 
 to go much about the country without meeting 
 such, and one story is good enough to be in- 
 cluded here. It took place on the Cothy, 
 
IT ISN'T THE TOOLS THAT CATCH SALMON. 211 
 
 which ran through the park where my informant 
 was staying, and formed a pool. There, too, 
 had recently come up a splendid salmon, 
 eighteen and a half pounds, as he ultimately 
 scaled out. Of course the thing was to basket 
 him. All the flies they had were tried in vain ; 
 requisitions from London were equally useless, 
 as were Mahseer flies and gorgeous creations 
 in harlequin colours, tried as the last resource. 
 To some of them he would give a rise, put his 
 nose up, smell them, and quietly sink down 
 back again. A Council of War was being 
 held over him one evening, when there came 
 down the parish clerk (and most notorious 
 poacher in it as well). His tackle was some- 
 thing resembling a clothes-prop, his line pack- 
 thread or akin thereto, and his reel a miniature 
 rat-trap. His fly proved on subsequent exami- 
 nation to be a piece of bitten pen-feather 
 daubed with ink. The house party looked on 
 while this ancient fisherman walked down to 
 the pool and threw his fly, such as it was. 
 The salmon actually rose, presumably in wonder 
 at such a thing being put before his nose. 
 The clerk struck, hooked him, turned right- 
 about-face, put the rod over his shoulder, and 
 walked that salmon out by the hair of his head. 
 The fish was tumbling on the grass before he 
 or any one else could realise the position. 
 The same thing is said to have been done on 
 
212 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 the Dart on April 19th, 1892. But in the 
 old days they killed salmon with anything. I 
 remember being in a blacksmith's shop at 
 Dolgelly, near the river, when a small boy 
 rushed in — " Tidd-y ma John Jones salmon 
 mawr hun," and sure enough a twenty-pound 
 fish had been left in a rock-pool by the tide ; 
 the smith killed it with his hammer. 
 
 I learned at Dolgelly the way to get admitted 
 into a hotel after it was shut for the night. 
 It is simple, and effective, too, if the door has 
 been fresh painted and you wear shooting 
 boots with plenty of nails in them. It merely 
 consists in putting your back against the door 
 and keeping up a constant kick. The landlady 
 is invariably sure to wake up, especially if the 
 door has been recently re-painted, as was the 
 case here ; and if you go away early the next 
 morning there is scarcely time to revise the 
 bill in the interest of compensation. 
 
 I formed at this time the acquaintance of 
 that peculiarly likeable and lovable man, the 
 late Sir Richard Owen, of whom it is hard to 
 say whether one was more charmed by the 
 almost inspired beauty of his features, framed 
 somewhat like a saint's in its glory of pure 
 silvery hair, the flute-like voice, the magic of 
 his smile, or the words of almost prophetic 
 wisdom which he sometimes let fall. It was 
 
OWEN ON LEVITICUS. 213 
 
 my good fortune to evoke one of these. He 
 addressed me as a Devonshire man : " Have 
 you read ' Lorna Doone ' ? It is one of the 
 most beautiful books ever written." One thing 
 led to another, and I was able to ask a question 
 I had pondered for years : " How long is it 
 since man first stood on his hind legs ? " The 
 flute-like voice replied : " Judging from the 
 evidence we at present have, at least 30,000 
 years ; but after all, you see, we do know so 
 very little ! " Never had the true humility of 
 great genius been more suitably enshrined 
 than in Owen, while in his later days, when 
 a word failed him, it was touching to see the 
 pause filled up by "Ah! some small convolution 
 of the brain has failed to act." He rarely 
 interfered with matters of controversy, save 
 in a dispute on the Book of Leviticus, when 
 his letter to the Times was neatly paraphrased 
 by Shirley Brooks in Punch : — 
 
 " ' The hare,' says Moses, ' chews the cud.' 
 ' It don't,' says Owen, ' now, my Lud.' " 
 
 His eyes were always open to question 
 Nature, and when dt Cairo for reasons of health, 
 a rough stone from the Mokattam Mountains 
 just by was made to reveal its secrets by the 
 watchful student. There was a hole in it 
 the size of one's fist, and pouring in plaster 
 brought to light that there was within the 
 
214 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 said unpromising witness the skull of a fresh- 
 water manatee or dugong ; but how or when 
 that freshwater mammal had got into the matrix 
 which had so long concealed it was a problem 
 which the philosopher shrank from attempting 
 to solve, with the incomplete evidence before 
 him. 
 
 It was a charming trait in his character, 
 when, each morning after breakfast, he threw 
 open the window of the beautiful Sheen Lodge, 
 which Her Majesty's graceful appreciation of 
 his simple and noble character had bestowed 
 upon him. After he had finished his own 
 morning meal he would throw open the case- 
 ment and let "the blessed birds of heaven, poor 
 citizens of air," flock in and help themselves. 
 Thoroughly did they enjoy it, as did the 
 philosopher the yellow-back French novel 
 which was occupying his own attention at the 
 time. 
 
 So has passed away one of the great openers 
 of Nature's hitherto closed doors — a student 
 and an inquirer into the deep secrets of God, 
 about whom in life and in death everything 
 was alike beautiful and graceful, except his hat, 
 and there these attributes had, as in the case 
 of Lord Tennyson, been ruthlessly sacrificed 
 to personal comfort. 
 
 There was a County Court Judge who had 
 
COUNTY COURT JUDGE AND THIRD CLASS. 215 
 
 a curious practice. On his return to the Bench 
 after lunch, his usher placed on his desk a glass 
 of whisky and water ; and one almost expected 
 to hear the formula which used to issue from 
 the lips of the late Chief Baron Nicholson 
 when he took his seat at the Cider Cellars : 
 " Gentlemen, please give your orders while the 
 waiter is in the room." 
 
 Some people didn't like it ; they did not care 
 for in-sipped yxi'azQ., preferring it fresh. 
 
 Another Judge always travels third-class, 
 even after having survived the following ex- 
 perience : — 
 
 At Liverpool Street a stout farmer got 
 in and went to the off side of the carriage, 
 where he sat down opposite his Honour, and, 
 to the astonishment of that admirably dressed 
 small personage, began to talk. "Can yer tell 
 me the way to the Court — the County Court ? " 
 The Judge, in his astonishment, temporarily 
 lost balance, and said, " Oh yes ; I happen to 
 be going there." " Do yer know the Judge?" 
 "Oh, very well indeed — few men better." 
 "Wot kind er man is 'e? 'Im as keeps the 
 beer-shop sez, ' He's a stuck-up hass,' and 
 the baker at Bumford says, 'He's a bleeding 
 fool ' ; but both on 'em sez as 'ow it's best to 
 see 'im fust afore yer case comes on, 'cause it 
 makes a diff^erence." 
 
2i6 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 His Honour made a wild rush at the door, 
 just as the porter slammed it in his face and 
 the train moved on. The carriage was full, 
 so he had to scrooge back and resume the seat 
 of torture until the next station, at which he 
 himself had to get out for the Court. His 
 persecutor knew his own time was short, and 
 he didn't think he should ever have a better 
 chance of bottling the Judge's most intimate 
 friend, so he got up and leaned over him to 
 say, in a loud, gin-arid-beery whisper : " Now, 
 yer see, as yer a pal o' his, if yer'd only jest 
 tell 'im as 'ow my name is Brussel Sprouter, 
 and that I wants my money for a little matter 
 o' ten truss o' 'ay which the bleedin' liar wot 
 bought 'em off me sed had got dead cats inside 
 o' 'em. 'E 'ad sneaked, off with 'em afore I 
 got the blunt, and when I was 'avin' a 'arf-pint. 
 Now, yer see, if yer could only tell that 'ere 
 Judge as 'ow, if 'e makes it all right for me, 'e 
 need not 'ave to put 'is 'and in 'is pocket for 
 eggs, nor butter neither, for the next six 
 months, yer'll be doin' me a sarvice ; and if 
 yer tells me where yer hangs out yerself, it'll 
 be 'arf a quid in yer own pocket." 
 
 When the cause of Brussel Sprouter versus 
 Stick-in-the-Mud was called on, the plaintiff 
 came up sniggering, not recognising the Judge 
 in his wig. Nor did the dispenser of justice 
 open his own mouth for a long time, till, the 
 
THE CATS IN THE HAY. Z17 
 
 evidence in chief being concluded, cross- 
 examination began. Defendant produced a 
 parcel carefully done up in oilskin, or rather 
 three of them, and, before any one could stop 
 him, threw a mess of putrid carrion on the 
 Court table, and yelled out, " Be them cats 
 yourn, 'cause they was all buried in yer 
 
 ay? 
 
 To quit the bench, while the exhibit was 
 removed by the usher with tongs and fire 
 shovel, was the natural impulse of the Judge ; 
 to have the Court cleared for disinfection 
 purposes (the Judge liking even letters disin- 
 fected) was the second ; and when he resumed 
 his seat, with a painful and interrogative sniff, 
 he adjourned the cause before the Court for 
 three weeks, with a special order that the 
 defendant should be searched before he was 
 allowed to come in, while a stern threat of 
 committal for contempt of Court if it occurred 
 again terminated the hearing for the time. 
 But the plaintiff was heard to say in a soliloquy, 
 " Damn me if that ain't the chap I offered to 
 send the butter to ; p'r'aps it's all 'is gammon, 
 and 'e wants it all the same. I'll send it 'im." 
 So he did, but the butter was not taken in, 
 though the donor was when the case came on 
 for hearing ; and the Judge himself was cruelly 
 hard upon the plaintiff in the matter of " them 
 there cats." 
 
2l8 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 Personally asking questions about yourself 
 is always embarrassing. 
 
 There was once a Rector, now no longer so, 
 having "chucked his orders": not, however, 
 like Miss Blennerhassett's Station Chaplain in 
 Mashonaland, to join a Jew bar-keeper, but 
 for reasons which have in no way lessened the 
 personal esteem in which he has always been 
 held. Before this happened, he was greater 
 on dogs than dogma — his praise was more in 
 St. Bernards and bull-dogs than in the 
 Churches, and caused him to be invited over 
 to America, as judge in a great exhibition of 
 those animals. This involved his repeatedly 
 leaving those few sheep in the wilderness in 
 the hands of a manager — and the Bishop didn't 
 like it. 
 
 Now, the Rector was quite as popular with 
 the Army as with every other part of the Church 
 Militant, and often dined on guest-nights at 
 the Cavalry Mess in the county town. On 
 one occasion he faced the Colonel, next to him 
 being another visitor from a different corps, 
 and next to him again the Senior Major, who 
 had a game leg. 
 
 As the night wore on, the military visitor 
 got lively and familiar, and took stock of his 
 right-hand neighbour. "Parson, ain't you?" 
 "Yes, I am." "There's a queer beggar of 
 your cloth in these parts, the Rector of Ribble- 
 
HEARING A STORY ABOUT ONE'S SELF. 219 
 
 hill : do you know him ? " " Well, yes, I do." 
 " Know him well, now ? " " Yes, about as 
 much as one man can know of another." 
 " Heard that story about him and his Bishop ? " 
 " Oh, there's lots of stories about him!' 
 
 Here there was an interruption in the shape 
 of a howl and " Oh, damn ! " from the Senior 
 Major with the game leg. The Colonel had 
 been endeavouring to get the story-teller to 
 stop, and, no other way occurring to him, had 
 launched a kick at him under the table, which 
 had landed instead upon the Major's tender 
 shin-bone. The Colonel was afraid to risk 
 another, so things went on. 
 
 " Well, ye see, this beggar is a big breeder 
 of dogs, and goes half the world over showing 
 his strains, and that kind of thing, leaving the 
 business to a Johnny. Bishop didn't like it, 
 so he writes and orders him back to the shop; 
 and when the beggar makes one excuse after 
 another, he gets nasty about it. Well, on this, 
 hang me if the fellow don't write back, and 
 says he's seedy, and wants to go somewhere 
 for a change of air. " Change of air," says the 
 Bishop, "that's going to a fresh place, ain't it? 
 Well, then, you go to Ribblehill," says he ; 
 " you've not been there for eighteen months 
 — that'll be a decided change of air for 
 you." 
 
 All this time the Mess were as mum as mice. 
 
220 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 for the person to whom the story was told was 
 the Rector himself. 
 
 There is a kind of incongruous clerical 
 flavour also in the following story of cross- 
 examination. Rowland, Q.C., was dealing 
 with a dull witness, who imported much irre- 
 levant matter into his replies, to the great 
 discomposure of Oliver, Q.C., whose witness 
 he was. " Pray, Mr. Rowland, do let the 
 witness finish his answer." But the screw was 
 still kept on. At last, with much expression 
 and action, " Pray, Mr. Rowland — pray, pray, 
 praaay." " So I will, Mr. Oliver, at the proper 
 time." 
 
 And the two had had a previous spar in a 
 preceding case. It was about an accident, and 
 the doctor laid great stress upon a super- 
 induced habit of vomiting as evidence of 
 constitutional mischief, and Rowland cross- 
 examined on this. " Have you seen him vomit, 
 doctor ? " "No, but I've heard him retch." 
 " That's not vomiting," — a point wrangled over 
 for five minutes, until Rowland scored thus : 
 " My Lord, retching is not vomiting. I have 
 repeatedly seen my learned friend sick of his 
 case, but never have known him throw up 
 his brief" 
 
 It was a high day in Musselville. The 
 
THE LITTLE SLIP WITHIN THE SPEECH. 221 
 
 Quarter Sessions for that ancient (and any- 
 thing but religious) borough had come to an 
 end, and the Bar had offered a complimentary 
 dinner to the venerated Chairman, Mr. Six- 
 monthsard. At the usual time the toast of 
 the evening was reached, and the health of the 
 guest was proposed with much effusion by the 
 leader, Mr. Samson Jawbone. 
 
 That of proposing the health of the Chair- 
 man's wife — which seems a funny interpolation 
 — was committed to the junior, Mr. Blomeytite, 
 who, being of the mature age of twenty-three, 
 discoursed feelingly, and at large, upon the 
 family trials and domestic troubles which had 
 intruded themselves into the serene sphere of 
 which the lady in question was the loved and 
 looked-up-to ornament. Then he got round to 
 the joyful and happy aspects which that family 
 circle presented, among them that a member of 
 it was also a member of their own mess, of a 
 profession which, etc., etc. Here he ran down 
 very sharp indeed ; and the son indicated rose 
 to return thanks on behalf of his mother. 
 
 The homage offered to that mother had 
 overwhelmed him ; he could re-echo every word 
 in her praise which had fallen from the lips of 
 the eloquent Blomeytite ; but he could not sit 
 down without alluding to the graceful compli- 
 ments to, and grateful appreciation shown for, 
 his father — by men, too, who for years past had 
 
222 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 borne witness to his passion for justice, his 
 discrimination in matters of evidence, his strong 
 grasp of the facts involved, his fearless uphold- 
 ing of the dignity of the Judicial Bench, and, 
 last, not least, his ever-readiness to temper the 
 stern call of duty with the softening, humanising 
 attribute of mercy. " Gentlemen, I thank you 
 with all my heart for your esteem of my 
 mother, but even more so for your appreciation 
 of my father ; for, gentlemen, even at such a 
 moment as this, I cannot but remember that I 
 am, not only the child of my mother, but also 
 
 " His Natural Son." 
 
 The late Professor Tyndall was once a 
 Master at Queenwood College, Hampshire, 
 and the village inn-keeper had a capital tap 
 of home-brewed old-fashioned ale which the 
 Educational Staff much fancied. Years passed 
 on, but the scent of the roses remained, and 
 when the Professor ran over to look once more 
 at his starting-point in life, he went down for 
 a glass of the well-remembered brew. " Simp- 
 kinson," said he, after a delicious draught, " I 
 never had any beer like yours since I went 
 away." " No, sir, nowadays they puts too 
 much science into beer, 'stead of malt and 
 hops." 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 " My graveyard is as salubrious as Margate '' — Clerk thrashing 
 Counsel — Indian example of the same — Treading on a 
 panther's tail — The sauce the Mussulmans ate the ham with 
 — Shareholders generally — The bullet knocks at the door — 
 Highland bull and Spanish bull-fighters — " Scotland yet " — 
 ;£2,ooo for a dish of confectionery — '■'■Jimp and sma' " — 
 Definitions of "Faith:" (i) Yankee; (2) Scotch — Always 
 buy before you sell — Stone Street, Amsterdam — Always get 
 rid of the trimmings — Curious recurrence of a lion story — The 
 discomforts of shyness — Missionary and maidens — Shaking 
 hands with the Shah — The Emperor's elbow — Napoleon Ill's 
 only good point— His little game in Morocco — The French 
 Tribunal and the Englishman. 
 
 IT is Strange how selfishness can blind one's 
 faculties, make us not to see what is plain 
 before other people's eyes, not to smell odours 
 that are poisonous to others not personally 
 interested, and, in fact, quite drown all our five 
 senses in favour of that all-powerful organ of 
 feeling, the pocket, where the smallest hurt is 
 keenly felt and pains do not readily pass away. 
 Up a court off the Strand exists the graveyard 
 of the closely packed parish of St. Mary-le- 
 Strand, closed years ago, but lately re-opened 
 
 by Lord Meath's Society as a place of recreation, 
 
 223 
 
224 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 such as it is. What it once was, has been told 
 us by the pen of a master of fiction :. " A 
 hemmed-in churchyard, pestiferous and obscene, 
 with houses looking on on every side, save where 
 a reeking little tunnel of a court, a dark and 
 miserable covered way, gives access to a burial 
 ground where are heaps of dishonoured graves 
 and stones, hemmed in by filthy houses, on 
 whose walls a thick humidity broke out like 
 a disease." It was the graveyard in " Bleak 
 House." I happened to know intimately the 
 Rev. J. F. Denham, F.R.S., then Rector of 
 the parish, and remember his piteous wailing 
 over the slanders that were then directed in 
 print against a place which he said was un- 
 equalled for the salubrity of its position and the 
 freshness of its air, which contrasted favourably 
 with Margate, and the sparkling breezes brought 
 by the rivers of ocean, and untainted by touch 
 of land, which fall on the North Foreland 
 straight from the North Pole. Now he owned 
 a freehold for life in this graveyard ! Nor was 
 he consoled with the circumstance that for 
 every corpse not buried there in all time to 
 come, but which might thereafter die in his 
 parish, he would receive the sum of 6s. 2\d, 
 "and no work to do." 
 
 Once upon a time, not so very long ago, 
 there was a silk-gownsman, whom we will call 
 
MAN MASTERING MASTER. 225 
 
 Muffitt, Q.C., as indicating, if not the man, at 
 all events the outcome of his practice. He 
 had, as not unfrequently happens, done middling 
 well as a junior, but had been cornered into 
 taking silk, with a not uncommon result of 
 taking rank as one of the unemployed. The 
 temper becoming sorely tried at the constant 
 recurrence of "blank days," he on one occasion 
 struck his unfortunate clerk, who mourned the 
 new order of things as much as did his master, 
 but gave them more tongue. At this last 
 indignity, the unhappy man, having nothing 
 to lose, turned round and soundly thrashed 
 H.M. Counsel, learned in the law; and, 
 leaving his master bruised and bleeding, col- 
 lected his private property and departed, 
 closing the oak after him. In due course, 
 however, he applied to the deserted one for 
 a character, and got it, without allusion to any 
 of his striking characteristics. 
 
 The story has its parallel ; it may indeed be 
 a re-fit of that of the high Indian officer who 
 kept up the bygone practice of soundly thrash- 
 ing his servants when they displeased him. 
 The fact was notorious, and produced many 
 complaints from the few superiors who had 
 power to speak to him ; so the practice had to 
 be carried on more out of sight and hearing. 
 Hence the high official told his Khansamah 
 to go to a summer-house in the compound and 
 
 IS 
 
226 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 wait for him there, presently turning up with 
 a heavy horsewhip. He then addressed the 
 offender. " Now, you scoundrel, I've got you 
 in a place where no one can hear, and I'll just 
 thrash you within an inch of your life." The 
 servant, though a man of powerful physique, 
 squirmed native-like. " Sah, you sure no one 
 can hear ? " " Yes, you scoundrel ; I've brought 
 
 you here on purpose." " Then, by , Sah, 
 
 I thrash you " ; and so he did with a vengeance, 
 laying his master up for a week. 
 
 The sudden change of programme recalls an 
 incident witnessed by one of my sons during 
 a deer-drive in Central India. A beater work- 
 ing through the jungle did not look where he 
 was going, and thus trod on the tail of a 
 panther, which the owner had left, cat-fashion, 
 sticking out straight. The catastrophe was 
 immediate ; the coolie was so frightfully clawed 
 that his funeral pyre was lighted that same 
 evening, just at the moment when the panther's 
 skin was being pegged out preliminary to its 
 going to the tanner. 
 
 The turning of the tables was once quite 
 as neatly, but' bloodlessly, arranged in the old 
 days in India, just before the Mutiny, by a 
 party of indigo planters who had come together 
 one Sunday for a jollification. The great 
 dish in those days was the whole ham, which 
 had performed its weary pilgrimage from York 
 
"YOU'RE THE SHAREHOLDERS." 227 
 
 to Oudh. But the delicacy was so long 
 delayed that the host went out to see where 
 the hitch was. He found the servants, all 
 Mussulmans, be it said, squatted round the, 
 to them, detested dish, quarrelling as to who 
 should take it in, and in the intervals of the 
 discussion freely spitting on the accursed thing. 
 The matter was settled by the whole, ham 
 and all, being locked up in a go-down, or store- 
 house, until the men for very hunger had eaten 
 the pig meat. 
 
 A party of Witwaterstrand miners were 
 discussing as to how their particular plot, 
 " Oliphants vlei," had come into existence, 
 and also the probable out-turn of the neighbour- 
 ing diggings, which had been named the 
 " Ananias and Sapphira." They went on to 
 more general matters, and seriously debated 
 "What is a Joint Stock Company?" which 
 the foreman settled in a few words. " Yer 
 see, it's like this — Bill, Sam, Mike, Sandy, 
 and me pays a penny apiece to buy a pipe 
 and baccy. We goes and buys it, and then I 
 sits down and lights the pipe and smokes the 
 baccy." "And what does we do?" "Oh, 
 you're the shareholders ; you sits round and 
 spits." 
 
 The late Dr. Stephen Parkinson, Tutor and 
 
228 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 President of St. John's College, Cambridge, 
 died worth ;if 150,000, accumulated of course by- 
 safe investments and small personal expenses ; 
 and yet one day there came before him un- 
 pleasantly the idea of the end of it all and himself 
 too, for a gun suddenly went off, a bullet came 
 through his door and struck the wall just over 
 his head, and it looked as if the Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer was in for a nice and unexpected 
 piece of luck. However, the ball did no mis- 
 chief, and the volunteer who had pulled the 
 trigger of his rifle, forgetting he had not fired 
 his last round at the Butts, fortunately for 
 himself did not create a vacancy in the College 
 Government, which had been so long looked 
 for as to have come to be considered hopeless. 
 
 It was a joyous day in the fair city of Seville. 
 Not only were bulls of renowned courage to 
 be faced by the best torero troupe on circuit, 
 headed by the most celebrated Matador in all 
 Spain, but there was an additional zest in a 
 toro from a new country, and a Highland bull, 
 from Caledonia stern and wild, was to display 
 his prowess before the Senoras of the sunny 
 south. Full to the brim was the amphitheatre ; 
 the sport shown by the indigenous cattle was 
 splendid, and their deaths by the straight-held 
 sword, driven in up to its hilt by the impetus 
 of the animals themselves, the fury of whose 
 
" IVAE'S ME FOR SCOTLAND." 229 
 
 fiery onset was suddenly changed into the 
 stillness of death by the severance of the spinal 
 cord, drew tremendous applause, re-echoed as 
 the skilful swordsman calmly wiped his dripping 
 blade and bowed to the acclaiming assemblage. 
 
 Now for the bouquet. The key of the toril, 
 or cell in which the stranger was secured, was 
 thrown down, and the alguazil who opened the 
 door of it for the entry of a little, wiry, black, 
 red-eyed Highland bull, had to fly for his life, 
 for with a wild bellow of liberty the new-comer 
 charged into the arena in search of something 
 to toss. 
 
 To him entered Picadors with their lances, 
 who proceeded to prod him ; but this particular 
 bull was short and handy at turning, and the 
 tormentors found their horses gored and them- 
 selves flung ofT as if by a catapult. The 
 barrier received the mark of his horn-points 
 at the spot where two seconds before had been 
 the narrowly escaping lanceman. 
 
 Not much need therefore to further irritate 
 him, for the chulos to wave their flags or the 
 banderilleros to plant fireworks behind his ears 
 — the bull could see behind him, and the first 
 banderillero was caught under his right arm 
 and at once made a subject for the Spanish 
 equivalent of a Coroner's Inquest. 
 
 Sawney soon exhausted the courage of- all 
 the troupe, tired out beforehand by the 
 
230 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 fatigues of a heavy day, and not expecting 
 much difficulty from the little, sturdy, under- 
 sized beast, who looked insignificant by the side 
 of the monsters from the Guadiana marshes. 
 The fun languished, and cries of " Spada " came 
 to be heard, and the exile began to ponder. 
 " Gin but I had no tossed that writer to the 
 Signet," thought the victim, " I'd no hae been 
 here the noo, in a kintra whar they dinna ken 
 what a fine saft day is like, nor a bonnie 
 Scotch mist ; but it's just sun, sun, beastly sun 
 all the day lang. But fat are they gaun till 
 next ? " With calm and slow steps there ad- 
 vanced to him the great Matador, taking, as he 
 entered the arena, his red flag from the bowing 
 attendant. With measured step and slow, he 
 moved forward into the centre of the arena, 
 where he made his deep and stately bow to 
 the governor, and went on to turn round to 
 the assembly to repeat the obeisance. Twice 
 did he perform this, amid the rapturous greet- 
 ing which met the popular favourite, before 
 whom that very day eight bulls had bit the 
 dust. The third salute was on the point of 
 being made, and after one more the master 
 would turn his attention to the victim, who 
 was expected to fall the usual easy prey, 
 when " Valgame Dios ! " horror of horrors ! 
 the bull had come back from thoughts of 
 Bonnie Scotland, seen the red flag, and turned 
 
"FULL SPEED A-TA/L." 231 
 
 his attention to " the creatur' who was capering 
 there jist like a dancing master." 
 
 Up rose the national pride. "Was he, the bull 
 who had kept the Strath of Tober-na-Mutchkin 
 against all comers, to meet his end by the 
 hands of a little, undersized creature like that, 
 whom Sandy McCraw, the herdsman, whom 
 alone he knew and feared, could pack into his 
 sporran, and walk off wi', withoot makin' a 
 fouss aboot it ? Was he, the bull whom they 
 had sent for to Embro' to stop a few burgher 
 bodies that cal'd themsel's the Royal Scottish 
 Archers from firing their arrows at the butts in 
 King's Pairk, when, by sair mischance, wae's me ! 
 he had jist gently tossed the bailie hissel' — was 
 he, who had made the Strath a terror to tourists, 
 and had been asked questions aboot in the 
 Hoose o' Commons, to be treated like a 
 common, unpolled stot o' Galloway and kyloe 
 o' the Mearns ? " Forbid it ! in the name of 
 Scotia weeping o'er her Thistle ! " But gang 
 canny," advised the National Prudence; "ye 
 canna tell fat he's gaun to dae with the bricht 
 thing he's got, and ye'll hae to make thet o' 
 no use to'm." Whereupon, as if by inspiration, 
 and reflection that the other end of him was 
 the least vulnerable and certainly the thickest, 
 the animal approached the swordsman standing 
 in position, leaning lightly on his left foot, 
 which was in advance, the right hand holding 
 
232 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 the blood-red flag that concealed the glittering 
 blade which had brought death to so many 
 of his Spanish kin. 
 
 The bull faced the flag till his nose touched 
 it, and possibly the scent of gore revolted his 
 sense. At any rate, without more ado the 
 audience began to hiss " Cobardo, cobardo," 
 not knowing what was coming. And that was 
 just the bull turning round and slowly and 
 deliberately going a-tail upon the top of that 
 Matador, to whom the manoeuvre was utterly 
 unknown. " Not for him to turn and fly," to 
 disgrace himself and the generation of bull- 
 fighters whose blood was in his veins. So 
 first the straight-held sword in its enshrouding 
 flag was pushed aside, then the heels were 
 flung out with two tremendous kicks, the man 
 himself knocked down and trampled on by the 
 animal until such time as his head in its back- 
 ward course had passed over the fallen one, 
 when the horns became once more available 
 for action ; then came a vicious prod on the 
 other side of the swordsman, and it was evident 
 that the next dig would get home into some 
 part of him. Then the cry " Cobardo " turned 
 into shrieks and shouts of fear. Chulo, bande- 
 rillero, and picador jumped the barrier to draw 
 off the bull ; but it was long before the gay 
 swordsman, trampled, bruised, and mired, could 
 be got up and carried out of the arena, with one 
 
"SCOTLAND YET." 233 
 
 or two more whom the bull had contrived to 
 damage in the milde. 
 
 The affair must close. A bull who could so 
 break all the conditions of the ring as to charge 
 tail first was not fit to live. A gun was brought, 
 and the gallant beast fell to the ground with 
 none to cry over him " Bravo Toro." But 
 there are some who will say " Scotland yet." 
 
 About the year 1787 the then Commander 
 of the Forces in Ireland invited the Lord- 
 Lieutenant and the dlite of Dublin Society to 
 a banquet at the Royal Hospital, the chief 
 feature of which had been for months in pre- 
 paration, and excited great interest. The 
 centre piece was a model, on a large scale, of 
 the Rock of Gibraltar, then recently besieged 
 by France and Spain, with the besiegers' 
 approaches and the lines of defence accurately 
 marked out. Guns were mounted in the various 
 batteries, and threw sugar-plums at the fortress, 
 which the defence promptly returned. The 
 cost of this piece of extravagance, which was 
 in play for but a couple of hours, was ;^2,ooo. 
 
 Little things amuse children both small and 
 big, and a member of our Mess had been 
 greatly amused by seeing a child dandled on his 
 knee by an- old Scotch laird who had come to 
 see that grandson of his. The accompanying 
 
234 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 melody, in which the amusement consisted, 
 was : — 
 
 Soft in voice and action — 
 
 " This is the way the ladies ride — 
 Jimp an' sma', jimp an' sma'." 
 
 Forte — 
 
 " This is the way the gentlemen ride — 
 Trottin' awa', trottin' awa'." 
 
 Fortissimo — 
 
 "This is the way the coal-heavers ride — 
 Sacks an' a', sacks an' a'." 
 
 The process was greatly approved, and had 
 the same result of requiring repetition as in a 
 very old story told by Moody the Evangelist, 
 which is much in point, if the sacred names 
 which were so freely used be left out. It was 
 a definition of faith, and the hot gospeller 
 placed his little son, three years old, on a 
 round table, and, standing some two yards off, 
 said, " Now, Willie, jump." The mite took 
 two steps and peered over into the gulf, but, 
 shaking his head, said emphatically, "No," 
 and retreated to his former stand. This was 
 repeated two or three times, till the parent 
 altered his tactics. " Now, Willie, it's your 
 father who loves you, and will give you cocoa- 
 nut candy " ; and then the youngster took the 
 jump, to be caught in his father's arms. We 
 must omit the commentary, except the con- 
 clusion of the homily. " Now, Willie, you've 
 
AMURICAN FAITH, LIKEWISE SCOTCH. 235 
 
 shown that you know what faith is." The 
 speaker, however, ran drily on : " After that 
 he got so fond of showing his faith that I got 
 tired of it " — a very usual state of things with 
 the performers of such manoeuvres generally. 
 
 This, however, was not the definition of the 
 "evidence of things not seen" which found 
 favour with the Scotch ranter, who thus dis- 
 coursed on the same point : — 
 
 " Ma freens, div ye ken what faath is? I'll 
 jeest gie ye an illustraation o' it. Ye a' ken 
 the Laird's hoose, and ye a' ken the muckle 
 tree that stands ahint the Laird's hoose ; and 
 ye a' ken John Broon, and ye a' ken John 
 Broon's brockit coo. Well, noo, if any ane 
 was to tell ye that he had seen John Broon's 
 brockit coo climb up the muckle tree that 
 stands ahint the Laird's hoose, and sit upon 
 the tip o' her tail on the top twig and whistle 
 like a mavis, ye'd say that the thing was jeest 
 impowsible, gin ye no had faath and the dis- 
 cerning o' siclike masters." 
 
 The test seems a hard one. 
 
 " Ere thou art thirsty, dig a well," says the 
 Chinese proverb, and most of us find it true. 
 But a neat illustration took place some sixty 
 years ago when an attempt was made to upset 
 the monopoly of pitching the roads in London 
 with granite, by which one Alderman John 
 Johnson had accumulated an enormous fortune. 
 
236 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 He had been long and violently denounced 
 by some of the rabid reformers of corporation 
 abuses, such as Alderman Harmer of the 
 Weekly Dispatch, Daniel Whittle Harvey, and 
 Charles Pearson, of whom the two last, after 
 they had respectively acquired the snug places 
 of City Police Commissioner and City Solicitor, 
 ceased, as is not uncommon, active denunciation 
 of things as they existed, and indeed died in 
 the odour of Toryism. " The City paving 
 contract must be thrown open " ; and so it was, 
 with apparently most flourishing results. A 
 firm was found to take it up with influential 
 and strong guarantors ; the only point, by 
 the way, on which the retiring holder of the 
 contract betrayed the slightest anxiety. Its 
 schedule of prices was something like 40 per 
 cent, all round below the old occupant's, who 
 indeed had simply given in his own price 
 verbally — " Same as afore." The new-comers 
 were of course selected in the Alderman's 
 place, who received his dismissal impassively 
 and with a sniff". The new people signed the 
 contract, took premises on a large scale, forth- 
 with began to provide carts, horses, rammers, 
 grout, and plant of all kinds ; and then sent a 
 man to Scotland to buy the granite, which they 
 concluded would, as heretofore, be purchasable 
 at a nominal figure — in fact, almost for the cost 
 of clearing up the granite chips off" the stone- 
 
STONE BROKE FOR WANT OF BROKEN STONE. 237 
 
 masons' yards, plus sea-carriage to London 
 and bargeing up. But when their man got 
 to Aberdeen and Peterhead no chips existed ; 
 " there worn't none to be had," and search on 
 the west coast was equally unsuccessful. Only 
 indeed in parts so remote from shipping 
 ports as to be practically out of the hunt, by 
 reason of cost of carriage, could anything be 
 found. 
 
 So the searcher returned disconsolate, and 
 then ill-luck fell like a pall upon the adven- 
 turers. Be it remembered there was no tele- 
 graph in those days, no railways, and the 
 course of post to the Highlands something like 
 ten days in place of forty-eight hours. But 
 who had bought up all the quarry waste ? He 
 could not eat it, and must sell it at some price ! 
 Moreover, he couldn't put the stuff in his 
 pocket, so the stacks of it must be traceable. 
 These conclusions followed up, the trail ran 
 straight to the office on Millbank of Mr. 
 Alderman John Johnson, and that magnate, 
 duly approached, was quite ready to sell. So 
 there only remained the question of price. 
 That price turned out to be, for each and every 
 job, measured out in superficial feet, the exact 
 sum the new contractors were to receive for 
 the whole job, taking up old work, stone, 
 labour, grout, channels, tips (City folk took 
 them in those days), even the dinner to the 
 
238 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 Committee of the Corporation which bossed 
 the job — and this for material only, as it was 
 dumped down on the spot. Great was the 
 cackling among the Corporation Committee men, 
 emphasized by their threat of enforcing the 
 penalties for delay ; streets could not be kept 
 unusable because the contractors were not up 
 to their business ! The Alderman was strong 
 but not merciful ; the new Company paid him 
 something like ;^20,ooo to take over their 
 contract, and so long as that large-patterned, 
 red-cheeked, ruffle-shirt-fronted, bow-windowed 
 individual remained in business, no one ven- 
 tured to disturb his ancient solitary reign as 
 London's City Paviour. This was a case of 
 buying stone : now for selling that same. 
 
 There is, or was till lately, one street in 
 Amsterdam in which any quantity of diamonds 
 or precious stones could be disposed of at not 
 unfair market prices, considering all things, 
 and for cash or English bank-notes, without 
 questions asked. White paper packets were 
 opened, weighed, put in hot water to detect 
 " doublets " — that is, stones faced only with 
 diamonds cemented on to crystal backs — and 
 eventually, if all conditions were in order, 
 a sum was named, which the surrounding 
 circumstances pressed upon the vendor the 
 advisability of accepting. Few very large and 
 fine stones exist which do not have in them 
 
STONE-BLINDNESS, WHEN NEEDFUL. 239 
 
 some identifying mark, perhaps a dot in one 
 corner or a little slip in the faceting. Of course 
 all the great historic stones are known on the 
 market — such as the great Sancy diamond worn 
 in his hat by Charles the Bold when he was 
 killed at Granson, picked up by a soldier who 
 sold it for a florin to a carnally minded eccle- 
 siastic who was strolling thereabouts upon a 
 mission to relieve, in every sense, the dying 
 and wounded ; such a stone, picked all over, 
 and of a pear shape, is useless except to be 
 cut up into smaller stuff, if indeed that be 
 possible. But most of the great family jewels 
 have histories and written descriptions, and 
 are well known to the astute Israelites who 
 run these exchange marts in the metropolis 
 of Dutchmen and diamonds. Hence one of 
 the firm may point out an item, probably 
 unknown to the vendor, on which much 
 whispering may result. The stranger's atten- 
 tion is called to it thus : " Now this stone, 
 2 7^ carat bare, has a mark in this corner ; 
 look at it through this magnifying glass ; an 
 eagle with wings spread out. That will have 
 to be cut out to make it perfect, and my friend 
 here thinks it will reduce the weight to about 
 10 carats 10 grains : we can't take it as more 
 than that weight." "What! the 17 carat no 
 good to you ! " " It is as we say." Should 
 the seller attempt to withdraw this stone from 
 
240 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 the batch, difficulties arise as to buying at all. 
 It spoils the parcel, you see, etc. 
 
 Now the offerer wants money, and wants it 
 on the quiet, or he would not be there. He 
 has probably given very little for it, except 
 the out-of-pocket expense which prefaces every 
 great jewel robbery, if it is to come off a 
 success. Should he take his parcel to any of 
 the other dealers in the street, it is declined 
 after the most cursory inspection. He has 
 been seen going to Aaron Horschheimer's, let 
 us say (the name is taken at haphazard, in case 
 any such person happens to exist), and no one 
 cares to take business out of his hands. Aaron 
 wouldn't like it. 
 
 So the bargain is concluded ; if coin be too 
 bulky, bank-notes are forthcoming, and the 
 seller leaves in perfect safety, though probably 
 followed to his hotel and " looked-up " by the 
 local detectives who always watch the street 
 and its frequenters, in the interests of the 
 police, but whose occupation rarely, if ever, 
 produces any result, so carefully are all the 
 surroundings managed. But there is an item 
 for which there is no market there, and is 
 indeed looked at with suspicion and dis- 
 couraged, and that is settings. Usually indeed 
 the artist, as soon as he has done the job, for 
 which months of watching and training have 
 been required, also possibly the getting over one 
 
SETTINGS UPSETTING BUSINESS. 241 
 
 of the servants ; as soon as he has got back to 
 the hotel — where he figures, not infrequently, 
 as an invalid gentleman of fortune — has at once 
 taken out his plyers. With them he has unset 
 the stones, and in the course of an evening's 
 walk deposited both settings and instrument 
 in the deepest and muddiest stream near at 
 hand, whose whereabouts has perhaps formed 
 part of the previous investigation. Only a few 
 years ago the sand-getters who, with their "bag 
 and spoon," get up sand from the Thames for 
 the use of marble sawyers, brought up a cluster 
 of meaningless bands full of round and oval 
 holes with prongs round their edges, which, 
 seen by a chance looker-on, were identified 
 ultimately as the mountings of a splendid set 
 of jewels, the casket of which was filched from 
 the maid of a Duchess who held it carelessly, 
 while her mistress was getting into the train 
 at Paddington. The deep mud of Tennyson's 
 Avon doubtless holds, 'neath Clifton Bridge, 
 all that could identify Lady Miles' historic 
 family jewels, carried off by as nimble a 
 workman as exists. 
 
 People speak of pure fresh air and pure 
 fresh water ; but do such things exist ? Has 
 not all the air, pure and fresh as it may be 
 when breathed on the sunlit heights of Monte 
 Rosa, passed through millions of lungs of man, 
 
 16 
 
242 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 and beast, and reptile ? — come straight there, 
 perhaps, upon the soft Fohn wind from lazaretto, 
 Levantine plague hospitals, or Neapolitan 
 cavern dwellings, where nothing but a string 
 separates the crowded families who fester to- 
 gether in them, in the recesses of that fairest 
 of cities. Water, too — even springing from 
 such a source as Horace's " Fons Bandusiae 
 clarior vitro," or which has flowed in headlong 
 career 
 
 " Past the green steeps whence Anio leaps 
 In floods of snow-white foam," 
 
 to become part of the circulating medium again 
 of beast, bird, and reptile — formed, it may be, 
 part of a glanderous discharge, the spray of 
 which, blown on his face by a horse when 
 crossing Throgmorton Street, gave, after three 
 days' agony to its recipient Contango M.P., 
 toll to the Chancellor of the Exchequer upon 
 ;i^3,ooo,ooo of money. Is there anything that 
 has not in the past and will not in the future 
 be worked up again, purified at each recurring 
 transformation by that wondrous chemistry 
 which, in our total ignorance of its action, we 
 term " Life " ? The answer is " Certainly not." 
 And this preamble, dealing at first with the 
 greatest problems of Nature, comes down to 
 such small items as press matter. Look at the 
 following extract from a most amusing book, 
 
THE LIONS' FATAL LEAPS. 
 
 243 
 
 Farini's " Kalahari Desert." Compare it with 
 the passage in Andersson's " Lake Ngami," 
 and observe how the same incident occurred 
 to these tw6 travellers in the same part of 
 South Africa. The periodic time of this occur- 
 rence seems to be thirty odd years, and it will 
 be curious to notice if, at the end of thirty 
 odd years more, it should recur to a couple of 
 hospital nurses walking up-country in search of 
 patients : such as Sisters Blennerhassett and 
 Sleeman, for instance. Perhaps there might 
 also repeat itself their history of how the 
 Station Chaplain "chucked his orders" and 
 went partners with a Jew bar-keeper. 
 
 Andersson, " Lake 
 Ngami," p. 282. 
 
 " Hans knew an instance 
 where a lion and a gems- 
 bok were found dead in 
 each other's grasp, the latter 
 having with his horns trans- 
 fixed his assailant. The 
 carcases of the two were 
 discovered before decom- 
 position had taken place.'' 
 
 Farini. 
 
 " At twenty yards away 
 was a lion apparently sucking 
 away the life's blood from 
 a gemsbok whose feet were 
 yet kicking spasmodicall)' ; 
 while beneath the hind part 
 of his body lay the neck of 
 a second gemsbok, still, like 
 his comrade, in the last 
 agonies. 
 
 " I cautiously approached 
 the lion sideways, determin- 
 ing to fire at his shoulder. 
 Imagine my surprise to find 
 one horn of the gemsbok 
 sticking out of the lion's 
 shoulder, and the other 
 
244 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 through its neck, while just 
 through his hip could be 
 seen the tips of the horns 
 of the other gemsbok. He 
 had impaled himself on the 
 horns of two of his prey, 
 and, while rendering them 
 helpless, had put himself 
 hors de combat. He was as 
 dead as a door-nail." 
 
 By way of compensation, or compound 
 interest, the gemsboks have doubled in number ; 
 though as the abdomen of a Hon is hardly forty 
 inches long in the clear ; and while two of the 
 horns pierced the shoulder, the other two pierced 
 the hip ; the antelopes must have laid their horns 
 very close together, as well as their heads. 
 
 Shyness is to its possessors — and they are 
 legion — a source of great torment. Rumour 
 goes that even great advocates have been 
 frequently troubled by it, and that it needs five 
 minutes or so of hearing their own voice to 
 dispel the nervousness, and put them on their 
 mettle again. It is the same in other things, 
 and I have myself known a P. & O. Captain 
 who was regularly seasick when he came out 
 of a port where the ship had been on even keel 
 for twenty-four hours. 
 
 With the astronomer Adams, as with many 
 other college dons, shamefacedness was over- 
 
THE SUFFERINGS OF SHYNESS. 245 
 
 mastering ; and if, on the rare occasions when 
 he succeeded in getting the better of it, some- 
 thing came in to upset him, collapse ensued, 
 and lasted for a week or more. It is recorded 
 that on one occasion he decided to give his 
 class of honour-men a sound wigging for cut- 
 ting his lectures, which only one had attended ; 
 to his own great personal benefit, as the 
 lecturer could coach better than he could teach, 
 and his special attention to his solitary chicken 
 brought the pupil out fourth wrangler. How- 
 ever, in the matter of this wigging, he man- 
 aged to call the class together, and soundly 
 rated them, winding up with a request that they 
 would be careful not to omit to attend his next 
 lecture. On this there was a slight titter, and 
 a man in the rear broke out with, " Why, sir, 
 you gave us your last lecture yesterday." 
 Adams looked up, seized his head with both 
 hands, and bolted into his bedroom, never 
 coming out for a week. 
 
 The shock was as great as that experienced 
 by the Roman Catholic Missionary to the 
 Chiliquothequin Indians, who inhabit a charm- 
 ing country in the back of Canada, where the 
 principal food is fish, and the land is all under 
 water in summer and all under snow in winter. 
 He laboured assiduously according to his lights, 
 living native life, and endeavouring in every 
 way to win their confidence. He was of course 
 
246 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 an object of great interest, and every proceeding 
 was watched and commented on behind his 
 back, and even sometimes in his hearing, as 
 when on one occasion, having closed the 
 ragged skins door of his little " tepee" or tent, 
 his light showed the flash of human eyes 
 filling up some of the holes in the covering, and 
 he heard female voices saying to one another, 
 in tones of surprise and disappointment, the 
 phrase which he renders "II dort seul." Nor 
 did it end there, as thenceforth he was greatly 
 harassed by the younger and fairer members 
 of his flock asking him to meet them in the 
 forest. From the pathetic way in which the 
 incident is narrated, there is little doubt that 
 the new St. Anthony upheld his celibacy 
 successfully, although from the terms in which 
 he describes the " belle " of the village it 
 might perhaps have happened the temptation 
 was not quite strong enough. We all know 
 Sir Robert Walpole's story that he never knew 
 a man who refused money, and but one woman : 
 she took diamonds. 
 
 I had an extraordinary rencontre in the 
 Bank of England in the year 1872. I had 
 business inside its walls, but found the doors 
 guarded, as if some person of importance, or 
 perhaps Royalty itself, was going over it. I 
 was then a merchant, and had the distinction 
 
SHAKING HANDS WITH THE SHAH. 247 
 
 of being what is termed " known " there ; so 
 ingress was accorded me, and I went along the 
 corridors to the part where my business lay. 
 I may here say — and I trust it may not be set 
 down to any lack of loyalty — that whenever 
 Royalty of any kind is to the front I invariably 
 go in the other direction, or get out of the 
 way. Hence, when I saw a small crowd 
 coming to meet me, I took refuge in a side 
 staircase, and was ascending it, when a blaze 
 of light at once stopped me. The leading 
 person had a kind of high, conical, black cap, 
 and on the fore part of it was the largest 
 diamond — the Koh-i-noor not excluded — which 
 I have ever seen, surrounded by minor satellites, 
 " adding soft radiance to the larger stone." 
 The sight was bewildering, and as the vision 
 drew nearer I had no eyes for anything else, 
 but remained on the bottom step, with, I 
 presume, my hand stretched out. On no other 
 supposition can I account for its being laid 
 hold of and endearingly shaken by a soft, 
 brown paw, while from beneath two of the 
 blackest and fiercest eyes ever set in human 
 face came the words " Shalom aleikoom." I 
 was not so far gone as not to be able to 
 answer " Aleikoom Shalom," but not until the 
 Governor of the Bank and a dozen more had 
 gone past me did I recognise that I had 
 shaken hands with the great Shah-een-Shah 
 
248 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 of Persia. It is, it seems, the practice of that 
 Court that the Monarch goes first in procession, 
 and hence I was indebted to an accident for 
 my second contact with a crowned head, — the 
 first having been a strongish nudge from the 
 elbow of Napoleon III. on the occasion of 
 the Queen's opening of the Crystal Palace 
 in 1854. I was an original shareholder in 
 that building, and one of the few who had 
 the very good luck to sell my £^ shares for 
 £2> premium. I was the holder of a " Privi- 
 lege" ticket, and was standing on the red 
 carpet which led to the estrade whence her 
 Majesty and her guests had been intended to 
 witness the inauguration of the great fountains. 
 But these organisations had gone wrong, and 
 refused to play during all the morning, or 
 rather had burst out among the flower-beds 
 and formed impromptu jets deau there and 
 cataracts down the slopes of the terraces. I 
 had just been told by an official that the idea 
 of trying them again was finally given up, 
 when suddenly I received a " dunch " (there 
 is no other word for it), and turning round 
 to remonstrate or possibly return it, I saw 
 the lurid brown face of him who was destined 
 to become the " man of Sedan with the 
 Queen on his arm, while behind him came the 
 Prince Consort and the Empress. Of course 
 my hat was off directly, and what words of 
 
FEMALE DEVOTION. 249 
 
 apology I could muster at the moment uttered. 
 The next time I brushed against him was 
 in Regent Street, just a few months before 
 the final collapse, when his strength failed just 
 at the critical moment when one half of the 
 operation was over, which might have restored 
 him to weak health and strong powers of 
 mischief for yet some few years. 
 
 But what had he to live for? In such a 
 miserable, hollow life as was his, let us note 
 here the one only good point which that self- 
 contained, silent, dull nature possessed. He 
 never forgot his friends. Though perfectly 
 reckless where personal interest was con- 
 cerned, and capable of proposing to Bismarck 
 the treacherous betrayal of England by the 
 annexation of Belgium, he seems never to 
 have forgotten personal kindness shown to 
 him in his old King Street days. There still 
 exists in Wandsworth Road the modest un- 
 detached villa once occupied by Miss Howard, 
 who assisted him in every way that man can 
 be helped by woman — pawning her jewels 
 for him, and even submitting to be arrested 
 for his debts, as was Mrs. Fitzherbert for 
 those of H.R.H. the Prince Regent. Her 
 devotion was not forgotten, although she had 
 no one to press her claims as had the con- 
 spirators who carried out the massacres and 
 treasons of December '51. When the unequal 
 
250 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 contest was at an end, the liberties of a nation 
 crushed, and the tyrant had settled on himself 
 the Civil List of one million sterling, the lady 
 was sent for to Paris, created a Countess, and 
 an estate provided for her, on which she 
 died a year before the imposture had, by its 
 own inherent weight of crime, broken down 
 in blood and ruin. 
 
 Among many who had helped Prince Louis 
 Napoleon in the King Street days of debt 
 and difficulty was a Yorkshire squire called 
 Mellish. The assistance given was in money. 
 The sum was not very large, but it was timely, 
 and had been repaid, in terms of ordinary 
 civility, very shortly after the Presidential Chair 
 had been reached. The matter faded from the 
 lender's memory, if indeed it had ever occupied 
 it ; and one day in the fifties the squire took 
 his people over to Paris, and went to the Louvre 
 like any one else. So he was greatly surprised 
 when an Imperial carriage drove into the court- 
 yard, containing an equerry, with a request 
 that he would at once take up his quarters at the 
 Tuilleries, adding that the Imperial fourgons 
 were in attendance to remove his baggage. 
 The matter was, of course, practically a com- 
 mand, and quite silenced the ladies of the 
 family from raising the usual difficulty, "nothing 
 fit to go in." As soon as the handsome suite 
 in the Palace was reached, and the first items 
 
A MOVE UNWRITTEN IN HISTORY. 251 
 
 of settling down accomplished, a plain knock 
 at the door announced a visitor in the shape 
 of the Emperor himself, who at once greeted 
 his old friend and his belongings, and pressed 
 them to stay as his guests until they got 
 tired of it, as we all do of everything, after a 
 time. 
 
 The first hint of the vacillating ways which 
 ultimately destroyed the European Sphinx, as 
 he was then considered, was given to me by 
 a German, who had repeated audiences of him 
 upon a very mysterious subject. There is 
 a certain part of the north-west coast of 
 Morocco, which by some treaty not generally 
 known, and certainly not made public, is agreed 
 should be " taboo " to England ; from some 
 apprehension, it is said, of arms and ammuni- 
 tion being landed there which might be used 
 to the prejudice of the French in Algeria. 
 English trade is therefore discouraged officially, 
 though the diplomatic skill of the late lamented 
 Sir John Drummond Hay contrived to keep 
 things quiet — even preventing the wild Rififian 
 tribes from boarding and plundering the vessels 
 which ran the risk of the traffic ; it being always 
 understood that the said vessels carried out 
 their share of the contract by standing off the 
 coast at nightfall. 
 
 Whatever the plan might be, — probably the 
 raising an insurrection in Morocco itself, and 
 
252 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 running the risk of what he could get out of 
 the " kick-up" which would at once ensue, — ^it 
 was entertained by the Emperor, and my friend 
 described the interviews which took place. 
 For the purpose of carrying out his mysterious 
 night sallies into Paris, Napoleon III. had 
 rooms opening on the Rue St. Honore, with 
 a door leading into it. To this door, an 
 appointment having been made, the German 
 agent of Liege gunsmiths would proceed, and 
 would press a knob in the mud-covered iron- 
 work of an apparently blind door. This would 
 suddenly open, and an individual, who remained 
 in shadow, would receive the password (con- 
 tinually changed), would open a door in face, 
 and there, always alone, would be found the man 
 at one time the most powerful in all Europe. 
 
 The Emperor was perfect master of the 
 subject, and had as full and complete informa- 
 tion about the matter as the tradesman in touch 
 with the Liege people. Over and over again 
 were negotiations on the point of conclusion. 
 Specifications were settled and also terms of 
 payment, which last was to be through a 
 Swiss banking house, and as part of the capital 
 of a railway in the Grisons. But after several 
 interviews things had changed, fresh difficulties 
 had cropped up, and the necessity for keeping 
 matters dark had deepened. Finally the notion 
 slackened, the Mexican intervention came to 
 
WHY DIDNT I STOP AT HOME? 253 
 
 the front, and no more discussions took place ; 
 nor could I understand that the intermediary, 
 or indeed any one else, got any benefit by the 
 negotiations, though it is hard to conceive a 
 Belgian Jew doing anything at his own expense 
 or without getting handsomely paid for it. 
 
 There is somewhere a Berkshire ballad which 
 runs thus : — 
 
 " Of their foreign lands let furreners brag, 
 With their fifteen names for a puddin' bag. 
 Let vools go wandering fur and nigh, 
 We stays at whoam my dog and I." 
 
 And this was the opinion arrived at by an 
 Englishman who fell foul of French law. His 
 very hard case was detailed by himself in a 
 letter to the papers some dozen years back. 
 
 He seems to have occupied a villa at Nice 
 with his family, and found his flower garden 
 invaded one fine morning by some dozen people, 
 who pranced all over the place and took 
 measurements, without troubling themselves 
 what they walked over. 
 
 An inquiry as to the nature of their business 
 procured the gruff answer, " C'est le Tribunal " ; 
 and when, on their condescending to go away, 
 the house-master followed to shut the gate 
 after them, the whole body charged back on 
 him in a kind of football scrimmage, with the 
 
254 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 hacking kept In. Endeavouring to bar the 
 entrance with his body, the unhappy English 
 singleton was severely kicked by an avouS, 
 a proceeding of which no English solicitor 
 would have been capable. He was nastily 
 hurt, and probably said something ; an apology 
 for which being demanded and refused, they 
 carried him ofif to prison in his damaged condi- 
 tion — bail, access to friends, and even the 
 Consul, being all put off till the next morning, 
 although one would have thought there was 
 plenty of time to bring about all three after 
 I p.m. the same day. 
 
 The " reception room " proved to be a 
 cell occupied by five convicted felons, the 
 water supply for all purposes, including drink- 
 ing, being limited to one bucket, which might 
 have been cleaner ; moreover, the floor con- 
 stituted the sole lavatory, and was cleaned out 
 once every twenty-four hours. 
 
 At 6 p.m. the night shift was made to a stone- 
 paved cell, 15 feet by 8 feet, in which were 
 five mattresses of putrid straw, appropriated by 
 the permanent inmates, none being thought 
 necessary for the new chum, who accord- 
 ingly had to stand, or lie down, on a floor 
 covered with filth. Vermin, too, came in 
 swarms on the visitor, who in very despair 
 stripped himself to the skin ; that, too, on a 
 March night, with the keen breath of the 
 
IN A FRENCH PRISON. 255 
 
 mistral chilling him to the bone. There 
 was but one small opening, grated heavily, and 
 quite insufficient for the sweetening of so much 
 noisome breath. So the unhappy prisoner had 
 to pass the night naked, with his knee on the 
 window-sill and his mouth at the grating to 
 get air. This state of things lasted for twenty- 
 six hours, when he was charged with insulting 
 the Tribunal with the words, " Je me moque 
 de la loi Frangaise," the words being distinctly 
 (and falsely, according to the accused) sworn 
 to by another avoud. This the insulted 
 President held to be proved, and in such a 
 rumpus the ordinary British monosyllable of 
 relief might perhaps have passed muster for 
 some such phrase. The sentence was 500 
 francs' fine and two days' imprisonment, but 
 bail, on the lodging an appeal, averted that 
 last form of suffering. The French President, 
 however, lodged a special appeal for 5,000 
 francs and six months in gaol. On the hearing, 
 some six months later, the original conviction 
 was quashed, and the President of the Court 
 censured for having entered upon the premises 
 without giving previous notice. It, however, 
 cost the Englishman ^^"200, and he was advised 
 by the Ambassador to put up with the loss and 
 let matters rest. 
 
 It will be remembered that only last year 
 two Englishmen, unable to speak French, 
 
256 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 received similar treatment in Paris, and that 
 there also the Embassy was not communicated 
 with until after two days spent in prison. 
 
 The late Duke of York was an individual 
 whom, in these latter days, we wonder at our 
 grandfathers putting up with for a month, 
 still less doing honour to. The sword which 
 he never seems to have drawn except to be 
 defeated, save when lowered in a disgraceful 
 convention, is hung up in the Tower as if it 
 were the sword of Austerlitz, or the rattan 
 of Gordon with which he led the charges. 
 The monument in Waterloo Place, said to be 
 nicely adjusted to the height of his own un- 
 paid, but piled-up, bills, with a statue of him- 
 self as the handle of the bill-file ; the care of 
 the King's person committed to a son who had 
 brutally flogged his own father at the time 
 when that remedy was held specific in lunacy, 
 and publicly applied to the women in St. 
 Luke's (parties being admitted to see the 
 'pathy on payment) ; the hideous charges 
 proved against him, compelling him to retire 
 from the Commandership-in-Chief in 1809, to 
 be reappointed, however, two years later ; the 
 debts, the blackguardism, his treatment of his 
 much-suffering wife, all raise our wonder how 
 it was put up with even then. The man had 
 neither wit nor grace, nor decency either. 
 
"ITS DISHONEST TO PLAY AND NOT PAY.' 257 
 
 His one amusement, besides getting drunk, 
 was to play at cards from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. 
 with anybody who would play with him, and 
 for anything in the way of stakes, or nothing. 
 It is true he always lost and never paid, so 
 usually it did not much matter, except as a 
 dissuasive to playing with him. But on one 
 occasion he absolutely won ;^4,ooo from a 
 young subaltern in the Guards, Fitzroy Stan- 
 hope, and then began H.R.H.'s agonies. He 
 wanted the money. 
 
 " You will pay me, Fitz, won't you ? It's 
 dishonest to play for money, and not pay up, 
 daymit ! " 
 
 At last the loser said, — 
 
 " I can only pay you, sir, if you'll find me a 
 place." 
 
 " A place — a place in the army ! Daymit ! I 
 can't do that ; Susan sells 'em all, and she's 
 always saying there aren't half enough vacancies 
 to keep our establishment going, though it is 
 war time." 
 
 (This was his celebrated mistress, who is 
 only now remembered by the fore spanker of a 
 barque being called Duke of York, the main 
 one Mrs. Clarke.) 
 
 " Well, sir, there are other things besides the 
 army — there's the Church, and there's a living 
 of ;^4,ooo in Cornwall in the gift of the Crown, 
 which will lapse to the Bishop next week 
 
 17 
 
2s8 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 unless the King fills it up. Could you not ask 
 the King to give it to me ? " 
 
 '' The King — the King, Fitz! why, he swears 
 whenever my name is mentioned, and the new 
 lady don't like me, daymit ! And, besides, you 
 ain't ordained, you know." 
 
 " I think, sir, if you could manage the, one, 
 I could the other, and you'd get the money ; 
 it's only a year's income, and the mines are 
 prosperous." 
 
 So the Duke wrote to the King, and in due 
 course the reigning Sultana got to hear of it. 
 This was Lady Conyngham, whom Mr. Greville 
 charges plainly in so many words with posses- 
 sion of some jewels, the property of the Crown. 
 It is odd to think of such a person in connec- 
 tion with such a subject as — 
 
 "... a young man's fancy 
 Lightly turns to thoughts of love." 
 
 But it did really happen in a very curious way, 
 and with an even odder result of leaving its 
 mark on the Church of England. The lady 
 had a son, Lord Mountcharles by name, and 
 he went the grand tour in charge of a young 
 Eton master, a man of splendid physique and 
 figure. Somewhere in Switzerland what does 
 this young man do but fall madly in love with 
 a Swiss madchen with deep blue eyes, daughter 
 of a minister ? As he talked of marrying 
 
THE PRICE OF A WINDSOR CANONRY. 259 
 
 her, the case was serious, the lady furious ; 
 there was no telegraph, no means of locking 
 him up, nor even of knocking him down, as 
 Mr. Weller was authorised to do with respect 
 to Mr. Winkle. The lady was in despair ; 
 there was but one hope left — an appeal to the 
 tutor, with an assurance that her everlasting 
 gratitude, and anything going that was good 
 enough to be obtained from the King, would 
 be acquired by any person who would avert 
 such a terrible disgrace (she actually put it 
 like that) on the lady of Slane Castle. The 
 tutor rose to the bait and the emergency, and 
 risked his all on one coup — he married the girl 
 himself ! and as his risk, so was his reward. 
 On the first vacancy he obtained a canonry 
 of Windsor, supposed then to be worth _^2,ooo 
 a year ; then followed the See of Llandafif; but 
 when, a year later, the almost princely Bishopric 
 of Winchester fell in, with revenues of enor- 
 mous amount, and rich rectories to provide for 
 even the number of a curate's family, the lady 
 held her hand : " I must have some of this 
 myself" ; so the churchman compounded with 
 the mistress for an annuity of ;^3,ooo a year 
 out of Winton revenues. Such complaisance 
 deserved a further good turn when the next 
 chance came ; and his brother, John Bird 
 Sumner, was found just the proper person for 
 the Bishopric of Chester, when that then 
 
26o MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 moderately endowed preferment fell vacant the 
 following year. The appointments worked 
 neither better nor worse than any others ; both 
 died enormously rich, and left their substance 
 to their babes ; but one hardly likes the way 
 they got their appointments, though from this 
 and other similar instances it would seem as 
 if English episcopacy, like running water, gets 
 rid of a good many impurities that flow into 
 it. Only one protest indeed against successful 
 and prosperous vice stands to the credit of the 
 order — when the saintly Ken refused to give 
 up his palace for the accommodation of Nell 
 Gwynne, to the great wrath of that Orange 
 Princess, and the equally great amusement ot 
 the third Stuart ; though there are any quantity 
 of stories the other way. When, for instance, 
 the Duke of Wellington consulted Archbishop 
 Howley how to prevent the spiritual peers 
 from voting against Catholic Emancipation, 
 and the Primate suggested that he would 
 himself go home and tie his knocker up as if 
 seriously ill, and a lapse of the Primacy on 
 the cards. The threat was enough, though 
 Rowley's Primacy was but a year old, and he 
 lived until 1848. 
 
 Bishops' family names remain long in the 
 Clergy List, owing to their filling up their 
 best livings with their own sons. I once 
 heard a sermon on the benefits, in a purely 
 
THE BRAVE DAYS OF OLD. 261 
 
 Spiritual sense, of poverty. There were two 
 liveried footmen in the Rectory servants' pew, 
 looking in much better feather than the curate 
 who had read the prayers ; and the evident 
 uneasiness of the very limited congregation 
 induced me to ask particulars. The preacher 
 was the Rev. George Pretyman-Tomline, 
 Rector of Wheathampstead-cum-Harpenden, 
 some ^1,200 a year. Chancellor of (I think) 
 Peterborough, Rector of somewhere else 
 besides, and Canon of Lincoln, to which post 
 he had been advanced by the affection of his 
 father, sometime Bishop thereof, and originally 
 tutor to William Pitt. I don't think this 
 gentleman rode to hounds like his brothers 
 did, but he was a good shot and kept up a 
 good head of pheasants. Meantime the curate 
 of Wheathampstead did eleven months' duty, 
 and received, so they told me on the spot, ^80 
 a year. This was in 1857. 
 
 The scene must now change to Windsor. 
 
 "Look here, my dear! daymy, here's Fred 
 written to ask me to give that living in 
 Cornwall we forgot all about to young Fitz 
 Stanhope ; says he owes him money, and it's 
 the only way he can pay. Says it's the last 
 
 week before it lapses to that Philpotts, and 
 
 he'll get him japanned in time for it. Suppose 
 he must have it ? None o' your boys old 
 enough, are they ? " 
 
262 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 So Fitz got the promise, but he had to get 
 ordained in full orders in a week ; and he 
 reported to his patron : — 
 
 " Bishops all funk doing it, sir ; say things 
 not what they used to be. All the archbishops 
 in good health, too ; so can't come over 'em 
 that way. There's an Irishman will do it, but 
 he wants you to write him yourself, and ask 
 him to dinner as well." 
 
 " Very good, Fitz. I suppose I must, for 
 I want the money. So here goes." 
 
 " Dear Cork, 
 
 " Ordain Fitz. 
 
 " Yours, 
 
 " York. 
 
 " P.S. — Come and dine some day." 
 
 Three days after the debtor came back 
 beaming. 
 
 " It's all right, sir, he's done it ; and I've 
 written the Exeter Bishop, who had his own 
 man all ready for it if he'd had the chance. 
 Here's his note." 
 
 " Daym 'im, what's all this ? " 
 
 " Dear York, 
 
 " Fitz is ordained. 
 
 " Yours, 
 
 " Cork. 
 
ORDINATION EXTRAORDINARY. 263 
 
 P.S. — " It's Thursday next I'll be coming to 
 taste your pot-luck-lashins of champagne, me 
 boy, and it's a night of it we'll make." 
 
 And so the Hon. and Rev. Fitzroy Stanhope 
 became Dean and Rector of St. Buryan, and 
 punctually drew ^4,000 a year from it till his 
 death in 1862. He never went near the place, 
 kept a curate on ^80 a year, the church and 
 everything else went to ruin ; but the Duke 
 got his money, and the Dean of St. Buryan 
 drew his thousands a year up till 1862, from the 
 outwardly barren shore in West Barbary, to 
 the great benefit of the noble House of Har- 
 rington, to whose honours his son succeeded. 
 The accumulation was a great relief to the 
 family estate, afflicted — like the Ailesbury 
 Peerage, which had four of them living at one 
 time — by the longevity of a dowager, who sur- 
 vived till 1867. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Serjeant Ballantine's closing career — Minnie mum — "Never 
 read prospectuses " — On advances for costs to Solicitors — 
 Landlord and barmaid: hard case — The costly chalice — 
 Teetotaller asking for rum, and how he consumed it — 
 "■Alas, my daughter!" — The Mortgage Deed and the 
 ■missing plot of land — The rabbit worth £yi — How the 
 Solicitor made amends for his slip — Stonehouse Local Board 
 and its Bond Issue — Electrical leakings — The '^ Conway" 
 and " Worcester" boys — Prince Consort and candle ends — 
 The Bishop's son and his revelations of the future — 
 Sixes and sevens. 
 
 WHEN Ballantine's career at the Bar had 
 closed, a subscription was got up for 
 him to which many contributed, and some 
 ;^700 a year was made up. One subscriber 
 gave ;^i5o a year on condition that the Ser- 
 jeant withdrew from the Club which was the 
 one pleasure of his life. Of course the amount 
 was not enough ; no amount would have been 
 enough. People have but little scruples in this 
 regard. When a similar subscription was got 
 up for Charles James Fox, and there were 
 fears of hurting his feelings, some one asked 
 Selwyn how he thought Fox would take it? 
 
 Selwyn said, " Why, quarterly, of course." 
 
 264 
 
A CASE TOO WELL GOT UP. 265 
 
 All, however, who had known the Serjeant 
 were not equally well disposed towards him, 
 and an estimable but retired Judge, who was 
 asked to subscribe ;^5o, turned so savagely 
 upon the applicant that he fled for his life. 
 
 Once Ballantine was counsellor for the S.E. 
 Railway in an accident case. The plaintiff 
 was brought' into court on a stretcher, and 
 gave pitiable answers when examined in chief. 
 Ballantine rose up to cross-examine in his 
 most sympathising and therefore most danger- 
 ous manner. " Have you pains in your head ? " 
 " Oh, yes." " Feel as if your back was broken, 
 dizzy fits ? " and so on for some five or six 
 more questions. Then "Billy" broke out: 
 " You have learned your lesson well. All 
 persons who receive a shock have some of 
 these symptoms, but never all of them com- 
 bined.'' Meantime the presiding Judge had 
 been examining the paper mark in the doctor's 
 diary, and found it a year later than the date 
 of the attendances. The case got worse and 
 worse, and the Judge summed up in these 
 few words : " It is hard to account for the 
 idiosyncrasies of doctors." The jury returned 
 at once a verdict for the company, and every 
 one expected some one would be sent to prison 
 for perjury, either the plaintiff or the doctor, 
 but nothing came of it, more's the pity. This 
 committal of a perjurer right off at the moment 
 
266 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 had a great effect in the Tichborne case, and 
 some of the Judges who really have a backbone, 
 and are not always thinking what the papers 
 will say, might repeat it with advantage. 
 
 It is a cruel thing to say of Miss Minna 
 Simpkinson (name fictitious, as usual), stout 
 and loquacious, when asked " Do you like 
 the girl of the house ? " — " Well, yes ; but 
 most when she's a Minnie mum ! " 
 
 Mr. Justice Mathew, in a company action, 
 noticed a statement of the plaintiff in the box 
 thus : " Why, that was in the prospectus : 
 who ever believes what is in a prospectus ? " 
 There are few of us who have not fallen into 
 that snare, but one case especially points the 
 moral which fell from the Bench. 
 
 This prospectus was that of a new explosive, 
 which combined a force superior to any pre- 
 viously known forms of quickly generated 
 energy with disregard of damp, and a patience 
 under rough handling superior to even cast 
 iron itself. It was produced, too, at a price 
 which created its own market at the expense of 
 all the others. All these advantages, and many 
 others, such as being positively benefited, and 
 its destructive energy increased by lying about 
 in the wet, were detailed in a prospectus so lus- 
 cious and enjoyable that one only regretted that 
 
A PITIFUL TALE. 267 
 
 the writer had not turned his talents in seduc- 
 tive description to the composition of sermons, 
 in which case his promotion to the highest 
 posts, in church or chapel, as the case might 
 be, was a matter to lay odds on. A friend of 
 mine at once took a hundred paid-up £1 shares, 
 but by an accident his application was read to 
 be for a thousand shares with 2s. deposit, and 
 the applicant, a man of position, made no objec- 
 tion to this, until two days afterwards one of 
 the leading financial papers said some such very 
 ugly things about the company that the allottee 
 claimed his money back, with, of course, the 
 usual reply : '' Impossible ; unfair to other share- 
 holders," etc. Smarting under this treatment, 
 which we may sum up by saying that ultimately 
 the calls were enforced and had to be paid, 
 with ;^ 1,500 costs on the top of all, the sufferer 
 wrote to a small financial paper detailing his 
 wrongs, the same being quickly inserted and 
 a letter of sympathy from the Editor returned 
 to say : " The thing is so scandalous that we 
 have handed the letter to a solicitor connected 
 with our journal, who will take proceedings to 
 recover the money you have paid " — this, be it 
 observed, without any retainer on the part of 
 the proposed client, or authority from him to 
 take action. In a post or two comes a letter 
 from the solicitor, who had a few years before 
 been bankrupt and compounded for a shilling 
 
268 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 in the pound, to say that on the receipt of 
 ;^2 5o he would defend the action which the 
 company had set on foot for the first call. As a 
 £\o note would be sufficient to provide for any 
 expense necessary in the defence for a long 
 time to come, it seems wonderful that such a 
 demand did not wake up the simple country 
 gentleman, or induce him to consult his own 
 solicitor before sending such a sum to a self- 
 introduced stranger ; but in place of doing so 
 he actually sent the money, and remained quiet 
 for some six or seven years, kept amused, once 
 or twice in each of them, by an occasional 
 letter to say that a settlement was being arrived 
 at ; until the company took action seriously 
 for the whole of the unpaid calls, when, to his 
 terrible loss in the long run, the sufferer 
 defended the action on its merits, by his 
 ordinary solicitors. Then came demands upon 
 the volunteer solicitor to refund — met by the 
 cool reply, " How much of this ^250 do you 
 expect to get back?" The reply naturally was, 
 " All of it, save such part as is represented by 
 your taxed bill of costs." This produced much 
 moaning over " the state of the times," 
 " difficulty of realisation," etc., which should 
 have induced the victim to lay the case, as usual 
 in misconduct, before the Incorporated Law 
 Society as malversation by a trustee — a course 
 which would have promptly produced the money 
 
STUDIES IN ROGUERY. 269 
 
 if the solicitor had it or could find it. Action 
 by a clever solicitor did, indeed, recover a 
 small part of it, but the debtor bolted back 
 to his haven of rest, the Bankruptcy Court, 
 which in this instance mustered up enough 
 backbone to refuse discharge, thus putting the 
 much injured debtor to the necessity of pay- 
 ing another qualified, but probably hitherto 
 unprosperous, solicitor for the use of his name, 
 otherwise "cover." All that " striking off the 
 rolls " really means, is this addition to the 
 defaulter's office expenses. 
 
 Any student of human nature, and the very 
 seamy side thereof, who wishes to study rascal- 
 ity and fraud, mixed up with oppression and 
 mendacity, in their cleverest yet grossest aspects, 
 can find his subject ready to hand by attending 
 the Divisional Courts which sit to inquire into 
 the conduct of those officers of the Court who 
 are called solicitors. He will find his game in 
 the daily cause list of these tribunals under the 
 heading "In the Matter of a Solicitor," beneath 
 which title appear the cases which have been 
 laid before the governing body of that branch 
 of the profession, have by them been so 
 thoroughly investigated that a defence on the 
 merits is rarely attempted in Court, and in 
 which, as a third line of conditions, the solicitor 
 has not, or cannot find, the money for restitution. 
 
270 MIDDLE -TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 Then only, after these three siftings, is the 
 Divisional Court called upon to say whether 
 such a man-wolf is fitted to longer carry on the 
 honourable position of a public adviser — a re- 
 dresser of private injuries — a helper of those 
 suffering under wrong and oppression — a stay 
 of the weak, their guardian and guide to redress. 
 If, therefore, one considers how few are the 
 cases in which the weak, timorous, helpless, 
 and the large class who object to throwing 
 good money after bad, can be brought to pro- 
 secute at all, and again how many cases are 
 stopped on the way by failure of evidence or 
 the accused settling the matter (there were 
 eighteen such cases in the Cause List for 
 Michaelmas Sittings, 1893), some idea can be 
 got of the terrible amount of suffering inflicted 
 upon this attorney-ridden nation, by unworthy 
 members of the class to which in nearly all the 
 changing scenes of life the British layman must 
 perforce resort. Not even consideration of the 
 small percentage of really high-class custodians 
 of pocket and property, who are found, not only 
 in the very highest, but even in the humbler 
 ranks, can keep out of view the hideous plague 
 spot. Every now and then some specially 
 ghastly breach of confidence is named at Mess 
 with a shrug of contempt : when it is hinted that 
 Biller has absolutely sold his client outright 
 to the other side ; that Dodson & Fogg, having 
 
irs ALL A MUDDLE, 271 
 
 got all out of their client that they could, have, 
 for some dark motive or other, muffed their 
 evidence ; when Mr. Sampson Brass (whilom 
 of Bevis Marks) has purposely absented him- 
 self from Court, — these are instances, done more 
 or less in public, where some one may be able 
 to analyse the reasons for a result which has 
 come upon the client like a thunderbolt. It is 
 piteous in some cases to see the look of that 
 harassed man when it breaks upon him that, 
 without a word, his case, thought over and 
 dreamed over with heartrending anxiety in the 
 watches of the night, has come to a bootless end, 
 and all left to him is to reckon up how to find 
 money for a failure in the machinery of the 
 law, the exact particulars of which it takes a 
 very clever expert to explain to him, and which 
 even then he cannot understand. Usually the 
 loser, whose senses have been too stunned to 
 take in a fresh sensation, meekly walks out of 
 Court, following his solicitor like a " tame 
 monkey behind an organ." But sometimes his 
 features express what is passing within him, 
 and one wonders how it is the break-out is 
 averted. 
 
 On one occasion, a landlord of a tavern was 
 sued by his barmaid for libel under circum- 
 stances which, to the lay mind, seemed no 
 ground for action. She had come to him from 
 
272 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 a fellow-publican, with a good character. She 
 turned out a drunkard, and a thief of money 
 from the till — both of which facts were not 
 disputed by her counsel. But her master wrote 
 to her former employer and related her mis- 
 doings, and on this the action was brought. 
 The Judge, a man of powerful intellect, could 
 only see the legal aspect of the case, and a 
 hard enough aspect it was. He held that, as 
 the statement was volunteered by the injured 
 master, and not extracted or called for from 
 him by the former employer, the communication 
 was not a privileged one. He would allow 
 nothing to be shown by way of justification, 
 and cut short every attempt in that direction 
 by simply stating, " The libel is admitted. 
 It is merely a question of damages." The 
 jury looked sorely puzzled ; it seemed only 
 natural to tell a fellow-tradesman how badly 
 his recommendation had turned out ; but they 
 were coerced even more than counsel, and 
 sulkily returned a verdict for_jffioo, practically 
 ;^300 with the costs. An attempt to get a 
 stay of execution pending appeal brought out 
 the stern reply, " I never allow a stay where 
 my mind is clear on the point, and here it is 
 so." The defendant's face had brightened up 
 during the last attempt, but at the close it 
 darkened so much that it was feared he was 
 going to " say something," and a kind of hush 
 
THE GOLDEN VALLEY. 273 
 
 prevailed while he was being walked out of 
 Court. 
 
 Known to many is the pleasant Welsh town 
 of Dolgelly, standing at the junction of two 
 rivers which respectively descend from the 
 Berwyn and Snowdon ranges, and' whose 
 valleys, when it happens to be fine weather, 
 are memories of beauty. Overlooked as it is 
 by the amphitheatre of Cader-Idris, with per- 
 haps the most romantic mountain brook-side 
 stroll that exists, in the shape of its " Torrent 
 Walk," the little town is full of interest to every 
 one, and has even the glint of gold about it as 
 an ever-present attraction. Near it are the 
 Vigra and Clogau mines, out of which Messrs. 
 Rothschild are said to have done exceedingly 
 well at one time, even for that money-spinning 
 house ; a hint at whose profits, or so much of it 
 as the astute heads of it can be got to reveal, 
 is made known to us by means of the terribly 
 brutal German income tax. Their mine was a 
 "pockety" one, or concentration of veins, and 
 when it became " out of pockety " the Intelli- 
 gences of New Court backed down. Numerous 
 imitations followed of all ranks, from the 
 peasants who there, as on Dartmoor, can make 
 30J. a week by panning in the streams ; to the 
 sumptuous concerns which put in capital by the 
 hundreds of thousands and lose it all. 
 
 18 
 
274 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 Some forty years ago the Cwm-heisian mines 
 started to work the quartz with the help of the 
 Berdan machine, and produced great results, as 
 they extracted nearly 90 per cent, of the gold put 
 in at the other end of the crusher ; it was only 
 when the promoters' shares were all placed 
 at good premiums on the market, and the loss 
 fell upon those who ran the machine, that the 
 results fell ofif] with fatal effect to the continuance 
 of the enterprise. Since that time Mr. Morgan, 
 M.P., seems to have been not much more 
 fortunate in his undertaking, for, according to 
 the statement in Burdett, 10 per cent, failed to 
 attract debentures to the amount of only ;^ 10,000 
 upon property on which ^^40,000 had been 
 expended. 
 
 There was, however, a treasure in a small 
 way lying hid close by and out of sight, which 
 has produced so much interest, annoyance, and 
 disappointment as to be worthy of noting down. 
 Terraced on the banks of the Mawddach is the 
 packhorse road by which, in the days of Wild 
 Wales, access was had to the mining localities 
 we have spoken of At one place an adit had 
 been driven into the hill for mining purposes, 
 and a rough bridge carried the path over the 
 drainage outlet therefrom. Under this bridge, 
 and in a hole neatly covered by a piece of slate, 
 was found, a year or two back, some ancient 
 Church plate of silver, or some proportion 
 
COSTLY CHURCH PLATE. 275 
 
 thereof. It consisted of a chalice and paten, 
 both of extraordinarily beautiful workmanship, 
 and bearing the name of a silversmith who 
 worked in the middle of the thirteenth century, 
 and probably at Chester. In all probability it 
 had belonged to Basingwerk Abbey, and either 
 was consigned to safe quarters at the time of 
 the Reformation, or lost by some marauder in 
 the historic (and now long-passed) days " when 
 Taffy was a thief." Great secrecy was ob- 
 served as to all particulars of the find, in the 
 fear (well grounded, as it happened) that the 
 Treasury might swoop down on it as "treasure 
 trove," which it certainly was not ; having 
 been abandoned by its latest owner (previous 
 to the miner who dug it out), and therefore 
 bona vacantia, and as such convertible to 
 his own use by the first-comer. Eventually, 
 however, the beautiful vessels came to the end 
 of all such things — Christie's and the inevit- 
 able hammer — and were competed for by the 
 Government on behalf of South Kensington 
 Museum, — a practical waiver, one would think, 
 of all subsequent claim. Had South Ken- 
 sington been the highest bidder, would the 
 Treasury have put the broad arrow upon the 
 money ? But South Kensington was over- 
 bidden, and it passed to a dealer at the awful 
 price of ^710. Then, and not till then, did 
 the Lords of H.M, Treasury put in their 
 
276 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 claim. Large costs were incurred by the sub- 
 purchaser in defence of his title, but it's ill 
 reasoning with a Government which does not 
 fear costs, and which, when it has to pay such 
 a sum as ;^6,200 for the Hansard prosecution 
 fiasco, considers the matter hardly worth 
 mentioning. So it is said that some kind of a 
 compromise has been come to, by which, after 
 the death of the present possessor, the articles 
 pass to the British Museum, there to be added 
 to, amongst other priceless treasures, that 
 silver dinner service of a Roman general dis- 
 covered in Germany, upon which H.M. Cus- 
 toms demanded a duty of one and sixpence per 
 ounce, on pain of battering up the whole 
 collection, before they would let it pass the 
 Customs. But this demand they had to 
 abandon. 
 
 An entirely new form of Local Option in 
 the matter of spirituous liquors comes from 
 Shanghai, a place where it can be cold in 
 winter, and usually is so. The steamers have 
 to wait outside the bar till there is water 
 enough for them to go over it, and then make 
 the run up at a stretch. It takes twelve 
 hours, and the pilot has to be on the bridge 
 the whole time. One bitterly cold night, when 
 spme 30° of frost were registered, the captain 
 went up to the English pilot, whom he knew 
 
TOTAL ABSTAINER AND RUM BOTTLE. 277 
 
 to be a total abstainer. " I suppose I can- 
 not offer you anything, pilot?" "Well," he 
 replied, "have you any rum?" "Certainly," 
 said the other, somewhat bewildered. " Give 
 me a bottle, then, will you?" "A bottle!" 
 "Yes, of course." The bottle was brought, 
 and to the captain's astonishment the man first 
 emptied half the bottle into one of his sea- 
 boots, and the other half into the other. 
 Beyond feeling cold for a moment while it 
 went down, the man said he never felt coH in 
 his feet that night. Now, which was this — a 
 trampling the alcohol fiend under his feet, or 
 a surreptitious consumption of it in restraining 
 the waste of his animal tissue, just like every 
 one else ? Speak, Sir Wilfrid ! 
 
 Perhaps one of the most curious instances 
 of the way in which English Courts sometimes 
 blindfold Justice, so that while nominally 
 present she cannot interfere with the rules 
 of the game, was exhibited some years ago 
 in a legitimacy case, which, by virtue of some 
 little property hanging on to it, had found its 
 way into a Court of Common Law presided 
 over by Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, who 
 actually rollicked in deciding the points of law 
 which got imported into the case, and multiplied 
 like microbes in the congenial medium. To 
 every attempt to get the ball near the goal 
 
278 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 of a verdict, strenuous opposition was offered 
 by the Judge and one set of counsel ; for each 
 side in turn got favour when a fresh quibble 
 was started. The trial took eleven days, and 
 at the end the jury tried to disagree, but 
 received such an amount of bullying from the 
 Judge, who threatened them with being locked 
 up for a whole November night (and would 
 have chuckled over their position when taking 
 his last glass of whisky between the sheets), 
 that they caved in, and brought in a verdict 
 of some kind or other. It practically did not 
 matter in the least which way it was, as the 
 whole of the property had been got through 
 by the costs of the trial ; in fact, one more 
 day would have resulted in some solicitor 
 having to go short, a thing too painful to 
 contemplate. Yet all this time there was in 
 the Court a witness who could have settled 
 the matter had either side dared to call her, 
 and had she stood firm under the terrible 
 bombardment she was sure to get from the 
 Bench. // was the boys mother. The thing 
 was too gross, and soon after the change was 
 made by which the parties were enabled to 
 give evidence. But the property was gone — 
 gone as clear as those six engines which the late 
 Sir Morton Peto once charged to the West 
 Cornwall Railway, but of which the existence 
 was untraceable, save in the Baronet's bill. 
 
NO MARSALA AT THE STAR AND GARTER. 279 
 
 There is another curious case. Wine, too, 
 has been known to disappear without leaving a 
 wrack or a bottle behind. There was a Court 
 dinner of the Muffin-Makers' Company at the 
 Star and Garter, Richmond Hill, some thirty- 
 years ago ; everything went to perfection till, 
 after having tasted the rarest and most costly 
 wines, a fancy seized upon the Renter Warden 
 that he should like a glass of Marsala. The 
 waiter was summoned, the order given, and 
 much patience necessitated in consequence. 
 Then the bell was rung again ; there appeared 
 the waiter ushering in Mr. Ellis himself The 
 landlord smilingly rubbed his hands, expressed 
 a hope that his patrons were pleased with his 
 efforts, and the dinner had once more met with 
 their approval ; he had but one regret, which 
 he found himself unable to remove. In his 
 anxiety for their comfort he had had the cellars 
 ransacked in search of the Marsala ordered, 
 but he was grieved to say he had not any of 
 so common a wine in the house. 
 
 Old Ben Field, the wine merchant, happened 
 to be dining there, and blurted straight out, 
 " What the devil, then, has he done with the 
 ten quarter casks which I sent him in last 
 week ? " 
 
 Another instance in which some ^20,000 
 also vanished like the smoke of those engines 
 arose from a display of that idiocy which seems 
 
28o MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 almost peculiar to a certain type of the English 
 middle class. Money is earned laboriously, 
 and to begin with in dribblets ; it is penuriously 
 hoarded for a special object, children or what 
 not, and then from want of the commonest 
 care left so unguarded that any one can, and 
 very often does, run away with it altogether. 
 Allusion is not here made to the countless traps 
 which day by day once used to come to the 
 small capitalist, such as the Mull and Halifax 
 Railway, the Bank of Ball's Pond, Ld, or the 
 Ananias and Sapphira Mine. There are men 
 who follow Sir James Mathew's advice given 
 from the Bench, and never look at a prospec- 
 tus. But they confide in somebody — sometimes 
 they can't help doing it — like the three Liberal 
 candidates at last election, who severally sent 
 their cheques to the local agent for the amount 
 of their bills directly they received the same, 
 and were rewarded for their promptitude by 
 the man going off with the money, — a man, 
 too, in practice as a local solicitor, and over 
 whose levanting in such a way his surviving 
 partners made sore lamentation, though stead- 
 fastly refusing to acknowledge any liability on 
 the part of the firm's funds to make up the 
 deficiency ; the only remedy being for the 
 candidate to pay it over again. In fact, the 
 party managers endeavoured to avoid any 
 contribution by themselves, though the de- 
 
"ALAS, MY DAUGHTER/" 281 
 
 faulter was the sole channel for the purpose 
 and nominated by them. 
 
 The ^20,000 loss we speak of was due 
 to simple, stupid confidence. A manufac- 
 turer and his wife had saved up this sum and 
 invested it on mortgage, as they were told, 
 though they had never seen the deeds, and 
 would probably have been no wiser had 
 they done so. Everything, like the deed itself, 
 was left in the charge of a firm of three 
 solicitors, not far from Lincoln's Inn, and one 
 of their number had undertaken the executor- 
 ship of the father, so that he might be spared 
 anxiety for the future, as he had been spared 
 it during the years of retirement from business. 
 The will was simple enough, everything to the 
 only daughter on marriage or attaining majority; 
 which last came first, though the former seemed 
 likely to run it close, so persistent were the 
 attentions of a young gentleman all but 
 through his articles, and just going up for his 
 " final.'' The curate, too, had meekly put 
 himself forward, and suggested that the young 
 lady's coming into her kingdom might be fitly 
 inaugurated by a gift to the building fund of 
 St. Wapshot-with-the- Wooden- Leg ; but the 
 damsel, whose allowance had not increased 
 beyond the sum fixed in the will during the 
 two years which had elapsed since her father's 
 death, had bought som^ jewellery, to be paid 
 
282 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 for directly she attained legal rights and legal 
 responsibilities. So the evening before the 
 day — would not the day itself be occupied 
 wholly by modest festivity ? — she had written 
 dear Mr. Levanty for the jewellery cheque, 
 and by course of post the hitherto punctual 
 firm remitted her nothing. Disappointment 
 ripened into disgust as days sped on and fresh 
 appeals were unnoticed. The articled clerk's 
 fancies turned lightly into thoughts of business, 
 and, like the Scotch Writer to the Signet, 
 he made all his love without prejudice. At 
 last his anxiety took the form of going to the 
 firm's office with the ostensible reason of offer- 
 ing them some business, and then' he found 
 the office closed, the partners gone, and the 
 housekeeper quite ignorant as to what address 
 would find Messrs. De Levanty & Co. 'In- 
 quiries led into bankruptcy, but nothing re- 
 mained of not only the young lady's fortune 
 and the money of some dozen other clients as 
 well, except bills of costs against the utterly in- 
 solvent jobbing contractors in financing whom 
 the money had gone. Perhaps, indeed, had 
 the youth entered the enchanted castle earlier, 
 ere the occupants had left it, he would have 
 been no forwarder ; he would have found him- 
 self like the Manchester client of that Lancashire 
 solicitor whose office was always opened and 
 closed with prayer, and who employed one 
 
"WHERE BE THAT MURGtJ ON ?' 283 
 
 Special clerk to keep his charity accounts 
 straight. That client had paid his money, had 
 been told the mortgage was executed, and 
 had then inquired in simple thoughtlessness, by 
 way of saying something in an awkward pause : 
 " Sir, where is't, t' propperty ? " " Oh, don't 
 you know? It is in the High Street, Throstle- 
 topton, next the Wesleyan Chapel." What 
 tempted Mr. Hunksiman, on a Bank Holiday, 
 to take the train and go to that celebrated 
 manufactory of iron tea-kettle spouts ? What 
 drew him on to go to the High Street, though 
 told by all and sundry "There bean't no 
 Wesline Chappel there " ? What led him to 
 pursue his inquiries into the awful presence of 
 the owner and occupier of the only new house 
 in that street, and ask permission to go over 
 it, " as he's got a murgij on it, and he wanted 
 to see what it was loike." He was a slow man 
 both in his speech and on his pins ; hence he 
 could say little in reply to the furious onslaught 
 of the occupant and his wife, " who didn't owe 
 niver a penny in the world, and what did he mean 
 by his (sanguinary) ;^5oo mortgage ? " But 
 his slowness of foot led to his getting some- 
 what damaged in the summary ejection, in the 
 course of which he managed to upset the maid 
 bringing in a tray with the best china tea- 
 things, with much damage to the crockery ; and 
 when he spoke of the hurts both to his person 
 
284 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 and pompousness, it was decided by his family 
 council that he should at once go to Mr. 
 Neesyman and direct him to sell up the people 
 for the mortgage money, on account of their 
 cheek. But the meek and soft-spoken solicitor 
 counselled forgiveness of injury ; and on the 
 client going on to say that ' ' he had been told 
 there wearn't no mortgage of Neesyman 's in 
 Throstletopton," and insisting on his delivering 
 up the deed, that he might " put some oother 
 laryer upo' t' job," the saintly man said, " Oh, 
 then perhaps I had better take over the mort- 
 gage myself, and give you a cheque for principal 
 and interest." This was forthwith done, and 
 hence it came to pass that Mr. Hunksiman's 
 name was not recorded amongst the list of 
 creditors whose claims footed up to ^160,000, 
 when the white-haired philanthropist had arrived 
 safely in Argentina in the society of a pretty 
 Sunday School teacher. The money had gone 
 in lavish expenditure for show, and in the 
 endeavour to make large gains by supporting 
 building speculations, which are to too many 
 of the profession as irresistible a bait as a 
 young rabbit is to a cat. Feline principles, 
 education, and even the pride of breed, are 
 as nothing in the balance to the sedatest of 
 parlour pets when that soft ball of wool the 
 rabbit kitten comes out to play in the soft 
 gloaming. 
 
RABBIT WORTH £30. 285 
 
 Rabbits, by the way, are not always matters 
 of small account. Is there not on the records of 
 a Divisional Court an appeal as to the loss or 
 exchange of one ? It was shown at a southern 
 watering-place exhibition, was a creamy white, 
 and had taken first prizes at Liverpool, Man- 
 chester, and elsewhere. It was sent and 
 shown — of that there was no question ; but the 
 animal sent back, as being or having been in 
 the exhibit, was so poor a specimen that the 
 owner declined to accept it, and county-courted 
 the committee for ^30. The Judge had non- 
 suited the plaintiff on account of a rule which 
 saved the committee, personally harmless, in 
 every possible event, and the Divisional Court 
 upheld the inferior as the least of many 
 imaginary evils. 
 
 Lest a slur should be thought to be intended 
 upon the honourable portion of a profession 
 which, like a good many others, represents — ■ 
 
 "... Jeremiah's figs : 
 If good, they are the best of all ; 
 If bad, not fit for pigs," 
 
 let us instance the case of a leading City 
 solicitor, now deceased, who had not sufficiently 
 scrutinised the seals of a City Company, forged 
 by Purssell some forty years ago, and affixed 
 to leases purported to be granted by that 
 
286 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 Company. His client advanced ^2,000 on 
 mortgage of such a lease, and the solicitor who 
 had made the slip at once wrote to the vendor 
 with full particulars, and enclosed his cheque. 
 But there is, no doubt, a certain tenderness 
 on the part of the public towards solicitors 
 as a class, and a disposition to attribute to 
 them almost judicial functions and fairness, 
 even without considering that they are paid 
 to do the best they can for their client. And 
 this opens a door to much of the terrible tales 
 of wrong we have been considering. It is not 
 uncommon among the lower middle-class for 
 a defendant to go to the solicitor who has 
 served him with a demand, and appeal to the 
 agent, who is paid to get the most he can 
 out of him, for consideration on (usually 
 irrelevant) moral grounds. But the public, for 
 some reason or other, does not grasp the fact 
 that a solicitor, like every one else, wants to 
 be looked after. Take, for instance, the case 
 of the absconded Clerk to the Stonehouse 
 Local Board, now some seven years ago. The 
 man's bonhomie, pleasant ways, and lavish 
 expenditure of money had made him friends 
 everywhere, and the poorer classes were fleeced 
 out of all proportion to any others. Rumours 
 of difficulties, which had been in circulation for 
 months, were refused credence as malevolent 
 inventions, and only when the delinquent had 
 
CURTEIS' COURTESY 287 
 
 been missing for a week did any one believe 
 the suspicions. Then, indeed, came a mighty 
 revulsion, — and when his safes were broken 
 open it turned out that the peculations amounted 
 to ;i^4o,ooo, out of which some ^15,000 was 
 raised upon forged bonds of the Local Board ; 
 forged, that is to say, as to the signatures, but 
 he had no need to counterfeit the seal, as it 
 was not even kept under lock and key, but 
 lay loose in the drawer of his desk ! 
 
 Building Societies in Jersey had been 
 especially sweet on this kind of security, of 
 which they held ^4,000 ; bonds were always 
 issued when they wanted them, and the lenders 
 raised no objection to interest and principal 
 being paid in the ' solicitor's private cheques. 
 Nay, more than this, when payments of this 
 nature were months overdue, and letters of 
 complaint were addressed to the parties and 
 absolutely read at the Board meetings, the 
 matter was laughed off and not seriously followed 
 up. The whole thing reflected greatly on the 
 carelessness of the municipal people, and an 
 attempt was made, unsuccessfully however, 
 to make some of them personally liable for 
 losses sustained by innocent persons, terribly 
 injured by want of proper supervision on the 
 part of volunteer administrators. It looked, 
 indeed, at one time, as if the defaulter would 
 escape scot free, but Argentina had not then 
 
288 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 become the paradise for Levanters it is just 
 ceasing to be, let us hope. This peculiar speci- 
 men had somewhat more in his pocket than the 
 regular three and sixpence halfpenny which is all 
 the loose cash a great defaulter usually has by 
 him, and he got away to Calcutta, where he took 
 up his quarters in the Great Eastern Hotel. 
 Now, not only is white clothing very cheap, 
 but, like death and the race-course, it completely 
 efiaces all distinctions, and his discovery only 
 came about by his being recognised by a 
 youngster in the Bengal Pilot Service who 
 hailed from Plymouth. The pilot-wallah wrote 
 home that he had seen the much-wanted 
 solicitor, and when the answering telegram 
 from Scotland Yard reached Calcutta it was 
 found that he was detained, by want of funds 
 to go farther on ; and so, at somebody or other's 
 expense, he was escorted back to receive his 
 five years' penal servitude. 
 
 It may be noted in conclusion that his safe, 
 when broken open, contained his cheque-book 
 for the previous year, which showed that 
 ;^ii,ooo had gone in Stock Exchange 
 dififerences alone. 
 
 The lavish hospitality, the yacht, the race- 
 cups, accounted for a good deal, but Capel 
 Court had sucked down the greatest part of it. 
 
 I once knew a man who complained that 
 he always lost, whatever stock he operated on. 
 
TOSS UP WHETHER TO BULL OR BEAR. 289 
 
 even when he had tossed up whether he should 
 bull or bear it, eliciting from a bystander the 
 rejoinder, " Ah, they must have let you win at 
 the beginning." Most of the "cleaned out" 
 have done well at the outset. 
 
 Electricity is a kind of "kittle cattle to shoe," 
 and when it gets loose can do a powerful lot 
 of mischief. This form of energy — which no 
 one ever has seen, or probably ever will see, 
 and which is produced no one knows how, and 
 everywhere from (though by no "means for,) 
 nothing, but nevertheless is in such a hurry 
 to get home to the place it came from, that it 
 will either light up a city or wreck it in its 
 onward course, without seeming in the least 
 to mind which of the two it is — has a form 
 of escape or leakage which may at any time 
 plunge the aforesaid city into darkness. I at 
 one time experienced a very peculiar form of it, 
 which I have not heard spoken of by anybody 
 else, and hence may be idiopathic. It occurred 
 during the British Association Meeting at 
 Sheffield, in 1879, at one of three public lectures 
 delivered by Mr. Crookes, F.R.S. At that 
 time there were in Sheffield, and no doubt 
 exist still, for the purpose of the silver plating, 
 some of the most powerful coils ever set up ; 
 and the good will of local manufacturers had 
 enabled a join-up, or amalgamation, of these 
 
 19 
 
ago MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 to be made to such an extent that the lecturer 
 frankly avowed the necessity of his handHng 
 the electrodes very gingerly indeed, and he 
 was especially nervous about not completing 
 the circuit through the medium of his own 
 body. I happened to be sitting under a very 
 large arc light when the full power of this 
 combination was put on, and shortly after felt 
 peculiar pains in the limbs, and such a terrible 
 upset in the head, that nothing but the import- 
 ance of the subject under consideration pre- 
 vented my leaving. When the lecture was 
 finished, I started out for a good walk to my 
 quarters, and the cool, fresh breeze of the 
 autumn night removed some of the malaise, 
 as did a visit made to a clean and comfortable 
 little public, where some Hollands and Seltzer 
 were to be had. I attributed my discomfort 
 to something connected with the great electric 
 discharge beneath which I had sat, and on 
 the second lecture took the same place — the 
 identical symptoms recurring, but with more 
 power, as if the system had been weakened 
 by the first onset ; in fact, I worked out the 
 sensations as an access of typhoid fever, 
 though the subsequent walk and whiskey 
 totally removed them. Whether there was 
 a sweating of the force just above my head, 
 as is said to occur in electric railways during 
 muggy London weather, or whether currents 
 
''WE'VE LOST OUR ALL." 291 
 
 Upward had, as in the telephone, been induced 
 by the tremendous force at work, it is not for 
 me to determine, but I can only say I felt very 
 uncomfortable at the time, and have found no 
 one to explain to me how the disturbance was 
 caused. 
 
 Once a year, I think about September 22nd, 
 there is repeated in the " death " column of the 
 Times a mournful advertisement. It gives the 
 circumstances of a fatality which befell three 
 apprentices in the Merchant Service, two of 
 whom, brothers, hailed from the Conway, 
 the Merchant Training College at Liverpool, 
 the third from her sister -ship at Greenhithe, 
 the Worcester. 
 
 Their ship was in the "roaring forties," 
 where squalls come up at any moment, when 
 suddenly a ship's boy fell from the yard into 
 the sea. A boat was forthwith lowered, an able 
 seaman and two apprentices at once jumped in 
 and had pushed off, when the second Conway 
 brother, determined to bear his part in the 
 rescue of a shipmate, came up from below 
 and leaped overboard. They directly pulled 
 him in, and then the four oars were pulled 
 towards the sinking boy, at that time well in 
 sight. Almost as if by magic, a dark squall 
 passed over the vessel; and when the blinding 
 deluge of rain and sleet had gone by, the 
 
292 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 boat was looked for, but was not to be seen. 
 Not ten minutes had elapsed ! What had 
 become of her ? The ship was thought not 
 to have drifted far from the place where she 
 had been hove to, and at once stood back to 
 pick up her people. Vain search ! though pro- 
 secuted for three days ! Watch useless, though 
 kept up ! Of course the poor fellows were in 
 their shirts and trousers, and had nothing to 
 signal with from the boat, which was practically 
 invisible in the trough of the sea. The ship 
 came home with her sad story, which touched 
 the hearts of all, and a Government vessel was 
 sent out expressly to examine some rocks, to 
 which, in the event of a combination of hardly 
 conceivable chances, the boat and its occupants 
 might have made their way and managed to 
 live, even with no shelter, no food, no water. 
 But nothing was ever found, and year by year 
 the parents of the Liverpool boys, who had 
 lost their all, record their grief for the outcome 
 of as manly an act for the saving of others as 
 is recorded in the annals of English heroism. 
 
 Not for them or those they mourn was the 
 common, everyday philosophy of Mr. Lowten 
 in " Pickwick " : " Damn hurting yourself for 
 anybody else — that won't do." 
 
 It is now some years since a story came 
 out in the Bankruptcy Court which raised 
 
A HARD CASE. 293 
 
 much sympathy at the time, but which it was 
 nobody's business to put right, and so it con- 
 sequently remained wrong. It was the case 
 of a really honest bankrupt — a freak of nature 
 which does sometimes crop up, but which 
 usually gets all the harder measure in con- 
 sequence. He had started with nothing, like 
 all the great fortune-makers, such as George 
 Stephenson when he made the shoes for the 
 public generally, in order to find money to 
 send his son Robert to school — the said Robert 
 coming to be buried in Westminster Abbey, 
 and to be the occasion, for the first and only 
 time, of a locomotive engine forming part of 
 a stained-glass window in the great National 
 Hero Rest. 
 
 With this class of man the steam is always 
 at high pressure, and the difficulty of finding 
 money sometimes apparently insuperable. Of 
 course this at once develops the financing 
 solicitor. Circumstances evolve him as natu- 
 rally as bees make a new queen when the hive 
 gets too full and a colony has to be sent off. 
 A large local firm, whose business had, it was 
 said, somewhat declined, were consulted, and 
 at once took up the matter, finding the first 
 few thousands without much difficulty. But as 
 time went on, and a great labour strike was 
 affecting trade, objections were raised to the 
 largeness of the amounts, and a bonus of 25 per 
 
294 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 cent, was demanded, which, in his utter strait 
 the borrower was forced to accede to. But 
 there came a time when, as the bankrupt openly- 
 stated in Court, it would pay better to wreck 
 him than to carry him through ; more money 
 could be made as costs by disposing of the in- 
 cumbered properties mortgaged by him. So, 
 on one Friday evening, without any notice 
 whatever, the usual wages cheque was refused 
 unless a bill of sale upon all his property and 
 plant was previously executed. To sign it was 
 simple ruin. On the other hand, to leave the 
 men's wages unpaid was to risk the wrecking 
 of all the properties, for the force of local police 
 available would be insufficient to cope with the 
 angry passions of the strong-armed operatives 
 wanting their "ha'pence." Bankruptcy followed, 
 and the man lost his all. It is said that Cubitt 
 was nearly at the same point, some seventy 
 years back, when Belgrave Square hung fire in 
 letting. But the old Marquis of Westminster, 
 though he knew how to " screw," knew also 
 when it was good policy to help. 
 
 These two phases of mind not infrequently 
 co-exist. The late Prince Consort did disa- 
 greeably interfere with the then rule at St. 
 George's Chapel, Windsor, that a wax candle 
 once lighted was, ecclesiastically speaking, con- 
 sumed ; and only existed for return to the 
 chandlers, who duly paid, in their private capa- 
 
HAMMERING AN OPAL. 295 
 
 city, for it to the persons who had sent it back 
 on their hands. But H.R.H. knew how to buy 
 land at South Kensington, as the pubHc will 
 see if, and whenever, his will comes to light. 
 And though he would buy pictures too cheap 
 — and once, at least, got taken in — he could 
 drive a hard bargain. I once saw a magnificent 
 opal, kidney-shaped, for which he was willing 
 to give the ^500 asked for it, provided it would 
 stand being placed on an anvil and struck with 
 a hammer. Business was interrupted at that 
 point ! 
 
 Who, by the way, was the hard-hearted 
 economist who stopped the issue of a bottle 
 of the best Madeira every Sunday to the 
 Chapel Royal at St. James' ? The story going 
 is that the officiating clergyman on one occa- 
 sion felt faint, and asked for a glass of wine, 
 with the result that a bottle of Madeira came 
 round every week as regularly as a recurring 
 decimal. 
 
 The son of a deceased Bishop of the Church 
 of England was rarely without a capital story, 
 especially when he cut for partners at what 
 he termed " Afternoon Service " — that is, the 
 Sunday rubber at his Club. The wit of all 
 ecclesiastically minded persons (it by no means 
 follows they are religious as well) consists in 
 sailing as near as can be done, without crossing 
 
296 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 the line, to what, to a lay mind, is very like 
 blasphemy ; the crisp contact in the two 
 contradictory factors, at their sole point of 
 junction, being that of the man and the idea. 
 The one is supposed to be of the straitest 
 sect of the Pharisees, the other outraging some, 
 at least, of the moral restraints identified with 
 that body. Scotch Meenister's "wut," when 
 they are by themselves and the toddy brewed, 
 especially carries out this position. 
 
 But it is with an Englishman we have now 
 to deal, and he was wont to tell how 
 
 "St. Peter sat by the Celestial Gate; 
 His keys were rusty, and the lock was dull, 
 For there'd not been much business of late," 
 
 when the chief of the other division strolled 
 across to have a chat about things in general. 
 
 It is wonderful how much private friendship 
 exists between open and avowed enemies. Of 
 course, at the Bar, it never does for two men 
 to really quarrel ; the all-powerful solicitor may 
 possibly retain them both in the same case, and 
 even when opposed, conferences occur in and 
 out of Court which make dislikes and jealousies 
 injurious to both parties and their clients. 
 Hence, there is but one notorious feud known 
 at the Bar, and this is between two judicial 
 persons of the very highest rank, due to the 
 quantity of cold, pellucid vitriol poured by the 
 
"I'VE NOWHERE TO GO TO." 297 
 
 now junior in rank upon his then junior in 
 position when they were opposed in a celebrated 
 trial many years ago. The now superior got 
 a skinning that he could not answer at the 
 time, so scathing was the onslaught ; and report 
 would have it that he has not got over it yet. 
 
 But we must come back to St. Peter and his 
 antagonist. "Beastly times!" said the Dark 
 One. " Fairly knocked up with takin' 'em in. 
 My men using up pitchforks to a ruinous 
 extent ; and what's more, you keep such a bad 
 look-out that men come over to me who are 
 not eligible." " Eh," said St. Peter, " what's 
 that } Send my people over to you .-" That 
 won't do." " Well," said the Prince of Darkness, 
 " there's the fellow who's got nowhere to go 
 to ; ask him." So the rejected by both was 
 beckoned to, and appeared before the two. 
 " Now then, my man, tell this gentleman with 
 the key what you told me." " Well, zer, please, 
 zer, my name's Jobberty, and I wor a varmor 
 at Tor Bryan which is in Deavonshire, and I 
 comed up to you, zer, which you was looking 
 about yer, and I sez, ' Plaise, zer, I wants to 
 com' in yeer.' ' Wer do ye come from ? ' sez you. 
 ' Plaise, zer, I comes from Tor Bryan.' ' Wer's 
 thai ? ' sez you. ' Davonzhire, zer.' ' Never 
 heard o' that place,' sez yer. ' Must be some 
 mistake. Whereabouts is it ? ' ' Plaise, zer, it's 
 near Tippleden.' ' I think I've heard o' that 
 
298 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 place,' sez yer ; ' but we've never 'ad nobody 
 in 'ere from theer ; they all goes next door ' 
 (" And a precious bad lot they are too ! " broke 
 in the bystander), ' and I think you'd better go 
 there too,' which accordingly, zer, I did ; and this 
 ere gintlemen wat's so pleasant-loike sent me 
 back to you." " Just what I did, and I think 
 you'd better take him over ; you haven't got 
 anything from that part of the country, you 
 know." 
 
 This interlude passed, the Fallen One sud- 
 denly said, " Suppose we have a turn with the 
 bones?" "Don't mind it. Don't mind if I 
 do. You throw first." His Darkness produced 
 the box and dice, and threw sixes. The 
 guardian of the other place looked calmly on, 
 sniffed, took up the box, and deliberately threw 
 SEVENS. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Bradshaw, not Bible — Lord Tennyson and the ;£6oo charge — 
 Chief Justice Bovill—" Take the lost time out of your 
 speech" — " We're on our oaths the same as you are'' — 
 Lord Palmersion turned teetotaller — Diaconal troubles — 
 George III. and his Prayer Book — The late Duke of Cam- 
 bridge and the Decalogue — Sudden deaths of rich men — 
 Shadowing of statesmen — High art suicide — Dean Stanley 
 and the Hibbert Lectures — The Rev. Olympia Brown — Earl 
 Percy sees my fall — Unfortunate upset to two clergymen — 
 Ministers and their shadows — The Countess' return visit— 
 Tischendorf and the Codex Sinaiticus — How he humbugged 
 the Cardinal over the Vatican MS. — ^300 for a sheet of 
 paper — The harmless ghost — Chief Baron Kelly ; once 
 grocer in Oxford Street — The starting-place of the Pollocks 
 — Huddersfield all Ramsden now — Lord Chancellor West- 
 bury and his eldest son — Largest sum ever earned by a 
 Junior — " One of 'em hit me or else both of 'em " — The 
 Irish jurymen's proper place — The effect of colour on a 
 criminal case — Safe escape from a train going two hundred 
 miles an hour— Judges' and Counsellors' coloured trousers 
 — How judges have sometimes been appointed — Huddleston 
 as a French scholar— Judge tired of the Bench^Judge sick 
 of a case — Counsel's change affront. 
 
 MUCH has been written upon the charm 
 of the study of books, and lists have 
 been made out of those of them which can 
 convey the greatest amount of delight in the 
 
 shortest time to appreciative and receptive 
 
 299 
 
30O MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 minds ; but here, as everywhere else, there are 
 exceptions. The present Bishop of Oxford was 
 lately addressing eight hundred school children 
 at Reading. He advised them to turn all their 
 attention to books, as being the best guides on 
 the path of life, the best supporters in its trials 
 and chances, the best consolation in their fre- 
 quent stumbles and falls ; and then went on : 
 " Alas ! for me the study of books is at an end ; 
 all my time is taken up in going to and fro in 
 my diocese, all my anxiety during the day is how 
 to catch trains, all my reflections when the day 
 is over as to how I came to miss them. To one 
 book alone all my time and study is given, — I 
 have time for no other, — it is never out of my 
 hands, I carry it wherever I go. Children, can 
 you tell me the name of that book ? It begins 
 with a ' B.' " All hands were held up, and from 
 eight hundred voices in all manner of shrill 
 squeaks came, "Please, sir, I know; the Bible, 
 sir." The answer came sorrowfully, "No, 
 indeed, children — it's Bradshaw." 
 
 Nor does the reading of books, even out 
 loud for the benefit of others, always leave 
 behind it soothing and restful recollections. 
 
 Many years ago a great Northern Peer was 
 passing the autumn at his ancestral domain. 
 He had invited sundry guests to visit him, but 
 had been suddenly compelled to go away for 
 three or four days. The establishment was 
 
THE POET'S VISIT. 301 
 
 left in charge of his sister, who acted as house- 
 keeper, and the other then members of the 
 family consisted of his eldest son and his tutor 
 — a friend of long standing looking in every- 
 day to render any help that might be required. 
 One day this gentleman found the lady in 
 tears ; she had a visiting card in her hand on 
 which was written the name — 
 
 " Mr. Alfred Tennyson," 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Eelymann, what shall I do ? My 
 brother told me he had asked this horrid man 
 and his wife to come here, and I was to take 
 them in and make them comfortable, and let 
 my brother know as quickly as possible. Now 
 he's gone to Inverclatachin, and there's no 
 telegraph there, and it will be a day before I 
 can communicate with him — and whatever am 
 I to do?" " Do, Lady Haweis ? Send down 
 for him, bring him here; I'll keep him company." 
 "But he's got his wife with him." "Well, 
 that will be company for you. I've always 
 understood Mrs. Tennyson was a very nice 
 person." " Oh, but, Mr. Eelymann, you don't 
 know ; that horrid man can't bear me." " Non- 
 sense, why shouldn't he ? " " Oh, but you don't 
 know — you don't know all." " Then tell me 
 all." " Well, you see, it's like this. I once went 
 to Stafford House to hear him read something 
 — something he'd written. It was some charge 
 
302 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 of ^600 they'd made him, and he was very 
 angry about it, and made us very uncomfortable ; 
 for he kept shouting out 'Charged me six 
 hundred,' and I got frightened and wanted to 
 go out, and I had to pass him, — had to go very 
 close to him, too, and I brushed against him, 
 and then he broke out afresh : 
 
 " ' Jamming to right of me. 
 Jamming to left of me, 
 Charged me six hundred.' 
 
 Then he stopped short and looked at me — 
 oh, such a look ! — and nobody would open the 
 door, and I felt as if I must sink into the 
 ground with him glaring at me. I'm sure he 
 never will forget it." " Oh, yes. Lady Haweis, 
 he's forgotten all about that ; at all events, 
 there's your brother's orders, he must come 
 here. I will go down and bring him up, and 
 stop here until he goes away ; so you'll only 
 have his wife." 
 
 The scene changes to the head inn of the 
 town close by, with Mr. Eelymann entering. 
 " Oh, Mr. Tennyson, I've come down from the 
 house to say that his lordship has been un- 
 expectedly called away and can't be back for a 
 day or so, but he's left orders for us to make 
 you comfortable, and I've come down to fetch 
 you up." " Let me introduce you to Mrs. 
 Tennyson." "Oh, Lady Haweis will be so 
 
THE POET CHARGED {fiao. 303 
 
 grieved ; she didn't know Mrs. Tennyson was 
 here or she'd have come down herself." " The 
 invitation included Mrs. Tennyson." " Lady 
 Haweis will be so grieved ; but here are the 
 carriages, and the fourgon for your baggage. 
 Pray let me take you up now." " What do 
 you say ? what is the lady's name ? " " Lady 
 Haweis, his lordship's eldest sister." " My 
 dear, isn't that the woman who, when I was 
 reading at Stafford House, got up and left 
 the room, and brushed past me when I was 
 reciting : 
 
 " ' Cannon to right of them. 
 Cannon to left of them, 
 Rode the six hundred,' 
 
 and she went out even though I looked at her ? " 
 " Well, my dear, perhaps the lady was ill ; she 
 couldn't have been frightened." 
 
 They reached the great house, and the guests 
 were conducted to their rooms. It is a show 
 place, and has ancient arms and trophies 
 suspended in the corridors, so when they were 
 going into dinner the poet observed to the 
 chdtelaine, who kept as far off from him as 
 she could, " I suppose most of this came from 
 Wardour Street ! " The dinner passed off with 
 more or less discomfort, and after the ladies 
 had gone, the laureate said to his entertainer, 
 " Where's my smoking-room ? " 
 
304 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 Now if there's one thing that the great Peer 
 dislikes more than one of his sons it is tobacco ! 
 He won't let a whiff of it come nearer than the 
 stables, and the difficulty had to be arranged 
 by clearing out an upper chamber, wherein the 
 poet and his entertainer kept it up till two 
 o'clock in the morning, to the great discomfort 
 of the latter, who was heartily glad when he 
 could get away. 
 
 My personal acquaintance with Chief Justice 
 Bovill was not an intimate one, though we were 
 on speaking terms of a sort. It began in an 
 action brought against the L. C. and D. 
 Railway, then apparently in its last gasp, for 
 consequential damages to property situate on a 
 main road over which it had carried a bridge. 
 The plaintiff had been handsomely paid for the 
 property actually taken ; in fact, he had taken 
 a leaf out of the late Mr. Cooper Foster's book 
 when the S. E. took his house in the Borough 
 without paying for it — sent a lot of navvies into 
 the house to resist any attempt to enter the 
 premises until the bank-notes were forth- 
 coming, as they very shortly were. And now 
 he adduced much and costly evidence to make 
 out that his property was absolutely ruined by 
 noise, severance, restriction upon his powers of 
 development, etc., etc. His counsel were Sir 
 William Bovill and the present Chief Justice of 
 
" TAKE IT OUT OF YOUR SPEECH." 305 
 
 Calcutta, Sir Richard Garth. After waiting 
 half an hour, as Bovill did not turn up, his 
 junior opened the case quite as well as the 
 leader could ; and then ensued the usual ding- 
 dong when it was abundantly clear that the 
 injuries were all hypothetical (save perhaps the 
 noise), while the benefit from having a station 
 placed close by was great and immediate, and 
 likely to increase. Some of us got some 
 " fetching " questions in at this point, and Bovill 
 had to deal with them in his reply. He com- 
 menced by apologising to the jury for his late 
 arrival, — eliciting from me the remark, " Take 
 the half hour out of your speech, then." Bovill 
 glared in wrath, but dared not further put up 
 the backs of a jury evidently not favourable 
 to him. Our verdict was of course for the 
 plaintiff; and as the Company made no offer, 
 it carried costs, but the amount was a great 
 come-down upon the sum claimed. 
 
 Our next meeting was some years later, 
 when Bovill was Chief Justice. It was an 
 action for breach of contract. Some German 
 Jew had purchased five hundred bales of 
 cotton, and in the interval between purchase 
 and payment the North had captured Wilming- 
 ton, and prices had dropped fourpence. This 
 was the real cause of the breach. The ostensible 
 one was a slight variation in the mark, that in 
 the contract having a " d " inside a " Solomon 
 
 20 
 
3o6 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 Seal," the goods a " d " outside it. Five out of 
 the dozen in the box saw the whole thing at 
 once ; in fact, my neighbour whispered to me, 
 " It's all about that fourpence." It had been a 
 fatal fourpence to not a few. So the jury very 
 early showed their hand, and Bovill showed 
 his, which was for the quibble. The Judge 
 checked the jury, the jury resented it, and 
 things were sharpening up when all of a sudden 
 it appeared that three of the counsel wanted 
 to be elsewhere, and that only Mr. Lush, after- 
 wards Lord Justice, had Jio engagements 
 elsewhere which prevented his doing his duty 
 to his client. 
 
 But Trade Union Law was too much for him ; 
 the case was remitted to the Court above with 
 power to draw inferences from the evidence, 
 and we jury were called upon to find a technical 
 verdict " for the defendant," said the Judge. 
 This was at once refused, we could only find 
 for the plaintiff. The Judge was great in 
 sneers. It was the only thing he was not little 
 in, and he signalled me out for one. " Do you 
 suppose, now, it really matters one scrap which 
 way your verdict goes ? " I replied, " We 
 are on our oaths, my lord, the same as you 
 are." 
 
 Mr. Lush was one of the men best liked both 
 at the Bar and on the Bench. He was Origi- 
 nally a solicitor's writing clerk, and in that 
 
SMITH PREFERRED TO LUSH. 307 
 
 capacity acquired that marvellous knowledge of 
 the practice of that day which finally led him to 
 a seat in the Court of Appeal. His manner was 
 peculiarly kindly, and had an old-fashioned 
 fatherly way with it, arising probably from his 
 simple character. Through all his successive 
 rises in life he kept firmly to his Nonconformity, 
 and preached as regularly at Avenue Road 
 Chapel after he became Judge and Lord of 
 Appeal as at the outset of his career. His reli- 
 gious tenets, at one time at least, stood in his 
 way — he was passed over for a vacant judgeship, 
 and a conundrum went round about it — " Why 
 is it clear that Lord Palmerston has turned 
 teetotaller ? " " Because he has preferred Smith 
 to Lush." 
 
 Keeping on the Chapel question, deacons 
 are generally the great difficulty of Congre- 
 gational ministers, and not a few of their pastors 
 comprehend the reason why Mr. Spurgeon 
 selected as text for the funeral service of an 
 active but unpleasant one, the words, "It 
 came to pass that the beggar died." In South 
 London, however, there lately was a deacon who 
 considered himself good at extempore prayer, 
 whom the pastor, with internal satisfaction, 
 noticed to be gradually getting short of breath. 
 But appearances are deceptive ; the deacon, 
 after a pause, struck a fresh lode, and began 
 
3o8 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 again, — " And now, Lord, I will tell Thee an 
 anecdote." 
 
 Pity 'tis that, from the nature of things, there 
 is no collection of Mr. Spurgeon's epilogues ; 
 they were not written, hence not epigrams. So 
 there is a chance that there may be lost to the 
 world many such pastoral guidances as that to 
 a newly come supporter, who, after having 
 accumulated a fortune by book-making, built 
 for himself a good house, and asked the pastor 
 what name he should give to it. " Dun Robin " 
 was the reply. 
 
 When George III. died he was found to have 
 altered the Prayer Book which he used in his 
 few lucid intervals, the words in the Prayer 
 for the King in the Communion Service, " Most 
 Gracious and Religious Sovereign," being re- 
 placed by " A Miserable Sinner." One of his 
 sons, the late Duke of Cambridge, had the same 
 feeling of self-abasement during service, but ex- 
 pressed it verbally in the shape of an audible 
 whisper, and most frequently during the reading 
 of the Decalogue in the Ante-Communion 
 Service. But the comments varied directly 
 according to the commandment ; thus the first 
 and second would be responded to with " Dear, 
 dear," the third *' Oh, Lord," the fourth with a 
 groan, the fifth with " D-e-a-r, d-e-a-r," again, the 
 sixth came out with a hearty ring, " Never did 
 
THE ROYAL DUKE ON THE DECALOGUE. 309 
 
 that, thank God ! " (More than could be said for 
 his brother the King of Hanover, who was re- 
 ported to have killed one of his servants in that 
 part of St. James's Palace now occupied by the 
 present Duke of York, and who only escaped 
 popular fury by leaving the country and by 
 the rejoicings for the Battle of Salamanca.) 
 The response to the seventh commandment 
 was in a different key, — " Oh Lord, oh Lord," 
 and the others received minor lamentations. 
 
 Not alone to. rich Romanised Jews, living in 
 purple and fine linen by the Lake of Galilee, 
 in whose sunlit waters Eothen could recall the 
 winning ways of an English lake, have the 
 tremendous words " M6r6 ! thou fool," gone 
 out in the watches of the night. 
 
 Such an awful summons may have been 
 served upon Chief Justice Ryder, who died in 
 the night between the issue of his Patent of 
 Peerage, for which he had intrigued for years, 
 and the affixing to it of the Great Seal, without 
 which it became wasted parchment. A sudden 
 influx of wealth has repeatedly turned its 
 possessor's brain, and a mattress and cold bath, 
 with a master in the shape of a keeper, repre- 
 sented the solid outcome of dreams of luxury 
 and enjoyment ; but of one Alexander Hastie, 
 M.P. for many years for Glasgow, the sugges- 
 tion is appalling. He had built his soul a 
 
3IO MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 lordly treasure house, he had planned its stately 
 dome, it was built, fitted up and furnished, and 
 the owner retired to rest in it. But in the 
 morning there was a new owner there ; in the 
 stillness of the night there had come to its 
 owner the Awful Shape, with that dread sum- 
 mons which, however, Mussulman theologists 
 welcome as the Mercy of God. 
 
 And the forms of death seem to affect men 
 of great wealth in striking ways. Take the 
 case of Mr. Pilcher, run over by a waggon in 
 Tooley Street close to his own door, with 
 .;^6o,ooo in his pocket ; or that of his son, who, 
 in a boating expedition off Guernsey, fell over- 
 board and was drowned, the body absolutely 
 coming up to the Solent with the tide, unre- 
 cognisable save by the pin in his scarf Or 
 that of the great Liverpool merchant, who, 
 in order to save a minute in catching a train, 
 ducked under a rail at Cannon Street Station. 
 The heart was put out of gear, and although 
 they put him into the train alive, they took 
 something else out at Blackfriars. 
 
 What a misfortune it is that things don't 
 always fetch their cost. There is a bookcase 
 in the Foreign Office which, if a different law 
 obtained in Nature, would be a valuable piece 
 of furniture. In it was placed, overlooked and 
 forgotten, King Theodore's dispatch to Lord 
 Russell ; the mislaying of it there and the 
 
THIN THE WALL 'TWIXT LIFE AND DEATH. 311 
 
 demand for a fresh one was the cause of the 
 Abyssinian war, which cost this country 
 ^5,000,000 of money. 
 
 There was a high-art form of suicide much 
 availed of by medical students in Paris about 
 the year 1842, which seems to have gone out 
 of fashion, — perhaps because requiring a steady 
 hand and some anatomical knowledge. But it 
 reads easy enough, and certainly doesn't make 
 a nasty mess. In fact, it was for some time in 
 doubt how so many hospital students who were 
 found lying on their backs with life extinct had 
 brought about the grim transit. All the appa- 
 ratus used was a penknife which had dropped 
 from the right hand, its point stained with 
 blood. It turned out eventually that the pen- 
 knife had been passed up under the eyelid, 
 thence to the base of the brain above the orbit, 
 where it is no thicker than a sheet of paper, 
 the contact causing immediate death. 
 
 A Dean of Westminster is his own visitor, 
 and therefore a law unto himself. Fortunately 
 few avail themselves of their liberty to any 
 great extent. Perhaps Dean Stanley did so 
 more than any of his predecessors, but his 
 most original and perfectly novel exploit was 
 the inauguration of the Hibbert Lecture in the 
 Abbey chapter-house, at a time, too, when 
 
312 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 Convocation was in session in the Jerusalem 
 Chamber hard by, and members of that body 
 could stroll round and obtain gratis a delightful 
 little creepy cooling shiver on that hot May 
 morning. For the Hibbert Lecture is the 
 annual rdsumd on the study of religion as a 
 science — Revelation, authority, antiquity, con- 
 tinuity, and all the rest of it to the contrary 
 notwithstanding — and the first lecturer was 
 Professor Max Muller, to whom dogma of 
 every kind is no more sacred than things in 
 general are to a French sapper. In this case, 
 too, he rather rose up to the occasion, and aired 
 his opinions very, or rather all the more, freely, 
 for the place wherein he gave them utterance. 
 
 Here are a couple for instance. May I be 
 pardoned for trying to reproduce the soft 
 musical Anglo-German accents in which we 
 heard them ? 
 
 " All our knowlitch comes through two cates, 
 the cate of our senses, and the cate of reason, 
 and whatever will not pass through poth cates 
 must either be rechected in toto, or poastpoaned 
 until it can chustify its admeeshun. 
 
 "All relitchuns are alaike ; they all contain 
 a certain proportion of truth, and a certain 
 quantity of falsehoot, and their only deeference 
 is in the respective proportions of the 
 admeexture." 
 
 Just one more to wind up with. "There is 
 
THE REV. OLYMPIA BROWN. 313 
 
 not the slaightest evidence of any kaind worth 
 a moament's considerashun of any direct 
 revelashun from God to man." 
 
 Some of the convocationers listened as 
 though they heard not, others fled outright ; 
 but a great joy beamed on the face of a some- 
 what stern-faced, faded lady, who sat next me 
 on the raised stone circular bench whereon 
 Westminster Benedictines, stripped to the buff, 
 had received penitential public scourgings from 
 their seniors, and seated on which the House 
 of Commons for one hundred and fifty years had 
 disturbed by their tumults the monks' devotions. 
 This last was a great grievance and sorely 
 complained about, although ordinary ecclesias- 
 tical boxing-matches were thought nothing of, 
 as, for instance, when the Bishop of Hereford 
 was knocked down by the Archbishop of York 
 as a finale to a contention between them which 
 came off in the chapel in the little cloister. 
 
 The lady after a time could not restrain 
 herself, and she spoke : — 
 
 " Waal, now, it's very refreshin' to hear 
 religion talked abaht proper-like in a church, 
 just like the way we have it in the States. It 
 looks laike a saign of a change of a coming 
 freer treatment of these sacred subjects than 
 you've yet experienced on this saide of the 
 Atlantic, You haven't as yet got the advan- 
 tage, moreover, of female ministers ; they deal 
 
3T4 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 with these questions much better than men do. 
 Ne-ow, I kim from Hartford, Connecticut, 
 where 1 sit under a lady preacher, the Rev. 
 Olympia Brown, and Mr. Miiller there is giving 
 out her exact idees on the subject of inspira- 
 tion just as if he'd learned them sitting under 
 her. What he's saying sounds qualte natural 
 laike to me to hear. It would do you good, 
 ne-ow, to hear Rev. Olympia Brown." 
 She paused, and I humbly asked, — 
 " Pray, is there a Rev. Olympius Brown ? " 
 ' ' Waal, yes, there is ; and he attends her 
 ministrations sometimes. But, you see, it isn't 
 his congregation, and we don't set any great 
 value upon him ; and he's got a kind of 
 crowed-over look about him." 
 
 When the first series of lectures was finished, 
 the Dean did not, however, invite Professor 
 Max Miiller's successor to continue them in the 
 same place — although it is always a pleasure 
 to hear the quiet humour with which Mr. Le 
 Page Renouf imparts his great learning on the 
 very dryest subject, managing to evoke a 
 rippling smile among his hearers even when 
 expounding before the Society of Biblical 
 Archaeology the Egyptian " Book of the Dead," 
 in most hands as ghastly a subject as an under- 
 taker's bill — or a solicitor's. 
 
 The Dean came out strongly in public 
 
KING AND QUEEN. 315 
 
 funerals, and thoroughly rollicked in them, 
 doing his own part, for so small-sized a man, 
 with great impressiveness. This was especially 
 the case with Livingstone's funeral, which I 
 saw ; but he would have done the same had 
 grim Death given him the chance of performing 
 the funeral rites of any other notoriety, let us 
 say General Tom Thumb or the Two-headed 
 Nightingale, while the interment of the Siamese 
 Twins would have called forth all his resources. 
 
 For only consider the points to be made 
 upon them in the next Sunday's sermon. Two 
 men inseparably linked for sixty years, yet 
 utterly sick of each other, and bitterly hostile ; 
 day by day alternately master and servant, 
 tyrant and slave ; equal in physical strength, 
 and always within striking distance of each 
 other. An exaggerated type of human rela- 
 tionship, but without the blessed power the rest 
 of us have of giving those we don't like a wide 
 berth, each of them understanding the feelings 
 of George IV. as to Queen Caroline, when a 
 bungler broke to him the death of Napoleon : — 
 
 " Sir, your greatest enemy is no more ! " 
 
 " Is she, by Jove ! " 
 
 It would almost seem as if the space a man 
 takes up in the world while living, has, for 
 its complement, the quickness with which he 
 and his works, suppose him to leave any, are 
 
3i6 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 forgotten. ,The Dean we have spoken of is an 
 instance ; a man who by force of push and ever 
 pressing to the front occupied much space in 
 the world, but who made no more durable 
 mark upon it than if he had splashed about 
 In so much water. Much of his passion for 
 notoriety came from his father, a whilom 
 Bishop of Norwich, who had himself actually 
 pulled up the spire of the cathedral there in 
 an armchair, in order that the fact of his having 
 got so high up might be recorded on a copper- 
 plate in a spot where no one but a steeple Jack 
 can ever see it. The Dean must have been a 
 very miserable man, if only for the fact that he 
 had neither smell nor taste, and hence could 
 enjoy neither fish, fruit, nor flowers, though of 
 course he had just this counterpoise, that if 
 eau-de-Cologne gave him no pleasure Cologne 
 stinks gave him no nausea ; but the greatest 
 irony of all lay In his death, when he was 
 visited by the weak and ailing man for whose 
 succession he had so long planned, and when. 
 In the ever-shortening intervals between the 
 fire-flashing swirlings of the fitful delirium 
 which waits upon erysipelas, the face which 
 bent kindly and sorrowfully over him was that 
 of Archbishop Talt. 
 
 I was once unintentionally the cause of two 
 ministers of religion indulging in unseemly 
 
TWO CLERGYMEN UPSET. 317 
 
 conduct in a public thoroughfare. When the 
 Courts sat in Westminster at ten o'clock, I was 
 going there at a fast walk, when I was accosted 
 by two gentlemen, evidently Roman Catholic 
 priests : — 
 
 " Pray, sorr, will you direct me to the Arch- 
 bishop's house ? " 
 
 " With pleasure. You take a certain turning, 
 and then to the left, and you will find the 
 Cardinal's residence. But when I last had 
 to do with him he was Archdeacon Manning, 
 and I always think of him as such." 
 
 " Sure, Tim, and it's an Archdaycon he was ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir, and if that estimable woman only 
 would have had him, he'd have been an 
 Archdaycon still." 
 
 The joke burst internally, and had very 
 unexpected results. To see two respectable, 
 well-clad, shiny-hatted, stiff-collared clergymen 
 pass in one gasp into raging lunatics, reeling 
 back against the wooden hoarding, which at 
 that time formed the roadside of Victoria 
 Street, slapping their thighs and ejaculating 
 between their shrieks : — 
 
 " Sure, Barney, and it's a pity that excillint 
 woman didn't have him, and then we'd not 
 have had our baccy stopped and our dhrop 
 of whisky too, at all, at all." 
 
 " Och, Tim, and it's a bad day for us when 
 she wouldn't ! " 
 
3i8 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 I got seriously alarmed, though few people 
 were about, and by expostulations restored them 
 to sobriety of conduct ; there was no insobriety 
 of any other kind — poor fellows — and they 
 decorously thanked me and went off. But 
 the paroxysm returned after a few paces, and 
 my last glance was Tim, with his back against 
 the hoarding, and Barney, with his arms round 
 a lamp-post, shrieking like people possessed. 
 
 Ministers in Lord Palmerston's days had 
 easier times than they have now. The "Joker," 
 Lord Derby, said he had but two happy days 
 in office — the day he entered it and the day he 
 left it. But a friend of mine once played golf 
 a whole day with Mr. Balfour, who is said, 
 by the way, to be as enthusiastic a player as 
 he is unlucky. But on these same links there 
 stood, fifty yards in front of the statesman, 
 a big, stout man with bulging pockets, and 
 fifty yards behind another big, stout man with 
 bulging pockets. These were detectives, and 
 the pockets held revolvers. Beside this, the 
 then Irish Secretary, in place of a cadie to 
 carry his clubs, had his own groom, likewise 
 heavily armed. My friend found the honour 
 of playing with such an evidence a rather 
 anxious one, as, in the event of all three firing 
 at the same time, some of the balls might have 
 gone his way. 
 
MJ!. GLADSTONE AND SHADOWING. 319 
 
 I was one day going up the Duke of York's 
 steps when I met Mr. Gladstone. It was in 
 the days before his views had turned right 
 round on the Irish question, and he was 
 supposed to be shadowed, so I looked round 
 to see what this process was like. Surely 
 enough, a few paces behind, came a man 
 dressed like a shabby gentleman's servant. I 
 followed the pair long enough to be satisfied 
 of their mutual relation, but the Protector kept 
 his place admirably, and would even start off 
 at acute angles occasionally, regaining his 
 station by a quick diversion on the other tack 
 as soon as he could do it without any notice 
 from bystanders who were not on the look-out. 
 
 Some good stories were told of a late 
 Countess of Jersey, before whom strong men 
 have trembled, just as an eminent Hebrew 
 solicitor of my acquaintance trembled before 
 the late Mrs. Hope, whom he described as 
 the only " man " he was ever afraid of. Lady 
 Jersey's strongest paroxysm of wrath was said 
 to have been on receiving a call from a 
 former Countess of Ellenborough. Many years 
 previous one of the Ladies Law had gone off 
 with her brother's tutor, and Lady Jersey had 
 forthwith called to condole with the afflicted 
 parent. Now Society was sorely startled by 
 the bolting of Lady Adela Villiers (not then 
 
320 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 "out," but expected to make as brilliant a 
 match as that of her eldest sister with Prince 
 Esterhazy) with Captain Ibbetson of the 
 Hussars, a gentleman in every way, but still 
 the son of a Proctor in Doctors Commons. 
 Lady Eldon and her daughter at once returned 
 the visit of sympathy upon this misfortune. 
 They got safely out of the house after it, 
 but Jersey House was anything but a pleasant 
 residence for a long time afterwards for all its 
 inmates. 
 
 In a former volume I related a story as to 
 how Tischendorf obtained the Codex Sinai- 
 ticus, which has been questioned by two corre- 
 spondents, but which I have been unable to 
 alter in any way. The story was current at 
 the time in the Suez Bazaar, whither resorted 
 the Cossacks from the Russian Consulate. 
 After a time it was hushed by authority, owing, 
 it is said, to a compensation of 200,000 francs, 
 or ;^8,ooo, having been paid by Russia, which 
 had likewise gently hinted that the monastery 
 revenues in the Dobrudscha ' were not quite 
 out of the reach of a Russian administrator. 
 Tischendorf relates his own joy over his prize 
 when he got into Cairo ; he writes that it was 
 impossible to get to sleep, — possibly due to the 
 racking headache which Prince Regent (other- 
 wise champagne and cherry-brandy in equal 
 
LITTLE TRICKS ABOUT MSS. 321 
 
 proportions) leaves behind it. Even now, in 
 1894, the monks bear an unaccountable grudge 
 against Tischendorf, call him a thief, and say- 
 he borrowed some of their books to show to 
 the Czar, which he never returned. Moreover, 
 this beneficent larcenist absolutely tried on a 
 trick of the same kind some years after. The 
 Papal authorities are very tenacious with regard 
 to their Vatican MS. of the New Testament, 
 especially as to the copying any part of it, since 
 from time to time, in order to make a profit, 
 they bring out so-called "editions" of it, which, 
 being made by incompetent men, are hindrances 
 to critics, in place of helps. In 1866 Tischen- 
 dorf was admitted access to it for three hours 
 on ten successive days, during which, by a 
 direct breach of faith, he actually contrived to 
 copy sixteen most important pages, and, more- 
 over, got the copy he made clean out of the 
 Pope-King's dominions. When this was dis- 
 covered, the permission was withdrawn. How- 
 ever, the great German humbled himself before 
 Vercellone, who was editing his edition (as 
 unsatisfactory, by the way, as all preceding it), 
 and the astute Italian, wishing to learn practical 
 criticism at first hand, allowed him access for 
 six days more, during which he stood over 
 him like a terrier over a rat-hole. It is hardly 
 possible to conceive such a thing as a practical 
 joke in a beer-drinking German, but the great 
 
 21 
 
322 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 man could develop even wit in order to carry- 
 out the object of his life ; and his written 
 criticisms thenceforth were so absurd and so 
 ridiculous that when the Cardinal got the fruit 
 of other men's labours in his hands, he found 
 himself to have been cleanly and neatly hum- 
 bugged. 
 
 The value of unique MSS. is untold; thus 
 for an autograph letter written by the hapless 
 Mary Queen of Scots, at 3 a.m. on the fatal 
 day at Fotheringay, to her brother-in-law, the 
 King of France, with its deeply affecting fare- 
 well, couched in a spirit of resignation hardly 
 to be expected save in a mind from which all 
 hope had fled, — one sheet of letter paper, — Mr. 
 Charles Morrison, M.P., gave ;^300. It was 
 shown at the Stewart Exhibition, but in a 
 gallery upstairs and in bad light, and did not 
 receive the notice it deserved. It has now, 
 however, been facsimiled by its liberal and 
 many-treasured donor. 
 
 I may here note that the " Theatre des 
 Martyres," a description of which I gave in a 
 former book, has had its engravings mounted 
 on cards, which can be seen in the print room of 
 the British Museum, where it seems to be prized. 
 
 A man once dined with us in Hall who lived 
 in a house where there was a well-known, 
 easily-recognised, but perfectly harmless ghost. 
 
A PLAIN GHOST. 323 
 
 It was in the country, with the ordinary sweep 
 of road in front of it and offices behind. At 
 uncertain times a man dressed Hke a tradesman 
 — black coat, apron, etc. — would come from 
 behind, go up to the house, look in at one 
 of the windows (always the same), and then 
 walk away down the drive to the high road, 
 along which he continued until he came to 
 the churchyard, at the sharp corner of which 
 he would disappear. No one in the back 
 offices saw such a person start, no person 
 coming the other way had met or seen such 
 a person coming round the sharp corner of the 
 churchyard. The phenomenon occurred so 
 often that no one thought much about it, and 
 merely remarked, " There's that man again," 
 
 When, indeed, one considers the revelation 
 effected in common white light by the interposi- 
 tion of a prism or a rain-shower, it is difficult to 
 contest Lawrence Oliphant's suggestion as to 
 the deep mysteries that surround us on all sides, 
 and which pass us, unnoticed, in the absence of 
 some simple and probably commonplace key, 
 ready, it may be, to our hand, did we but know 
 how to use it. 
 
 Lawyers often come from nothing. The 
 late Chief Baron Kelly was a self-made man. 
 Among the papers of a deceased wholesale 
 grocer was found, carefully preserved, a letter 
 
324 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 from a customer dated in 1828, and from Oxford 
 Street. Its writer spoke of the upset to trade 
 by Luddite riots, and of the ill-health of his 
 wife (this would be his first), which had thrown 
 him so far back that he could not meet his pay- 
 ments, but must ask his monthly account for 
 groceries, some ^8, to stand over till the next, 
 in hope he might still save himself from ruin ; 
 and concluded, " By so doing, sir, you will earn 
 the everlasting gratitude, esteem, respect, and 
 devotion of your humble servant, Fitzroy Kelly." 
 Fancy this from the testy old Chief Baron ! 
 The Bar comment upon his life was that at the 
 last Great Assize, when his name was called, 
 there would be added, — 
 
 " No other case taken to-day." 
 
 Has any one ever taken note of the house 
 No. 54, Strand, opposite Duncannon Street ? 
 It now belongs to an antiquity dealer who 
 had the courage to give £']\o for a chalice of 
 chirteenth-century work recently found in Wales. 
 The story goes that it has been lately claimed 
 by the Crown as treasure-trove. The shop be- 
 fore that had been an hereditary saddler's, its 
 last tenant in that line being Mr. Archibald 
 Hastie, formerly M.P. for Paisley, and one of 
 the founders of the London Joint Stock Bank, 
 who himself bid for immortality by bequeathing 
 Burns' punch bowl to the British Museum. 
 
NO. 54, STRAND. 325 
 
 But previous to this it had been occupied by 
 another Scotch saddler, out of whose door used 
 to run day by day four boys, two of whose 
 names were to be written in the History of 
 England. One was the avenger of England's 
 disasters at Cabul, dying Field Marshal and 
 Constable of the Tower, to find his grave in 
 Westminster Abbey ; another was to be Lord 
 Chief Baron ; the third merely got to be a Com- 
 missioner of Bankrupts. That Scotchman's 
 name was Pollock. 
 
 Sir John Holker's advancement to the front 
 rank of his profession as Solicitor-General 
 occasioned some wonder, as he was practically 
 unknown in London. His selection was due 
 to the safe seat he then held at Preston under 
 the late Lord Derby, though he thoroughly 
 justified it afterwards. Some amusing stories 
 go about of these great feudal lords who own 
 everything about them ; such as the late Sir 
 Watkin Williams Wynn, of whom it is said 
 that a fellow-traveller in the train once asked, 
 "Whose land is this about here?" "Mine," 
 repeating the same answer a quarter of an hour 
 later. 
 
 Likewise of the late Sir John Ramsden, owner 
 of all Huddersfield save one small tenement, 
 and that a Quaker's, to whom said the great 
 landlord, " Look here. Square Toes, if you will 
 sell me those two pig-sties of yours I'll surround 
 
326 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 them with sovereigns." The disciple of Fox 
 twiddled his thumb, pursed up his lips, hummed, 
 and answered, " Friend, how does thee propose 
 to place thy sovereigns, flat or on their edges ? 
 because in this last case I may do business 
 with thee." However, Sir John got them at 
 last, and Huddersfield is all Ramsden's now. 
 
 We may note here that the highest sum ever 
 supposed to have been earned in one year by a 
 junior — that is, a man not Q.C. — is ;^ri,ooo. 
 
 Lord Westbury, on good terms with nobody, 
 was on especially bad ones with his eldest son, 
 known as the " Honourable Dick," a dull man, 
 without much harm in him, save a weakness 
 for cards and high stakes, and absolute reck- 
 lessness as to the means of getting money to 
 pay his losses with. Compelled from this 
 cause to resign a registrarship in bankruptcy, 
 in May 1864 he accepted a sum of ;^i,500 for 
 influencing his father to appoint the person 
 from whom he got it to a bankruptcy registrar- 
 ship in the Leeds court. The appointment 
 made, the new official was sweated another 
 ;^550, and after this the Honourable Dick lay 
 low, maintaining himself meanwhile, till arrested 
 for debt at Ascot by a sheriff's officer, by 
 reproducing upon stamped paper the signature 
 of another brother, already provided for by 
 
FATHER AND SON. 327 
 
 paternal care as a clerk in the House of 
 Lords. 
 
 The victim paid three of these imitations, 
 but the fourth broke the camel's back. A trial 
 followed, or trials rather, and the defendant 
 was exonerated, the only serious argument 
 against him being " use and wont," and that 
 having been silently plundered three times, he 
 ought to have got used to it like the eels. 
 
 A good story was current nearly thirty 
 years ago, about father and son. Sir Richard 
 Bethell sent for his heir, and thus addressed 
 him, jingling his watch chain the while, as usual 
 when something very nasty was coming. 
 
 " Richard, I have sent for you to say that 
 Lord Campbell died last night, and that I have 
 accepted the Marble Chair. I shall be, of 
 course, made a peer, and at my decease that 
 peerage must devolve upon you. I have sent 
 for you to tell you this, and further, that when 
 at my death that peerage does so devolve, it 
 will pass to the greatest scoundrel in her 
 Majesty's dominions." 
 
 After a pause came the reply, — 
 
 " Well, sir, considering yotUll be dead, very 
 likely it will." 
 
 However, the son was to become the cause 
 of the father's resignation and retirement into 
 private life when these and other scandals 
 came to light. Alluding to a different case 
 
328 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 from his son's, Lord Westbury was popularly- 
 said to have gone to " Bury St. Edmunds." 
 
 In the old days Judges were very particular 
 as to the dress in which Counsel appeared 
 before them. Of course by Bar etiquette 
 every Barrister is invisible to the judicial eye 
 unless robed in gown, wig, and bands ; but in 
 the old days, unless the nether man was also 
 in black, the Court would not see the wearer. 
 So late as twenty years back. Lord Chief 
 Justice Cockburn declined to hear Counsel 
 because he wore grey pantaloons. 
 
 Occasionally some Judges got their appoint- 
 ments in very peculiar ways in the old days. 
 Some men were always on the hunt for it ; 
 some, under the impression that they had it 
 secure, returned their briefs, and their clerk had 
 to go round to the solicitors to get them back 
 again because it hadn't come off. There were 
 some who gave a Minister no peace for weeks; 
 others revived old claims of Parliamentary 
 candidatures with a view to a seat on the 
 English Bench. One is said to .have received 
 a Lord Chancellor's letter addressed by mis- 
 take to him, but really intended for some one 
 else. The recipient stuck to it, however, even 
 after the mistake had been explained to him 
 over and over again. He was one of the worst 
 failures. But these remarks apply solely to 
 long-past occupants of the Bench. 
 
REFUSING A JUDGESHIP. 329 
 
 The dignity and repose of the office alter 
 considerably formerly acquired habits. The 
 new Judge can no longer smoke his pipe down 
 Oxford Street, still less travel third class ; but 
 there is one case on record in which access 
 to a Barrister for the purpose of offering the 
 judicial ermine has been denied, and the story 
 is worth telling. The Chancellor sent the 
 offer down by one of his suite ; arrived at the 
 chambers he asked to see its occupant, and was 
 met by a counter demand as to what his busi- 
 ness was. Of course this was the last thing 
 he was at liberty to tell, and the clerk would 
 not take his name in unless he did ; so they 
 went at it hammer and tongs until the Barrister 
 put his head out to know what all the row 
 was about. 
 
 When the Windbag Terror, whose bounce 
 had crushed thousands, and whose assurance 
 enabled him to demand and even obtain the 
 Grand Cross of the Bath, for his lamentable 
 collapse at the Geneva Alabama arbitration, 
 before minds of only ordinary calibre (how 
 would he have fared against Daniel Webster?) 
 — when that short stumpy personality was put 
 upon a shelf at Kensal Green, the remark was 
 indeed made, " Well, he can't swear at any- 
 body now ! " and this, with the total omission 
 of any feeling of loss after his decease, must 
 be the epitaph of a man only remembered 
 
330 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 when he was present by his perpetual push, 
 and never thought of afterwards. 
 
 Of his co-temporary Chief Justice Bovill, 
 the same may be said. Getting into notice 
 by defending some patents of his father's, a 
 millwright, pushed into Parliament and kept 
 there by his wife's skilful and perpetual canvas 
 of Guildford tradesmen, claiming his reluctantly 
 granted Chiefship by virtue of being the then 
 Solicitor-General, over the heads of countless 
 better men, he made no mark in his life, and 
 dropped out of it unnoticed. 
 
 It is not often that a dramatic incident occurs 
 in the dull routine of quarter sessions, but a 
 somewhat brilliant one was brought about by 
 Mr. Richard Harris, now Q.C. at Birmingham. 
 
 It was a prosecution for common assault, and 
 witness after witness swore positively to the 
 identity of the prisoner, who had rough hair, 
 dress, and manner ; in fact, a kind of typical 
 ruffian. 
 
 Mr. Harris was unable to shake the most 
 important witness, and at last turned round and 
 beckoned to the back of the Court, " Come 
 here." On this there advanced the prisoner's 
 exact double, even to the broken nose, black 
 eye, the patched high-lows, the re-kneed cor- 
 duroys. " Stand there at the dock, below the 
 prisoner." With a slight squirm the new 
 arrival took up that position. " Now, sir, is 
 
ONE OF THEM, OR BOTH. 331 
 
 not that the man you say assaulted you ? " 
 After the usual amount of badgering — " Well, 
 it's one of them or both of them, I don't know 
 which." Quickly as the jury made up their 
 minds to hear no more of the case, there was 
 some one else who had previously come to the 
 same conclusion ; that was the prisoner's double, 
 who shot precipitately out of Court and his 
 unpleasant position in it. 
 
 There are some people for whom the dock 
 has a kind of attraction, like the Irish jury. 
 They had been sent out of Court to consider 
 their verdict, and returned while another case 
 was being tried. The Judge would not stop it, 
 but asked the new-comers — " Gentlemen, please 
 take your usual places for a few moments." 
 Five of them went into the dock. 
 
 The defence of a criminal is a matter for 
 serious deliberation, but sometimes it has hap- 
 pened that a criminal will not be defended. A 
 prisoner's friends had obtained for him a burly 
 gentleman of tropical extraction, and of such 
 utter unimpeachable darkness that charcoal 
 would have marked white on him. The client 
 evidently associated his counsel with the Prince 
 of that same Darkness, for, as soon as the 
 gentleman began to speak, the prisoner broke 
 out, to the great astonishment of the mild- 
 mannered Judge, " Look-e here, my lord, I'll 
 
332 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 tell yer wot it is : I ain't a-goin' to let that 
 beggar defend me. I'll plead guilty fust." 
 Verdict and sentence accordingly. 
 
 In the Lefroy trial, one of the questions 
 much debated, though not actually raised, was, 
 whether it was possible for Lefroy to have 
 quitted the train without injury when it was 
 going at fifty miles an hour. I was talking 
 this over with an engineer officer, for many 
 years inspector of railways on the Bombay 
 side, and he told me of a case where a man 
 had escaped with but slight hurt when the train 
 was going at, not fifty, but two hundred miles 
 an hour. 
 
 The Great Indian Peninsular Railway as- 
 cends the Ghauts from the seacoast to the 
 great Indian tableland by inclines, with a 
 reversing station at each end. In the case 
 spoken of, it was a down train, and the guard 
 forgot to see that the brakes had bit sufficiently 
 before it was started. In less time than it 
 takes to write it, it was plain that the driver 
 had lost all control, and that the end was 
 certain. So the guard tried to save himself. 
 He remembered to have noticed on the side 
 next the hill, as he had gone up, a heap of 
 fresh earth thrown out of the jungle. On to 
 this, as the train raced past it on its mad 
 career to destruction, he jumped, escaping with 
 
TRAIN GOING TWO HUNDRED MILES AN HOUR. 333 
 
 a broken collar-bone and a fractured rib or 
 two, which kept him three weeks in an hospital. 
 As for the train, it ran butt up against the 
 stocks at the reversing end. The engine 
 jumped them, the tender hinged over, and it 
 crashed down the precipice. The tale of dead, 
 which exceeded that of wounded, was in hun- 
 dreds, for natives pack close. 
 
 I was present when the celebrated skit in 
 Punch, which so much upset the late Mr. 
 Baron Huddleston, came into existence. It 
 was during the Belt case. 
 
 The Baron held up a letter to the jury and 
 said, " Now, gentlemen, this is French, and 
 as all of you may not be able to read it, I will 
 translate it for you." He made four mistakes 
 of the grossest kind, so angering a barrister 
 near me that he said almost aloud, " Law, none 
 — no one ever looked for it. Manners, none — 
 he hasn't got it in him. Good taste — he's 
 incapable of it. Decorum and decency — no 
 more than a Hottentot. But French, he was 
 once a private tutor, and he must have been 
 a fraud even at that, for now he makes four 
 common blunders ; I will show him up." And 
 so he did, as Mr. Baron Muddlesome. 
 
 Now a Judge is no happier in his lot than 
 any of the rest of us. I met one of them the 
 other day in Pall Mall going down to the 
 
334 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 Athenaeum after Court, who said he was both 
 tired and bored. " Do you ever wish you 
 were back again in Parliament?" "Well, yes, 
 I sometimes do." "What, in these times?" 
 "Yes, in these times." 
 
 It is very rare for a Judge to take any per- 
 sonal interest in a case before him ; he considers 
 it merely as a piece of routine work which has 
 to be got through mechanically as part of his 
 daily darg. But sometimes a case occurs in 
 which the holder of the scales is quite as alive 
 to the subject-matter as is a solicitor in doubt 
 as to where his costs are to come from if it 
 goes against him. This was a simple case, to 
 look at. 
 
 A Milk Company had sold off a lot of old 
 stock to a cake-maker, W.N. by E.S. part of 
 London. It was a heavy lot of some 20,000 
 tins ; but as some of them marked one shilling 
 had been sold at a halfpenny, the amount was 
 about ;^I50, part of it taking the shape of an 
 accepted bill — also forming part of the action. 
 It was admitted that the milk had gone wrong 
 in drying, had fermented and puffed out the 
 tins, and was called " blown " milk ; but it was 
 said the defendant knew what it was. 
 
 The cake-maker, however, set up that they 
 were absolutely poisonous, and produced the 
 coroner's officer, with a bundle of verdicts held 
 on the bodies of infant-school children poisoned 
 
THE "BLOWN" MILK CASE. 335 
 
 by his cakes. Not only this, but some of the 
 tins had spontaneously burst, and the stench 
 had set up an explosion of typhoid of so novel 
 a form that it had brought down Dr. Ernest 
 Hart and a host of specialists to study it ; the 
 possibility of a new microbe attracting long- 
 haired, flaxen-bearded Teutons from Heidelberg 
 and Wurzburg. Under these circumstances 
 the cake-m.aker declined to pay, and an action 
 was brought against him. 
 
 Under technical rules defendant's case was 
 opened first, though his own evidence was kept 
 back, with fatal result as it proved. How- 
 ever, the sanitary folk had a splendid innings, 
 and they were not much scratched in cross- 
 examination. 
 
 But as the case went on the Judge was 
 more and more exercised. When the sanitary 
 inspector was explaining the effect of the gas 
 on his digestive organs, the scale-holder got 
 quite irrelevant. " What on earth do they do 
 with this stuff? " " Oh, my lord, make cakes of 
 it; it doesn't taste when they make it into cakes." 
 " But where do they sell their cakes, — Cromwell 
 Road way?" "Oh dear no, my lord; they 
 are used for out-of-the-way railway stations, 
 school-treats, and excursions." Here the 
 defendant, who had been keeping his courage 
 up and spoke rather thick in consequence, 
 broke in. " Norsh Schwinstead, my lord ; 
 
336 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 always sends 'em there, they loikes 'em, always 
 wantsh moore, my lord." " Why, that's where 
 we have our school-treat ; I ate some of 
 the cakes myself and liked them." " Quite 
 rightsh, my lord, quite rightsh ; capital cakes, 
 my lord, beautiful cakes, my lord." The usher, 
 " Silence ! " 
 
 The Judge, who looks, what he is best fit 
 for, a country squire, turned an olive green, 
 shuddered, and rushed off the Bench to his 
 private room, returning a few minutes later, 
 breathing rather hard and wiping his mouth. 
 Resuming his seat, he said feebly, " Well " — 
 and the case went on. It fitted well together, 
 and was hardly touched in cross-examination, 
 as the company's Counsel didn't know how to 
 bully the professional chemists, and came to 
 terrible grief when he tried it on. 
 
 For he asked Professor Bumshus if he had 
 ever studied the substance called 
 
 SULPHONYLIC DiAZOTIZED SeSQUI OxIDE OF 
 
 Aldehyde, 
 
 and had got in reply : " Repeatedly. It is 
 analogous in diatomic composition to Para 
 sulpho benzine azode methyl aniline in conjunc- 
 tion with phenekatoline." 
 
 At which he, the cheekiest of all the silks 
 going, had given it up ; and then the Court 
 adjourned for the day, leaving the defendant 
 
SWOPPING COUNSEL, MID-CASE. 337 
 
 only to prove a few formal facts, which his 
 Counsel, seeing his then state, thought he 
 would do more successfully the first thing 
 next morning. 
 
 His verdict seemed safe, but nothing is sure, 
 especially in law. When the Court met next 
 morning the defendant was not there, having 
 collapsed to a sudden attack of illness ; the real 
 reason being said to be that he got so horribly 
 drunk the night before that all efforts to awaken 
 him had failed. So the Milk people got their 
 verdict, but whether they got their money or 
 their costs is doubtful. 
 
 A Midland Session story deals with similar 
 mutation in a criminal case. It was but petty 
 larceny, but the prisoner retained Mr. Harris, 
 now Q.C., to defend him ; and when the case 
 came on that gentleman was engaged in another 
 court, and adjournment for an hour made matters 
 no better, so it had to go on with a " Devil " in 
 Mr. Harris' place. The substitute opened his 
 defence with a grave face, and said he felt great 
 responsibility in the matter. While he was 
 going on like this, Mr. Harris got free, and at 
 the desire of all parties took up the running 
 without the least idea of the lines on which his 
 deputy had conducted it, having had no oppor- 
 tunity of consultation with him. 
 
 The jury were greatly puzzled when the new- 
 
 22 
 
338 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 comer, who had thoroughly got the case up, 
 pooh-poohed the whole affair, and called it a 
 ridiculous and trumpery charge. The prisoner, 
 till then looking as if he were going to be 
 hanged, brightened up amazingly, so as to give 
 a knowing wink and a touch of the nose to a 
 female friend in the gallery. But the startling 
 change of front had disorganised the jury ; they 
 naturally disagreed, and the prisoner's new trial 
 stood over until the next day, when Mr. Harris, 
 Q.C., had been compelled to return to town ; 
 failing his advocacy the prisoner got six months' 
 hard. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 " Furreners don't count" — Love your enemies, and even drink 
 'em — " Oceans o' moock " — Tke rise of W. H. Smith — His 
 blackballing at the Reform — On pilling generally — The 
 Charitable Society and their Chaplain — In what shape 
 will the public be asked to pay the cost? — Braxy — Strange 
 meeting — Indian cooks and their kitchens — D—d Turkey. 
 
 ONE of the most delightful Incidents in 
 the history of a country is the National 
 Pride which its citizens, young and old, take 
 in it. It may, however, be unduly exaggerated, 
 so as to throw a distorted image on the 
 screen ; and this was the case with the Amurican 
 boy whose Sunday School teacher asked " Who 
 was the first man 1 " " George Washington " 
 was the answer. " Oh no, my boy ; consider, 
 recollect." " George Washington." " No, no ; 
 don't you remember that it was Adam, who 
 was created in the Garden of Eden ? " " Ah, 
 yes ; but furreners don't count, ye see." 
 
 It does not do to press arguments too much 
 home to the consciences of your hearers, as 
 Father Dupuy, the head of the Roman Catholic 
 Mission at Fort Resolution on Great Slave 
 Lake, found when remonstrating with his 
 
 339 
 
340 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 penitent Saltatha upon his deplorable fondness 
 for getting drunk. " My son, you must avoid 
 it. It is your greatest enemy." " Oh, mon 
 Pere, do you not always tell us to love our 
 enemies, and all the more when they injure 
 us ? " 
 
 That same Saltatha was not a bad layman, 
 for he answered the missionary who was 
 explaining to him the beauties of Heaven : 
 " My father, you have spoken well. You have 
 told me that Heaven is very beautiful — tell me 
 now one thing more. Is it more beautiful than 
 the country of the musk-ox in summer, when 
 sometimes the mist blows over the lakes, and 
 sometimes the water is blue and the whip- 
 poor-will calls very often ? That is beautiful, 
 and if Heaven is more beautiful my heart will 
 be glad. I shall be content to rest there until 
 I am very old." Saltatha had a fellow-feeling 
 with the farmer wha told his people one 
 morning that he had dreamed of Heaven, 
 and, being asked what it was like, answered, 
 " Oceans o' moock ! " 
 
 A curious story prevails at Princetown, the 
 capital city of Dartmoor Prison, as to the 
 practice with respect to Cunningham, the 
 dynamitard who blew up the Tower and 
 the House of Commons. He is stated to be 
 kept in such strict seclusion as to be absolutely 
 
TENACIOUS TENANTS. 341 
 
 unapproachable, notwithstanding the numerous 
 attempts to obtain an interview with him ; 
 these are said to be of all kinds, from the open 
 and straightforward way through the American 
 Ambassador, where everything is of course 
 aboveboard, to the attempts to bribe warders, 
 and even to work a new warder into the 
 galleries. This last attempt, from its very 
 audacity, was the very nearest, it is said, to 
 success ; the man had been at Portland or 
 some other convict prison, had left with a good 
 character, and his papers, which of course were 
 forgeries as to the subsequent part of his 
 life, were so beautifully executed that inquiry 
 into them was deemed needless. Some little 
 matter blew the gaff, but the candidate got 
 to know of it somehow or other, and vanished 
 with lightning speed. It was not, however, 
 a plot to release the man ; this (apart from the 
 absolute certainty of recapture as soon as he 
 got outside, the moormen keenly appreciating 
 the £$ note paid for the recapture of a 
 runaway) is no easy matter, the authorities 
 holding that it is their duty to keep a man in, 
 rather than to catch him when he is out. The 
 real object of all the heavy expense was to 
 obtain his signature to a legal document — in 
 fact, a power of attorney. It appeared that 
 Cunningham had enlisted on the Clan-na-Gael 
 as a youngster ; had continued a member, or 
 
342 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 perhaps could not get out of it, during his 
 mature Hfe ; and that the lot only fell upon him 
 when he had accumulated ;^3,ooo a year in 
 house property in Chicago. Of course he had 
 to go when the summons fell upon him, but 
 it seems odd that he made no arrangement for 
 the conduct of his affairs while absent on such 
 an errand. However, the story runs that he 
 did not, and when the news reached the great 
 city on the lake that his detention might be a 
 long one, the tenants woke up to the fact that 
 his written authority was a condition precedent 
 to their paying their rents, and that, unless 
 that written authority was produced to them, 
 they ran imminent risk of having to pay over 
 again — a practice repugnant to all the tradi- 
 tions of Texas, and every other land. Hence 
 they required to see that document before 
 paying up, and it had to be supplied. It was, 
 of course, a matter of regret that a capital 
 sentence had not been passed, and carried out 
 in due course ; but this was a detail : hence the 
 attempts to obtain his signature. Of course, 
 behind all there lingered in the minds of 
 Cunningham's family the dread of prescription, 
 the twelve years' possession (varying in different 
 States) when leasehold disappears by virtue 
 of non-payment of rent during all those years, 
 and is replaced by the charming, sweet sim- 
 plicity of " catch-hold " or usucapion — where 
 
THE RISE OF SMITH'S LIBRARY. 343 
 
 the claimant cannot even begin an action 
 without having proved that he was unable to 
 take action through being under certain legal 
 disabilities, of which number absence in a 
 foreign country under sentence of penal servi- 
 tude is not one. 
 
 Nor could the sympathy of any right-minded 
 person, of whom there are many in the States, 
 be attracted to the case of a man who had 
 made clandestine war, not upon the armies 
 and navies of the State, but upon harmless 
 people who had gone to the Tower holiday- 
 making bent, and the chief victim of whose 
 malignity was a Bethnal Green slip of a girl, 
 fourteen years old. In fact, public opinion sets 
 against missiles and explosives of every kind, 
 even to the throwing a gingerbread-nut by 
 a bystander favourable to the movement in 
 progress at the time. 
 
 The rise of the great firm of W. H. Smith 
 & Son is said to have been due to two specu- 
 lations, each on the death of George IV. One 
 was that of buying up all the copies of the 
 newspapers which announced that event, the 
 other the purchasing of all the black gloves in 
 the wholesale dealers' hands. Trade communi- 
 cations were very slow at that period, and it 
 took a long time to get up stocks once cleared 
 out ; so the last transaction paid enormously. 
 
344 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 Messrs. Dent & Co. not having foreseen the 
 manoeuvre. The first one raised the firm from 
 an inferior station to a leading one. 
 
 There is a book in the Reform Club, open 
 to the members thereof only, which raises one 
 more of the endless studies as to " what might 
 have been," if things had been different. It 
 is the Candidates' Book, and therein appears, 
 duly proposed and seconded under date . . . 
 Smith, William Henry . . . proposed by . , . 
 seconded by . . . with the remark "Not elected." 
 There was prima facie no sufficient reason for 
 this. The Club consisted pretty much then, 
 as now, of very rich men sprung from small 
 beginnings, anxious to crown their career of 
 steady enterprise by the (uncomfortable even 
 in those days) honour of a seat in Parliament. 
 Such, for instance, as Archibald Hastie, once 
 saddler in the Strand, who made his money 
 by making himself a principal where he had 
 been only agent, was one of the founders of 
 the London Joint Stock Bank, and M.P.. for 
 Paisley ; Mr. Bass, and many others of the 
 same stamp, both here and in the Colonies ; 
 coal- owners employing thousands of hands, 
 who had once wielded the pick and lighted the 
 "Geordie" safety lamp; and great capitalists 
 who had begun as clerks with twelve shillings 
 a week, improved certain machinery, and were 
 drawing their ;^ioo,ooo a year or so out of it. 
 
IVffV BLACKBALL HIM? 345 
 
 Capital members of the Club are they, great 
 usually in the invaluable Club attribute of 
 silence, and giving (as I am informed, having 
 no practical experience in the matter) capital 
 house dinners to their fellow- members, on 
 every conceivable reason, or none. Why reject 
 Mr. W. H. Smith, then a promising young 
 Liberal in Westminster, and possessing the 
 same simple, homely way of putting things— 
 utterly apart from eloquence, but still like it, 
 the Art of Persuasion ? Perhaps they drew 
 the line at " Papers " — a nickname, by the 
 way, usually applied to Mr. Smith in the 
 House. Perhaps it was the advertising that 
 did it ? It certainly is supposed to have un- 
 favourably affected the " yes " side of the ballot- 
 box in the case of a great Soapist (both 
 innings), a great Winist, and a gentleman who 
 was described as the owner of a stately dome 
 of pleasure by the sad sea waves, but bearing 
 the same name as the gentleman who had 
 made a fortune by the extraction of sea-salt 
 from the aforesaid foaming billows. It did 
 not affect Mr. Smith very much ; he simply 
 and naturally changed his allegiance to the 
 Tory side, between which and the Liberal party 
 there was then but little distinction, and of 
 both of which the common factor was, as told 
 me by one extreme Radical now in the House, 
 that there was not a man in the House but had 
 
346 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 come there for what he could get. He would 
 receive with good humour sly pokes at his 
 former pilling. In fact, his bonhomie was 
 his natural mind form, just as the late Mr. 
 Robert Keeley's acting was the man comporting 
 himself on the stage exactly as he did off it. 
 Perhaps a word in defence of this same black- 
 balling may be heard. I have seen a great 
 deal of it, especially at the Society of Anti- 
 quaries, where six candidates have been put 
 up at the same time, and none elected. I do 
 not think personal malice has much part in 
 it ; either the man is too well known, or it is 
 thought there are too many of his profession 
 or occupation in the Club, or that he may use 
 it for quasi-advertising purposes, or, most likely 
 of all, because his friends will not take the 
 trouble to come down on the day of ballot, 
 vote themselves for him, and get others to do 
 the same. Except in one case, and that 
 justifiable in all its circumstances, I have never 
 known a vote refused for any man, when asked 
 for by one of the candidate's friends who took 
 a little trouble about him, and came down for 
 the purpose. 
 
 Some time back an amusing case came into 
 court, wherein a philanthropic society was con- 
 cerned, whose operations, though conducted for, 
 and at the expense of, the charitable of this 
 
A RELIGIOUS DISPUTE. 347 
 
 country, were carried on upon the Continent. 
 Now it is well known that when "good" 
 people fall out they carry on the war quite as 
 fiercely, if not more so, as people who don't 
 go in for being saints, and quite forget that 
 bridling of the tongue, which they themselves 
 present to others as the preventative of most of 
 the loose mischief usually on foot. It was so in 
 this instance. The clergyman placed in local 
 charge of the scene of operations said or did 
 somethingto the prejudice of, and derogatory 
 to, the Great Mesopotamian Mystery, which 
 raised a storm of wrath ; he was put through 
 the inquisition usual in these matters, of mild 
 expostulation in a heated way, argued with (a 
 thing which the average clerical mind is not 
 made to stand), then preached at by sundry 
 females (also an outrage on sacerdotal feelings), 
 and, being admittedly obdurate, was dismis§ed 
 and ordered to quit the premises, which he 
 promptly refused to do. Solicitors were 
 called in on both sides, and the matter came 
 before one of the coolest (both in intellect and 
 religious fervour) of all the Judges, who at 
 once suggested a reference to a third party, 
 but, in any case, a settlement without evidence 
 being openly gone into. This, however, was 
 declined, one person interested having come 
 some five thousand miles to be present ; and at 
 it they went, hammer and tongs. Imputations 
 
3+8 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 of all kinds were in the pleadings already, but 
 they were not to be left there, and a good 
 deal of amusement for the auditors ensued. 
 The placid man of the old school on the Bench 
 did all he could to stop the wrangle, then 
 resorted to the strong measure of ceasing to 
 take notes at all, and finally, when he closed 
 his book for lunch, once more begged that the 
 half-hour of his absence might be made use of 
 to agree upon terms which would stop the 
 contention. This raised at least a hint that 
 the Judge might consider both parties in the 
 wrong, and give costs to neither, a contingency 
 alarming to contemplate from a solicitor's point 
 of view. So when the Judge returned, he was 
 informed that the case was at an end — a certain 
 sum of money was to be paid to the plaintiff, 
 to include costs, to which sum the said costs 
 would probably mount up, all imputations 
 being withdrawn on both sides. All this, of 
 course, is practically an everyday story, and 
 would not be recorded here but for a remark 
 dropped by the Counsel for the charity people 
 — an amiable, conscientious man, who had 
 thrown all his energy into the case. He said 
 as he sat down, " The only way in which these 
 damages can be provided is by subscriptions 
 from the public." This amount might perhaps 
 be ;^i,200 ; and one is curious to know under 
 what heading the appeal will come before the 
 
EYES OR MOONSHINE P 349 
 
 public, for the expenses of about as spitefully 
 fought out an action as ever any of Bobby 
 Burns' "unco guid" let their angry passions 
 rise about. 
 
 It is the lot of few, if any, successful plain- 
 tiffs to be satisfied with the result of their 
 suits, as, except in undefended actions, they 
 rarely get the amount they think their due. 
 When the action is undefended, the first 
 difficulty is what to do with your judgment as 
 soon as you've got it. The defendant may 
 possibly be in your reach, but in that case a 
 previously prepared bill of sale has protected 
 all his movables, and to push him into the 
 Bankruptcy Court only results in more expense 
 to the pursuers, and the discharge, scot-free, 
 of the pursued. But even where a verdict 
 is entered up against a responsible man, it is 
 wonderful what a lot of petty obstacles spring 
 up ! Not, perhaps, so frightful as the lights 
 on either side of the forest which Miss Marsden 
 used to notice in her noble expedition to relieve 
 Siberian lepers, and which she took to be 
 roadside dwellings, until, on her suggestion that 
 they should halt at one of them, the driver 
 told her they came. from the eyes of wolves. 
 (By the way, a Russian traveller over the 
 same ground informed me that it was quite as 
 probably " moonshine.") 
 
3 so MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 In the practice of the Law, everything 
 works in the interest of " Delay, great mother 
 of Expense." SoHcitors continually bring 
 actions, and when they are not their own 
 clients (in which case they come under the 
 uniform consequence) pull off verdicts and get 
 them paid somehow. I once asked a gentleman 
 of this branch, who had won a somewhat costly 
 case against a Hebrew defendant hailing from 
 the Cape Colony, and whose appearance in 
 the box was as eloquent an exemplification of 
 destitution as his fervent appeals to Holy 
 Moses were of the contents of his pockets, 
 " Now, are you going to get anything out of 
 him ? " " Why, my dear sir, he's got a gold 
 mine, and has come over here to sell it. A 
 gold mine is worth money." And so it was ; 
 for by-and-by appeared the prospectus of 
 " The Ananias and Sapphira Mine," with 
 Chairman the Right Hon. the Earl of Temple- 
 bar, and the holder of the judgment as 
 Solicitor. Plaintiff and defendant had put 
 their horses side by side, had got together as 
 pretty a lot of samples as ever were picked out 
 and borrowed from the agents of twenty more 
 sets of claims, and had sweetly rigged the 
 shilling founders' Shares up to ;^50 apiece, 
 at which price the judgment was covered ; 
 while the calls provided for the vendor hand- 
 somely, and the bills of costs made even that 
 
LAWYERS AS THEIR OWN CLIENTS. 351 
 
 most impassive of men, the Official Receiver 
 in the case, purse his lips when they were 
 carried in, in the winding-up. Such a goloptious 
 result is not always open to Solicitors, but they 
 usually have tolerable luck with their actions ; 
 they have in them no client who can be kept in 
 the dark until the time comes when, the briefs 
 having been delivered, the witnesses' proofs 
 taken, and as much as possible made out of it, he 
 can be told that a compromise is the best thing 
 to be done for him, or, when an ofifer of money 
 comes, " Wait a little to see if he won't spring." 
 The Solicitor's client, when it happens to be 
 himself, knows the value of nimbleness, and 
 that any offer is better than none, so brings 
 his bird down, while it is opposite to his gun. 
 Still Solicitors, with all their advantages, are not 
 fond of bringing actions, nor are their nominal 
 superiors, the Barristers. For these last are 
 the most unlucky of litigants — doubly so, if 
 that be possible, when from any cause or other 
 they act as their own advocates. More than 
 one decision stands on the book of the House 
 of Lords as settled law of the country, which 
 turns out to be a decision where a Barrister 
 has been his own advocate at the Bar. It 
 hardly matters what the question is : the late 
 Mr. Kennedy had certainly a prima facie case 
 in a breach-of-contract action he brought, but 
 it fell to pieces under the rigorous view which 
 
3S2 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 the Judge took of it. The writer recalls to 
 mind many instances in which it has almost 
 seemed as if the Judge was afraid to give the 
 Barrister common fairness, fearing lest he 
 should be thought to favour the class of which 
 he had himself been a member. Hence the 
 timidity in giving any direct rulings in favour 
 of the legal postulant, and the desire, at all 
 hazards, to shunt or shorten a class of cases 
 never very numerous at any time, and which 
 bring out in strong relief that every man's 
 judgment is more or less at fault where his own 
 interest is concerned. An instance occurs to 
 me, but on the Chancery side, where a Barrister 
 had a contention with his neighbour as to the 
 supply of water from certain springs. The 
 case was fought out as desperately as all these 
 set-to's in a village cockpit generally are, and 
 the Barrister did not ruin his own case by 
 appearing as his own advocate ; so he was held 
 entitled to the ownership of his own springs 
 at a cost of ^700, for the Judge held that the 
 litigants ought to have settled it out of Court, 
 and would give no costs to either party — the 
 victim's sole point of congratulation being that 
 it had cost the other man ;^ 1,000. 
 
 Rogers, the banker and poet, is said once to 
 have given himself a severe cold from imagining 
 that the window behind his back was open, 
 whereas it was proved to have been shut from 
 
DOUBTS ABOUT DINNER. 353 
 
 the night previous. But I once saw the power 
 of imagination exercised over the gastric nerve 
 quite as completely. It was at a little public- 
 house half-way between Barmouth and Dolgelly, 
 where I stopped for some lunch before making 
 a cut across the mountains northward. It was 
 a comfortable little place, and possessed a 
 lodger in the shape of a London artist, who 
 had fitted up his painting tent across the road 
 on the river bank. The man, though without 
 a spark of genius, had a good knowledge of 
 technique^ — more indeed than he had of humour 
 — and discussed in quite a friendly spirit my 
 suggestion that he should put the name under 
 it, so that the purchaser (at a big figure, of 
 course) might know the place it was meant for. 
 The man's vapouring over his picture got at 
 last tiresome, and his dinner, which smelt 
 appetising, took possession of all the interest 
 I had in the matter, so on being summoned we 
 sat down at table. The dish was "scouse," 
 which is Welsh for " Irish stew" ; but on cross- 
 examining my memory as to the surrounding 
 circumstances, I asked him not to wait for me, 
 and took another walk around the premises. 
 On returning, I declined to share in the dainty 
 dish, and made a hearty lunch off bread and 
 cheese and Dublin porter from the wood. My 
 conduct made my companion very uneasy ; he 
 dropped hints, made remarks intended to be 
 
 23 
 
354 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 unpleasant, and, when these produced no effect, 
 asked what the deuce I meant by sitting down 
 to dinner with a gentleman and "turning up 
 my nose" "at the vittles." "Ain't it good 
 enough for you, or do you think it poisoned ? " 
 This last speech of course laid him open to 
 any kind of retort, courteous or not, so my 
 answer was, " I can't say it is poisoned, but 
 I shouldn't like to eat it." Indignation rose 
 in virulent form, coupled with a slight greenish 
 tinge of the face, and he made such a rumpus 
 that it brought the landlord in to see what it 
 was all about. While the angry one was re- 
 arranging his ideas, I got a word in. " Landlord, 
 have you got a raw sheepskin on the place ? " 
 "No; haven't killed a sheep for weeks." "Then," 
 with a look at the landlord, " that mutton must 
 have killed itself." There was a faint call for 
 " Brandy, quick ! " a rush to the outside, and 
 sounds as of great disturbance of the digestive 
 organs, during which I withdrew. That victim 
 would never partake of Irish stew again ; his 
 only idea of "encore " would be the Scotchman's 
 "Angcore, engcore ; we'll hae nae mair o' it." 
 His reminiscence of the dish would not be like 
 that of the Army Chaplain stationed at Port 
 Royal, and one of whose daily duties was to 
 commit to the earth, and the land crabs, the 
 bodies of the poor fellows who had got their 
 passage ticket for the next world, during the 
 
SLIGHT GAMY FLAVOUR. 355 
 
 previous twenty-four hours, in the General 
 Hospital close by the Garrison Mess-house. 
 For convenience' sake, the hour for the cere- 
 mony was fixed for after lunch, and the Chaplain 
 then fortified his system against the depressing 
 influences which were in store for him. He 
 was a sportsman, a good shot, and in Canada, 
 where he had been previously stationed, had 
 been introduced to a new food animal on whose 
 praises he waxed eloquent, so much so that, 
 when gently reminded that the corpse was 
 waiting, many of the officers went with him 
 to continue the discussion. Arrived at the 
 cemetery, of course decorous silence bore sway, 
 the Chaplain assumed his surplice, and the 
 service proceeded, though the reader's attention 
 seemed somewhat absorbed by other matters. 
 At last, however, the orisons drew to an end, 
 and at the words "Our dearly beloved brother 
 now departed this life " the officiant closed the 
 book, handed it to the sexton, turned to his 
 messmates, and went on, " possessing, you see, 
 all the juiciness of beef, but crisper, and with 
 a slight gamy flavour." He had been thinking 
 of elk all the time of the service, and it was 
 of elk he spoke, when his voice was free to 
 give his thoughts utterance. 
 
 Among the many advantages which our 
 Middle Temple custom of "sit where you 
 
356 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 please " gives us, is the occasional presence 
 of members of the Indian and China Civil 
 Service, who avail themselves of their furlough 
 as time in which to be called to the Bar, and 
 thus become available for local judgeships. As 
 many of the lower Indian court officers have 
 a similar ambition for their sons, and as the 
 Middle Temple is the great Colonial Law 
 School, curious meetings sometimes take place 
 between the two classes. On one occasion 
 we had at Mess an individual having the air of 
 command, and cool, resolute, self-possessed bear- 
 ing, which one associates at once with that of a 
 Major of Irregular Cavalry stationed on the 
 frontier. At the last moment the Inn butler ' 
 brought up, to fill up the fourth seat, a native 
 gentleman, who seemed as if he would rather 
 go anywhere else if he could. Dinner pro- 
 ceeded, and at the appointed time the Captain 
 handed round the ticket on which each Member 
 has to sign his name, for entry in the Inn books. 
 The native gentleman signed "Syud Abdullah," 
 or some such name as that. Conversation went 
 on, and the Indian was asked, in order to bring 
 him into th^ circle of chat, from what part of 
 India he came. He replied " Punch-ab," and 
 gave the precise locality as Dustipore. "Why," 
 said the Englishman, " that is where I come 
 from; I'm Deputy Supt. of Police there. What's 
 your father's name?" "Ahmed Hassan." 
 
'775 A SMALL WORLD/ 357 
 
 "My Police Havildar?" "Yes;" and then 
 softly, " I knew you at first," After which the 
 two proceeded to talk freely on local topics, 
 thus losing to the Mess the spirited talk of 
 the man of action. However, he dined with 
 us on another occasion, and here is one of his 
 anecdotes of life, told us, considerately, after 
 the cloth had been removed : — 
 
 The number of places where the kitchen is 
 on show is exceedingly small. The Reform 
 Club, for instance, can be inspected by members 
 and their friends during the day-time, as can 
 doubtless other great and famous establishments 
 of that kind. But, even there, a sense steals 
 on you that it is as well not to go too far, 
 and the visitors cast a hasty glance round and 
 then retire, asking no questions for conscience' 
 or any other sake. If this is the case in Eng- 
 land, how much more is the fear of knowing 
 too much a severe check to an inspection of the 
 cook's dominions in India! In fact, the feeling 
 is quite the other way, and ignorance is held 
 to be bliss by even the most inquisitive ladies. 
 They remember the Mauritius story how a 
 young Scotch sugar-planter, newly arrived and 
 greatly daring, started upon the investigation 
 of his own kitchen. He returned saddened 
 and silent, proceeding first to the cellarette for 
 a glass of Glenlivat straight. His spirits did 
 not revive, a sober melancholy settled upon 
 
3S8 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 him, he withdrew himself from the society of 
 his fellow-men, took to reading Dr. McGawke's 
 sermons, and eventually died young. However, 
 one lady disregarded the warning ; she had 
 engaged a Chinese cook, and vaunted him all 
 over the station ; and when a friend demurred 
 to John's superiority over the local Bobbachies, 
 it was agreed that a visit should be paid to her 
 kitchen, and then to that where the Celestial 
 ruled paramount. The Goanese arrangements, 
 the half-dozen small fireplaces with their 
 blackened copper pans, a chopper, two spoons, 
 the stone slab with its roller, and finally the 
 table, much chipped, hacked, and scarred, oiled, 
 smoked, and stained with juices of many sub- 
 stances (wiped off on his pantaloons when 
 accumulated), a table on which the cook minced 
 meat, chopped onions, made his rolls and pastry, 
 and slept at night, were passed under shuddering 
 review ; and then an adjournment was made 
 to the challenger's bungalow, where the scene 
 was delightfully different. The pots and pans 
 glistened like silver, the table was cleanly 
 washed, everything was in order, and in the 
 midst sat the Chinaman himself, with a glare 
 of satisfaction on his features, and washing his 
 feet in the soup tureen. This man was con- 
 scientious — a rare thing in cooks ; but there 
 does exist one other instance of it in that of 
 a cook to a Madras Missionary College, who 
 
MISSIONARY MENUS 359 
 
 was preparing the breakfast bill of fare. The 
 list presented its difficulties, for the principal 
 dish was devilled turkey. Rama Samy con- 
 sidered thus : " Sahibs all Padres ; devil very 
 bad word : how can write ? " So as a result 
 the Principal, taking the bill of fare as soon as 
 grace was said, saw before him the words 
 " D -d Turkey ! " 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 Chief Baron Pollock and his nursemaid — Castor and Pollux — 
 Carit have too many sons in the Exchequer — Two actions 
 taken up to the House of Lords for sums under one shilling 
 — Professor Holloway and the turn of the tide — The baby 
 — Comments upon the Inn management — Is a Benchership 
 worth its cost? — Conclusion. 
 
 THE late Lord Chief Baron Pollock had 
 a very large family, in fact, three very 
 large families, and his memory of what his 
 offspring was like got so mixed that on one 
 occasion an extraordinary contretemps took 
 place. On several occasions, when entering 
 or leaving Queen Square House, he had 
 noticed a remarkably neat nursemaid, good- 
 looking to boot, with a baby in her arms, the 
 nuisance of perambulators not having then 
 been invented. The stern, hard-featured man 
 often noticed the damsel, not observing at 
 the time that the tribe of elder children whom 
 she had in tow scattered out at his approach, 
 and effaced themselves as much as possible. 
 The Chief Baron often stopped to admire the 
 baby, and this investigation brought the parties 
 
 so closely together, that Sir Frederick was 
 
 360 
 
"IT'S A WISE FATHER," ETC. 361 
 
 pondering snatching a kiss next time the 
 heads so nearly approached each other over 
 the infant, when something aroused the habit 
 of question-asking inherent in a lawyer, and he 
 inquired, "Whose baby is that?" "Yours, 
 sir." 
 
 Yet the old Chief Baron had paternal sym- 
 pathies, and very strong ones ; as fast as the 
 old officials of the Court of Exchequer died 
 off, they were replaced by his own sons, till 
 Christian names with understood surnames 
 came to be quite a feature among the func- 
 tionaries. Hence, when the fifth vacancy 
 occurred, it was hoped that there would be 
 a change of surname in the person appointed 
 to fill it, but Barorj Pigott, intending to make 
 a nasty speech, destroyed any outsider's possible 
 chance. " Don't yer think that if yer put 
 that son o' yours into Jenkinson's place the 
 Exchequer will be a regular family party ? " 
 " My dear fellow, so it would ; just the very 
 thing for all of us, eh ? I'll do it at once." 
 
 He was not a witty man, and the sneer 
 glanced off him as did that other joke made 
 by Chief Justice Cockburn after a Mansion 
 House dinner to the Judges, when somebody 
 had "made hay" with the hats and coats. 
 " That's my Castor ; no, damn it, it's Pollux." 
 
 The smallest sums for which actions are 
 
362 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 said to have been brought, both had their 
 origin with the Great Western Railway. One 
 was for the excess fare of one penny ; they 
 gained the penny after taking it up to the 
 House of Lords, but without costs. The 
 second was to decide if a passenger could 
 include a gallon jar of whisky in his luggage, 
 and that they won, and got their costs — pro- 
 bably ;^i,ooo out of the passenger's pocket. 
 
 Over forty years ago I knew the late Professor 
 HoUoway, a singularly meek and almost shame- 
 faced man, under whose by no means unamiable 
 outside lay a pluck and determination which 
 were in time to meet their reward. 
 
 It was at the outset of his career ; he had 
 expended all his money in sowing the seeds 
 of advertisements, and the crop had not yet 
 come up ; in fact, his scheme was so gigantic 
 that the wheel took a long time to work round. 
 Bankruptcy supervened (let me hasten to add 
 that, when better times came, the creditors 
 were all paid off" with interest). His wife and 
 he were living in Clare Market, cold, hungry, 
 and without a penny. It was a dark winter's 
 night, when there came a knock at the closed 
 door. " Was this the Pill Shop ? and did 
 the ointment assist them in their healing 
 task .? " Then the 2s. ■^d. changed hands, 
 and was expended on a half-hundredweight of 
 
PATIENCE, PLUCK, AND PILLS. 363 
 
 coals, bread, steak, and potatoes — not much 
 of the three last. The tide had turned, and 
 a career which, after benefiting countless 
 charities by thousand-pound notes, paid anony- 
 mously into their bankers, ultimately led him 
 to the Royal Holloway College at Egham, had 
 begun. The man himself never changed with 
 fortune, and I remember the accents of gratitude 
 with which his name was mentioned by a 
 person who had done a great thing, and, like 
 so many others, had received his reward too 
 late. His name was T. T. Cooper, and he 
 had crossed China up to the very frontier of 
 Burmah, before he was stopped and turned 
 back. For political reasons, the Government 
 had to look coldly on him when he returned 
 to England. He was come to all but actual 
 distress, when Holloway sought him out and 
 employed him to write advertisements and 
 paragraphs to introduce his pills into China, 
 and likewise draw up handbills. Holloway 
 paid him so liberally that poor Cooper came 
 to the Geographical Society with tears in his 
 eyes. It was a turn in his career as well ; for 
 the Burmese pretenders, with whom he had 
 unwarily allied himself, returned home ; and 
 after a decent interval Cooper was rewarded 
 with a consulship in the Golden Chersonese 
 which he knew so well. 
 
 His usefulness, however, was not for long. 
 
364 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 One of his own guard took too much bhang, 
 ran amuck, and the consul was the first of 
 his victims. 
 
 One of these Httle outbreaks took place at 
 Galle in my time. The man came running 
 down the street, knife in hand; stabbing at 
 everybody, till he reached the guard-house. 
 The g^ard, all Malays of the now disbanded 
 Ceylon Rifle Regiment, to which the madman 
 himself belonged, turned out with their bayonets 
 at the level, caught the murderer on the points, 
 turned him over, and added his life to that of 
 the three quiet harmless folk whom he had 
 just sent to their long account. 
 
 Amongst our most genial comrades at Mess 
 is Mr. Macdona, M.P., in years past Rector 
 of Cheadle, which seems to be a place for 
 quiet " wut," almost of the Scotch kind. A 
 meek and mild curate was taking the girls' 
 class in the Sunday School there, when the 
 spirit of mischief put it into his "guileless 
 mind " to ask this question : " Children, what 
 is that inward, but invisible, monitor, which 
 always tells you when you have been doing 
 wrong ? " 
 
 Of course he meant conscience, but the 
 question went down and was left unanswered 
 by all the big girls, until a small scrub at the 
 bottom held up her hand. 
 
"PLEASE, SIR, THE BABY." 365 
 
 " Please, sir, I know ; the baby, sir !" 
 It was not the first awkward answer that 
 Susan had given. Once before she had been 
 asked by the curate, "Who was Moses the 
 son of?" "Please, sir, Pharaoh's daughter, 
 sir." " No, no, Susan ; you know better than 
 that. It was Pharaoh's daughter who found 
 him in the bulrushes." 
 " Ah ! (sniff) she said so." 
 
 Our space, though not our matter, draws to 
 a close. A few words may be said as to the 
 exceedingly unsatisfactory system under which, 
 in usual English slipshod fashion, this great 
 Inn is managed. The Benchers are elected 
 by a co-optation among themselves ; and while 
 the silk-gownsmen, of whom two come in a 
 kind of rotation, are elected, as against one of 
 the ordinary stuff wearers, this last class is 
 selected upon grounds which are wholly in- 
 explicable. Benchers select their sons or the 
 sons of their predecessors. Their relatives 
 seem to stand also well forward in the list for 
 promotion, if such it be ; and, save where they 
 happen to be Judges, the great majority of the 
 governing body are unknown, both by person 
 and by name, to the great number of their 
 fellow-members. The fees on admission to the 
 Bench were at one time .1^300, in return for 
 which the payer received a set of chambers for 
 
366 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 life, which he could, and did, re-let for his own 
 benefit. The late " Father of the Temple," 
 Mr. Anderson, Q.C., told me that he let his 
 chambers at ;^i40 per year. As his Bencher- 
 ship had lasted from 1852 to 1890, he must 
 have received £'^,\tQ) for his first outlay of 
 ;^300 — not by any means a bad return. The 
 present admission fee is said to be one hundred 
 guineas, but no free chambers are now given, 
 and it is a question whether it is worth the 
 money, apart from the supposed honour of it. 
 With the exception of such profits as those 
 made by Mr. Anderson, and which Benchers 
 admitted on the ;^300 entrance fee continue to 
 enjoy, it is not supposed that much pecuniary 
 benefit accrues to the newer admissions. But 
 inasmuch as H.R.H. the Prince of Wales 
 devoted his fees when Treasurer to the purchase 
 of a handsome loving cup, which certainly could 
 not have cost less than one hundred guineas, it 
 is clear some money payment is received by the 
 Treasurer of each year. In the Inner Temple, 
 where the fees are ;^200, that honour has been 
 repeatedly declined, and it is reported that, in 
 that Inn at all events, the person thought of 
 is always now previously approached in order 
 to know whether it will be accepted. 
 
 The Inns are not supposed to work harmo- 
 niously, and the feeling is said to spread down 
 among the servants. There is a story of our 
 
GRUMBLINGS AT THE BENCHERS. 367 
 
 late head-porter Bye, which goes to that extent. 
 The Church is divided longitudinally between 
 the Middle and Inner Temples, the former 
 having the north, the latter the south, portion. 
 Service was proceeding, Bye was standing by 
 his mace guarding it, when there was a com- 
 motion over the way. A Bencher of the Inner 
 Temple had been seized with a fit. Bye was 
 beckoned to go over and assist ; he indignantly 
 shook his head and said out loud, " Nothing 
 whatever to do with the other side of the 
 Church." 
 
 The Common Room has lately become a dirty 
 and uncomfortable place, and its contrast with 
 the bright, club-like comfort of that at Lincoln's 
 Inn is a matter which the Benchers might pro- 
 fitably consider. 
 
 And the audit of the accounts has been 
 entrusted to two gentlemen, whose knowledge 
 of law can be safely relied on, but as to whose 
 acquaintance with accounts, and how to deal with 
 the difficult questions that naturally spring up 
 in their darkness, there is not such confidence. 
 Can they have, by the way, been at all trouble- 
 some .'' They have not been asked to dine as 
 guests on Grand Night lately! — in company with 
 the Under Treasurer. Why the alteration ? 
 
 But, audited or not audited, the affairs of the 
 Inn require looking into, and great and growing 
 dissatisfaction is felt with them. Secrecy is a 
 
368 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 sure sign of something wrong, and an amusing 
 piece of evidence, both as to the fear, and, con- 
 sequently, need, of publicity, has cropped up in 
 my own case. 
 
 I wished to look at the accounts for 1602, 
 to ascertain to whom the payment for the 
 production of Twelfth Night was made, and 
 applied to the Treasurer for leave to personally 
 inspect them — a request usually freely granted 
 to a Member of twenty years standing, F.S.A., 
 and historical student in a small way. 
 
 After much beating about the bush, I was 
 informed that I must give definite information 
 as to the subject-matter of my investigation. 
 To do this would have made my secret, such as 
 it was, public property, and I declined to do it. 
 It is the more annoying as the records are said 
 to have been indexed, and hence could have 
 been put before me with as little trouble as at 
 the Record Office, where a man walks in out 
 of the street, and has the choicest MS. placed 
 on the desk at once. 
 
 But how nervous must the Benchers be as 
 to the present accounts, when they so carefully 
 bar the door on those three centuries old ! 
 
 We know there are some good things still 
 left ! Lords Truro and Romilly, both holders 
 of very " jammy " places, are but just dead ! 
 
 So with our Inn accounts. Can there still be 
 corn in Egypt? True, the old system of free 
 
WANTED, LOCAL GOVERNMENT. 369 
 
 benchal chambers, under which Mr. Anderson, 
 Q.C., pocketed some 50 per cent, on his outlay 
 for forty years, is said to be defunct ; although 
 many old Benchers must still be enjoying a 
 good return for their money. But can some 
 substitute for it still exist ? 
 
 What becomes of the chamber rents, and 
 fees from Students, Benchers, and Readers ? 
 How are they applied ? and what becomes of 
 the surplus ? for surplus there must be some- 
 times, or the concern would have gone bank- 
 rupt long since. 
 
 There are plenty of Gladstonian Parliament 
 men whose one burning desire is» that every 
 village with more than two hundred in- 
 habitants should manage the village finances, 
 and tax others to pay for them. Here is a 
 constituency of thousands, to which they them- 
 selves belong ! Why is it to know nothing of 
 its affairs ? 
 
 To name only those who are Benchers, will 
 not Lord Coleridge, Messrs. Hopwood, Shiress 
 Will, and Warmington give the same "local 
 control " to their educated equals that they are 
 now forcing upon farm-labourers ? If they do 
 not, then certainly injustice will be done to a 
 class which stands up for the rights of its clients, 
 but has not pluck enough to demand its own. 
 
 Tempora Mutantur, The Spirit of Change 
 
 24 
 
370 MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK. 
 
 is in the air ; not only the fringe, such as 
 the wig and gown, but the whole process of 
 qualification for the law is being passed in 
 review. It may well be that the old form of 
 close corporation, which has now so long 
 existed in the Inns of Court, may be replaced 
 by some looser formation, that in appearance, 
 at all events, will better serve the end ; but 
 it is hard to conceive that, even should Com- 
 mons perish, and the bodily presence thereat 
 of candidates for the study of jurisprudence 
 be replaced by some such alteration as the 
 signing a book on certain days at a certain 
 hour, the esprit de corps of the British Bar will 
 utterly perish. 
 
 Should such a calamity occur, my time will 
 not have been lost if I have placed on record 
 some memories of a harmony and a sociality 
 which may, perhaps, have been equalled, but 
 which never can be excelled ; all the more 
 worthy of note because peculiar to one of the 
 Inns alone, and that as an outcome of an occur- 
 rence nearly six centuries back in the ages — 
 the suppression of the Knights Templars. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Accident claims more nu- 
 merous than passengers . 122 
 Ahab, did he write a Uttle 
 book in support of the 
 Jewish National Church ? 143 
 " Always Crosse " . .128 
 Amuck running . . . 364 
 "And" and "or" differ in 
 a will . . . .82 
 
 in a way , . -85 
 
 "Angcore! we'll hae nae 
 
 mair o' it" . . . 355 
 An honest bankrupt . . 293 
 Archbishop of Canterbury 
 and General Booth hitch- 
 ing their teams together . 89 
 Archdeaconess, the Ven. . 186 
 Archiepiscopal service in 
 the Scotch Presbyterian 
 Church .... 88 
 Australian Bank Cashiers, 
 are they looked after like 
 Bank of England ones ? . 169 
 
 Baby, the . . . . 365 
 
 Bacon — his secrecy . . 45 
 
 his double life . . 5° 
 
 his mother's influence 54 
 
 his humiliating himself 54 
 
 performs Comedy of 
 
 Errors at Gray's Inn . 55 
 
 Bacon — personal acquaint- 
 ance with Shakespeare . 58 
 could not avoid hand- 
 grip 58 
 
 letter about players . 60 
 
 friendship with Ben 
 
 Jonson . . . -65 
 
 compared with Selwyn 68 
 
 hearing of Shake- 
 speare's death . . .69 
 
 writing epitaph ? . .69 
 
 handed it to Jonson ? . 69 
 
 Lady Ann (see Preface) 54 
 
 Baiting trap for oneself . 184 
 Balfour, IVIr., and his shadow 318 
 Ballantine takes it quarterly 264 
 Barrister criminal . . 179 
 Beaconsfield, Lord, the real 
 
 man 198 
 
 Beethoven when deaf . . 202 
 Benchership — is it worth its 
 
 cost? .... 366 
 produced ^5,460 pro- 
 fit on ;^300 outlay . . 366 
 Bernays, Dr., true to the last 
 
 gasp . . . .197 
 
 Bible V. Corkscrew . -159 
 
 Bidder knocked down . 151 
 
 Bishop, how he paid the 
 
 King's mistress for his 
 
 place .... 259 
 
 371 
 
372 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 89 
 
 310 
 208 
 
 305 
 
 Bishop and Rector: change 
 
 of air . . . . 219 
 Bishop's Bible is Bradshaw 299 
 Bishops' joy at Primate's 
 recovery .... 
 Boiled baby goes best with 
 Lamb .... 
 Bookcase in Foreign Office 
 
 cost ;^5,ooo,ooo 
 Boom in indigo . 
 Booth, General, and Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury 
 Bovill, Sir W. : " Take it out 
 of your speech " 
 
 "We're on our oaths, 
 
 my Lord, like you " . . 306 
 " Braxy, bring me brandy!" 353 
 Brown, Rev. Olympia . .314 
 Bull charging a-tail . . 232 
 Burlesque cost ;^3 5,000 . 55 
 Butterfly and Niagara . . 74 
 Buy when things are cheap loi 
 
 Cambridge, the late Duke 
 of, and his confessions in 
 Church .... 309 
 
 Cancelled cheques have a 
 value . . . .181 
 
 Canterbury, Archbishop of, 
 and General Booth . . 89 
 
 Cardinal and Rabbi . .197 
 
 Catastrophes in the pursuit 
 of science : — 
 
 (1) The Maiden Aunt . 187 
 
 (2) Covent Garden Con- 
 certs . . . .187 
 
 (3) Feline rabies . .189 
 Catching crabs and being 
 
 caught . . . 92 
 
 Charitable Society and their 
 Chaplain .... 346 
 
 Chucking his orders . .218 
 Cinchona moss . . -157 
 City paving contract . .235 
 Clerk thrashing Counsel . 225 
 Club civility, premiums on 
 
 its cultivation . . -139 
 Confectionery costs £,^,000 . 233 
 Cooper, Sir Astley, and his 
 
 ;i^i,ooo fee . . . 174 
 Counsel's change of front . 338 
 County Court Judge and his 
 nip of whisky . . .214 
 
 travelling 3rd class and 
 
 what came of it . -215 
 Coutts' and their shabby 
 
 customer .... 105 
 Criminal Chairman of Quar- 
 ter Sessions . . .94 
 Curious periodicity . . 95 
 
 Dartmoor Prison usually 
 
 contains an innocent man 128 
 " D— d if I didn't think so " 359 
 D— d Turkey . . .103 
 Deacons, difficulties with . 307 
 Defendant has got a gold 
 
 mine .... 350 
 
 Derby — see who your neigh- 
 bours are before you 
 choose your pitch . . 135 
 Doctors' bills, settle them 
 before they have time to 
 grow up . . . .193 
 Duke and his trousers . 141 
 
 Edinburgh, H.R.H. Duke 
 of, and the unpresentable 
 present . . . '9' 
 Elector and candidate's wife 201 
 Electric leakage, effect of . 289 
 Emperor's elbow in my ribs 248 
 
INDEX. 
 
 373 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Empress of Russia's mis- 
 taken zeal . . . 195 
 
 Englishmen and French 
 Tribunals . . . 253 
 
 Episcopal service in Pres- 
 byterian Church . . 87 
 
 Epitaphs, two shortest . 126 
 
 Faith, definitions of: — 
 
 (1) Yankee . . . 234 
 
 (2) Scotch . . .235 
 Fitzherbert, Mrs., her mar- 
 riage certificate . . 106 
 
 " Frae Paisley, but canna 
 help it ! " . . . .127 
 
 Freeman, Prof., preaching to 
 the parson . . .116 
 
 " Furreners don't count " . 339 
 
 Gamy flavour . . .355 
 
 Genesis of Shakespeare's 
 play viii 
 
 George III. and his Prayer 
 Book . . . .308 
 
 children by his mar- 
 riage with Hannah Light- 
 foot, the Quakeress . . 208 
 
 George IV. and the risk of 
 operating on him . . 142 
 
 Ghost by daylight . . 323 
 
 Ginger wine on the Marquis' 
 table ... 141 
 
 Gladstone, Mr., and his 
 shadow . . . .319 
 
 Graveyard in "Bleak House" 223 
 
 Hastings, Mr. G. W., his 
 
 chance of escape declined 93 
 " Haunt," the, in the Strand 132 
 Helston Corporators and 
 Argyle Rooms . . .98 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Highland bull and Spanish 
 bull-fighters . . . 228 
 
 HoUoway, Prof., the turn 
 of the tide . . . 362 
 
 his benefactions . . 363 
 
 and Cooper the travel- 
 ler 364 
 
 Hotel, how to get admission 
 when closed . . .212 
 
 How to recoup a loss . .122 
 
 Huddersfield all Ramsden's 
 now ..... 326 
 
 Hume's, Joseph, M.P., start 
 in life . . . .84 
 
 Hymers, Dr. . . .80 
 
 Hymers' College, Hull . 83 
 
 " I AM his natural son ' .221 
 
 " II dort seul " . . . 245 
 
 Impaired Paviour . .235 
 
 " In-sipped " Justice . .215 
 
 Jersey, Lady, and the re- 
 turn call .... 319 
 
 Jewel robberies, and how 
 the swag is got rid of . 238 
 
 " Jimp an' sma' " . . . 233 
 
 Jonson, Ben, his friendship 
 with Bacon . . -65 
 
 his loyalty to him after 
 
 his fall . . . .69 
 
 the last drinking bout 
 
 with Shakespeare . 42 
 
 Judge and the poisonous 
 milk 335 
 
 on the treadmill . .152 
 
 and the omnibus trick . 1 54 
 
 Judge's advice taken literally 1 59 
 
 Kelly, Chief Baron, once a 
 grocer in Oxford Street . 323 
 
374 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Kelvin, Lord, his near 
 escape from death . .196 
 
 Kissing one's sisters depres- 
 sing to the spirits — not so 
 other people's . . -134 
 
 Lady's " Thank you '' 
 
 87 
 
 Lamb likes boiled baby best 210 
 Landlord and barmaid . 272 
 Landseer, my last sight of 
 
 him 206 
 
 Largest cheque drawn . 106 
 fee ever given to a sur- 
 geon . . . .174 
 
 income made by a 
 
 Junior .... 326 
 Lee-way . . . .77 
 Letter sold for ^300 . . 322 
 Letter-writing brings on 
 
 liver congestion . . 200 
 Lightfoot, Hannah, the 
 Quakeress, her children 
 by George III. . . . 208 
 Lion taken by mane . . 109 
 Liver congestion brought on 
 
 by correspondence . . 200 
 London, three finest views in 2 
 Loose in a lunatic asylum . 205 
 Lost Conway boys . .291 
 " Love your enemies, even 
 whisky " . . . . 340 
 
 Man fit for neither place . 295 
 Manning, Cardinal — extra- 
 ordinary behaviour of two 
 clergymen . . .316 
 Marquis and saveloy . . 140 
 and second-hand great- 
 coat 140 
 
 Marsden, Miss, and wolves' 
 eyes in the dark . . 349 
 
 Matthew Marshall a Mal- 
 mesbury .... 
 
 " May we wash baby's face?" 
 
 Medical man oftentimes our 
 truest mourner 
 
 " Meenister, this bain't in my 
 book "... 
 
 Middle Temple Hall — secur- 
 ing Mess . 
 
 Old door in . 
 
 The Panyer man 
 
 The horn 
 
 Attention ! the Mace 
 
 Procession . 
 
 Grace before meat 
 
 Mace withdraws . 
 
 The Reader 
 
 Mace recalled 
 
 Grace after meat . 
 
 New Bencher called up 
 
 Former " send off" 
 
 Bencher can't dine 
 
 alone 
 
 Benchers discouraging 
 
 this old custom 
 
 Prince's birthday 
 
 Readers' feast 
 
 Grand Night 
 
 Great Grand Night 
 
 Call Night . 
 
 Revels in Hall 
 
 Orange peel in the 
 
 right place 
 
 Captured Bobby . 
 
 Shields in Hall . 
 
 Refusal to let me in- 
 spect Inn Records . 
 
 Missing ! ;£5o,ooo Consols 
 
 Missionary misfittings . 
 
 and his flock's sur 
 
 prise : " II dort seul " 
 
 109 
 123 
 
 191 
 
 124 
 
 8 
 
 12 
 18 
 18 
 19 
 19 
 20 
 21 
 22 
 23 
 23 
 23 
 24 
 
 25 
 
 26 
 27 
 27 
 27 
 27 
 29 
 30 
 
 32 
 33 
 37 
 
 71 
 200 
 
 97 
 
 245 
 
INDEX. 
 
 375 
 
 Morocco and Napoleon III. 251 
 Mussulmans, the sauce they 
 
 ate the ham with . . 226 
 My Castor, not Pollux . 361 
 
 Napoleon III.'s only good 
 point .... 249 
 
 and Miss Howard . 249 
 
 and the Yorkshire 
 
 Squire .... 250 
 
 and the mystery in 
 
 Morocco .... 252 
 
 his elbow in my ribs . 248 
 
 Nemesis of Law . . .82 
 Niagara and butterfly . . 73 
 
 Old College Fellow, his life 
 and death 
 
 " One's chance comes at all 
 times" . . . . 
 
 Overend and Gurney's " bul- 
 lion " drawer . 
 
 Overstone, Lord, and the 
 Bank next door 
 
 Owen, the late Sir Richard . 
 
 the antiquity of man . 
 
 and Leviticus 
 
 the birds' breakfast 
 
 his hat 
 
 133 
 
 107 
 
 112 
 212 
 213 
 213 
 
 214 
 214 
 
 Paisley man made ill by a 
 
 joke 127 
 
 Palmerston, Lord, a teeto- 
 taller .... 307 
 Parish Clerk reading the 
 
 Psalms and Lessons . 123 
 Paxton, Sir Joseph, rise of . 83 
 Pharaoh's daughter . . 365 
 Photophone . . .137 
 Pious Peer andhisdaughters' 
 Derby sweep . . .146 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Playing golf under shadow . 318 
 
 at Scotch marriages . 207 
 
 Pluralist, the six-fold . .134 
 Pollock, Chief Baron, and his 
 
 nursemaid ... 360 
 and his five sons in the 
 
 Court of Exchequer . 361 
 Pollocks came from 54, 
 
 Strand .... 324 
 Pork V. Matrimony . 197 
 
 Praying at the proper time 220 
 Prince Consort and Windsor 
 
 wax candles . . . 294 
 
 and the opal . .295 
 
 Publican and his rights . 211 
 
 Rabbit worth ;i^3o . .285 
 Rector and his change of 
 
 air 219 
 
 Rectory servants and their 
 
 minute's notice . • 159 
 Reform Club " Hustler" . 156 
 Risk of operating on a King 179 
 Rival cooks and rival 
 
 kitchens .... 337 
 Ruined by a thunderclap . 150 
 Russian introductions . . 76 
 Rye-readings . . ■ ^^ 
 
 St. Peter throws sevens . 296 
 Salmon and blacksmith . 212 
 
 and Parish Clerk .211 
 
 Science in beer 'stead o' 
 
 malt and hops . . . 222 
 " Scotland yet " . . .233 
 Shakespeare — the Bidford 
 
 drinking bout . . .42 
 
 his epitaph in 2nd Folio 47 
 
 Shaking hands with the 
 
 Shah .... 247 
 Shareholders, what they do 217 
 
376 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Ship's fight for life . . 102 
 " Shoes, by Jove ! " . -90 
 Sixes and sevens . . 295 
 Smallest sums for which 
 actions have been taken 
 to House of Lords . . 362 
 Smith, W. H., & Son, rise 
 
 of 343 
 
 Snakes and spiders . . 99 
 Soliciting a Solicitor . .181 
 Stanley, Dean, and Hibbert 
 
 Lecture . . . -311 
 Stone Street, Amsterdam . 238 
 Strange craze . . . 204 
 Sudden disappearances : — 
 
 (1) Six engines . . 278 
 
 (2) Ten casks Marsala . 279 
 
 (3) Parliamentary election 
 expenses . . . 280 
 
 (4) The young lady's 
 ;^20,ooo . . 281 
 
 (5) The mortgaged house 283 
 Suicide, high art form of .311 
 Swearing by photophone . 137 
 
 Teeth supply in the old 
 times . . 177 
 
 Tennyson, Lord, and the 
 charge made him of ;£6oo . 301 
 
 Thomson, Archbishop, 
 preaching in Presby- 
 terian Church . . .88 
 
 the attempted conver- 
 sion of a Jew . . -115 
 
 the great sorrow of his 
 
 life 115 
 
 possible further pro- 
 motions . . . .186 
 
 Thorpe, Sir William, reha- 
 bilitated . . . .78 
 
 Thorpe's corpse . . .77 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Tischendorf, how he hum- 
 bugged the Cardinal . 320 
 Ton of 12 cvrt. . . .125 
 " Tored his breeches " 128 
 
 Train going 200 miles an 
 
 hour. .... 332 
 Treading on a panther's tail 226 
 Trespassers, how to evict . 118 
 
 Unionist Party, its genesis 138 
 Unpresentable present . 91 
 
 Vicar who lessened the 
 Lessons . . . .123 
 
 WESTBURy,Lord Chancellor, 
 and his eldest son . . 326 
 
 " Which of us is the d — d 
 fool ? " . . . . 146 
 
 Whisky championship: Glas- 
 gow V. Dundee . . 44 • 
 
 Wilberforce, Bishop S. — his 
 fondness for turtle soup ; 
 how he once got too little ; 
 what he said when he got 
 too much . . . .87 
 
 the d — n of relief . 87 
 
 taking service in Scotch 
 
 Presbyterian Church . 88 
 
 on Archbishop Thom- 
 son's future promotions . 186 
 
 on alphabetical Bishops 186 
 
 was he present at the 
 
 great fight ? . . . 203 
 
 Winking cat sold for ^50 . 170 
 
 Wry conclusions . . -11 
 
 Yawning and Yarning . 74 
 York, late Duke of, and Fitz 256 
 " You're the shareholders " . 217 
 
 Zebra, Rarey-fied 
 
 112