VIII.

LAW CLERKS AND LAW STUDENTS.

A CLERKSHIP to an attorney is probably not better adapted to the expansion of the intellect than walking the tight-rope, or heading pins, or keeping a toll-gate. William Cobbett, the author or editor of "The Political Register," who served in the capacity of attorney's clerk for some time, has recorded his disgust for the occupation: "When I think of the saids and so forths, and the counts of tautology, that I scribbled over; when I think of those sheets of seventy-two words, and those lines two inches apart, my brain turns. Gracious Heaven! if I am doomed to be wretched, bury me beneath Iceland snows, and let me feed on blubber; stretch me under the burning line, and deny me the propitious dews; nay, if it be thy will, suffocate me with the infected and pestilential air of a Democrat's club-room; but save me, whatever you do, save me from the desk of an attorney." Lord Brougham said, "Even a year in an attorney's office, as the law is now practiced, I should not hold too severe a task, nor too high a price to pay, for the benefit it must surely lead to." The author of "The Pleader's Guide" thus recorded his disgust at the occupation:

“And better to improve your taste,

Are by your parents' fondness plac'd

Among the best, the chosen few

(Blest, if their happiness they knew),
Who, for three hundred guineas paid
To some great master of the trade,
Have at his rooms, by special favor,
His leave to use their best endeavor,
By drawing pleas, from nine to four,
To earn him thrice three hundred more,
And after dinner, may repair

To 'foresaid rooms, and then and there
Have 'foresaid leave, from five to ten,
To draw th' aforesaid pleas again."

Perhaps, too, the familiarity with petty meannesses has a tendency to blunt the sensibilities. I shall never forget the shock I underwent as a fresh law-clerk, when I discovered the amount of virtual lying tolerated under a "general denial." Possibly it is a similar shock that drives some into dissipation; for I believe law-clerks are notoriously rakish and drunken, at least in England. Such were the four clerks of Dodson and Fogg, in "Pickwick Papers," the attorneys for Mrs. Bardell, on whom Mr. Pickwick and Sam Weller made a call to see if that cause of action could not be compromised, an unwise step at all times, and which at this particular time resulted in Mr. Pickwick's being served with the process. While Mr. Pickwick and Sam were waiting in the ante-room for an interview with the attorneys, they heard some of the conversation of these nice young men, to which let us listen again :

"That was a game, wasn't it?' said one of the gentlemen, in a brown coat and brass buttons, inky drabs, and bluchers, at the conclusion of some inaudible relation of his previous evening's adventures.

"Devilish good, devilish good,' said the seidlitzpowder man.

"Tom Cummins was in the chair,' said the man with the brown coat: 'it was half-past four when I got to Somers Town; and then I was so uncommon lushey that I couldn't find the place where the latch-key went in, and was obliged to knock up the old 'ooman. der what old Fogg 'ud say if he knew it. the sack, I s'pose — eh? '

I say, I won

I should get

"At this humorous notion all the clerks laughed in

concert.

"There was such a game with Fogg here this mornin',' said the man in the brown coat, while Jack was up stairs sorting the papers, and you two were gone to the stamp-office. Fogg was down here opening the letters, when that chap as we issued the writ against at Camberwell, you know, came in what's his name again?'

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'Ramsey,' said the clerk who had spoken to Mr.

Pickwick.

"Ah! Ramsey, a precious seedy-looking customer. "Well, sir," says old Fogg, looking at him very fierce,you know his way, -"well, sir, have you come to settle?" -"Yes, I have, sir," said Ramsey, putting his hand in his pocket, and bringing out the money: "the debt's two pound ten, and the costs three pound five; and here it is, sir: " and he sighed like bricks as he lugged out the money, done up in a bit of blotting-paper. Old Fogg looked first at the money and then at him; and then he coughed in his rum way, so that I knew something was coming. "You don't know there's a declaration filed, which increases the costs materially, I suppose?" said

Fogg. "You don't say that, sir,” said Ramsey, starting back: “the time was only out last night, sir.”—“I do say it, though,” said Fogg: "my clerk's just gone to file it. Hasn't Mr. Jackson gone to file that declaration in Bullman and Ramsey, Mr. Wicks?" Of course I said yes; and then Fogg coughed again, and looked at Ramsey. "My God!" said Ramsey, "and here have I nearly driven myself mad, scraping this money together, and all to no purpose."—"None at all," said Fogg coolly: "so you had better go back and scrape some more together, and bring it here in time.”—“I can't get it, by God!” said Ramsey, striking the desk with his fist. "Don't bully me, sir,” said Fogg, getting into a passion on purpose. “I am not bullying you, sir," said Ramsey. "You are," said Fogg: "get out, sir; get out of this office, sir, and come back, sir, when you know how to behave yourself." Well, Ramsey tried to speak, but Fogg wouldn't let him; so he put the money in his pocket, and sneaked out. The door was scarcely shut, when old Fogg turned round to me, with a sweet smile on his face, and drew the declaration out of his coat-pocket. "Here, Wicks," says Fogg, take a cab, and go down to the Temple as quick as you can, and file that. The costs are quite safe; for he's a steady man with a large family, at a salary of five and twenty shillings a week; and if he gives us a warrant of attorney, as he must in the end, I know his employers will see it paid; so we may as well get all we can out of him, Mr. Wicks: it's a Christian act to do it, Mr. Wicks; for with his large family, and small income, he'll be all the better for a good lesson against getting into debt; won't he, Mr. Wicks, won't he?" and he smiled so goodnaturedly as he went away, that it was delightful to see

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him.

He is a capital man of business,' said Wicks, in a tone of the deepest admiration, 'capital, isn't he?' "The other three cordially subscribed to this opinion, and the anecdote afforded the most unlimited satisfaction.

"Nice men these here, sir,' whispered Mr. Weller to his master: 'wery nice notion of fun they has, sir!

A very celebrated fictitious law-clerk is Uriah Heap, in "David Copperfield," whose very name suggests wriggling meanness, and whom Dickens has depicted so vividly that he assumes the reality of an historical personage; who read "a great fat book, with such demonstrative attention, that his lank forefinger followed up every line as he read, and made clammy tracks along the page, like a snail;" whose nostrils seemed to twinkle, instead of his eyes; whose hand felt in the dark like a fish; who was "the umblest person going; " whose father, from having been a sexton, had become "a partaker of glory;" who was fond of passing an hour or two in the evening with Mr. Field, meaning the delectable writer on practice; we see him now, "kissing his hand, and leering at us like a mask," or making "motions with his mouth as if the pear were ripe already, and he were smacking his lips over it." To adopt Mr. Micawber's description of him, "transcendent and immortal hypocrite and perjurer."

Of very different stuff was the vocal Dick Swiveller, in the "Old Curiosity Shop," clerk for a time to the legal firm of Sampson Brass and his sister Sally, that "female dragon." But law with Richard was only an episode; and it is to be feared, if he had pursued it, that its irreconcilableness with literature would have deprived the world of those frequent "droppings into poetry," by