attachment is ordered by way of punishment and is not mere process for enforcing obedience. Mr. Charlton remained three weeks in durance vile in the Fleet, and was only released on a second petition. Throughout the proceedings Lord Cottenham bore himself with great firmness and dignity, and vindicated, in a manner worthy of Chief Justice Gascoigne,

The majesty and power of law and justice.

LORD LANGDALE.

GOLD MACE OR PESTLE AND MORTAR.

THE poet Gray, musing in Stoke Poges Churchyard, thought how
Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest,

Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood,
Some village Hampden-

and a kindred thought often rises in our minds, in following the career of those who have achieved greatness, how nearly many of them were being consigned to obscurity-how nearly the light failed. Lord Langdale is an instance. There seemed at one time every probability that the destined Master of the Rolls, peer, and Privy Councillor would live and die an obscure country doctor, going his professional rounds in a gig, and making up prescriptions in his dispensary. This was the life his father, Mr. Bickersteth-surgeon and apothecary of Kirkby Lonsdale, in Westmorland-had led before him, and Henry Bickersteth, the third son -as his destined successor-began by serving an apprenticeship of five years to the same business; but a happy accident changed the whole tenour of his career. He was engaged by Lord Oxford to accompany him and his family on a tour in Italy, and the experience of foreign travel, the new scenes and new society to which it introduced him, widened his mental horizon and disenchanted him for ever with the narrow sphere and dull routine of a village doctor. He could not, he felt, be "buried alive in a small country town"; he was born to higher things. "Character," as Novalis well says, "is destiny." Bickersteth had a very strong character, and he owed much of it, like so many great men, to his mother-a remarkable woman. She had all the housewifely virtues for which the Vicar of Wakefield chose his spouse, and for the graciousness of her welcome to guests she was

pointed out as a model by all the husbands in Kirkby Lonsdale. What was more, she was a woman of exemplary probity. An anecdote will illustrate this.

"IT IS NOT YOURS!"-A MORAL TALE.

As Henry and his brother John, when mere children, were returning one evening from a visit to their grandmother, they found in the road a large log of wood which they dragged home with considerable difficulty, thinking it would make an excellent plaything.

"Where did you get it?" asked their mother, as they triumphantly showed her their prize.

"We found it in the road," was the reply.

"Then it is not yours," she said; so you must take it back again and replace it where you found it."

The lesson was never forgotten; Lord Langdale often related it in after years, and it passed through his mind when he adopted the significant and appropriate motto Suum cuique.

Conscientiousness was indeed his most marked characteristic through life. It made him, when he went to Cambridge, a "desperately hard student," that he might not be a burden to his parents, and his filial piety had its reward. He came out Senior Wrangler and First Smith's Prizeman (1808).

MATHEMATICS AND LAW.

The mathematical mind has always had an affinity for law, and there is nothing strange in the fact. Clearness of head and the logical faculty are the prime requisites in both. They are the qualities which alike solve the abstruse problem and shine in the argument in banc or the nice refinements of equity. If any proof of the connection is needed, it is afforded by the number of judges who have also been eminent mathematicians. There is Chief Baron Pollock, Senior Wrangler in 1806; Baron Alderson, Senior Wrangler in 1809; Mr. Justice Maule, in 1810. There is Baron Graham and Lord Alvanley and Lord Manners, Mr. Justice Littledale and Lord Lyndhurst, Chief Justice Tyndal and ViceChancellor Shadwell and Baron Parke-all of them high Wranglers. At the present moment we have two Senior Wranglers on the bench-Lords Justices Romer and Stirling. The Bar, therefore-the carriere ouverte au talent-was clearly the destiny of

Bickersteth, the Senior Wrangler, and he entered at the Inner Temple and chose the Chancery side.

We all know the old jeu d'esprit :

Mr. Leach made a speech,
Pretty, neat, and wrong;
Mr. Hart for his part

Was tedious, dull, and long.
Mr. Parker made that darker
Which was dark enough before;

Mr. Bell spoke so well

That the Chancellor said I doubt.

" in whose chambers

It was this Mr. Bell who "spoke so well Bickersteth became a pupil, and by whose advice he, instead of practising under the Bar, as so many prudent ones in those days did, took the bold step of being called to the Bar at once. His chambers were at 3, Fig Tree-court, Temple, overlooking the gardens.

CONSCIENTIOUSNESS AND A SMOKY CHIMNEY.

A propos of these there is an anecdote worth quoting because it illustrates his fastidious sense of honour. There was a little room in the chambers a favourite of his in summer, but in which he could never sit in winter because the chimney smoked beyond endurance, though he had tried all manner of expedients to cure it. On being made, later on, a King's Counsel, he found it necessary to remove to a more eligible position, and of course wished to let the chambers he then occupied, but his conscientiousness kept him in a state of perpetual excitement lest the laundry-woman should not tell every person who applied for them that the chimney smoked; so he wrote in large letters on a sheet of paper and placed it over the mantelpiece in the room: "The chimney of this fireplace smokes incurably, and every experiment has been tried to remedy the evil and no expense spared."

EARLY YEARS AT THE BAR.

Anxious they were, these early years-we all know them— years when he had to part with his treasured volumes of Tasso and Ariosto to buy Year Books and Term Reports; but everybody told him, you are certain of success in the end, only persevere," and he tried to believe it, and buoyed himself up with the examples of Lord Camden, who, after starving for several years

at the Bar, had risen to the head of the Profession, and of Sir Samuel Romilly, who was making £15,000 a year after being for many years little thought of and in great difficulties. He was assiduous in his attendance at chambers and in court-listening to the luminous judgments of Lord Eldon and Sir William Grant. A little anecdote, related by his clerk, shows what an important element of success at the Bar he considered attention to business. One day, immediately after his departure from London for his week's holiday during the Long Vacation-that was all he allowed himself—an old client called to inquire if Mr. Bickersteth was in town, as he wished him to draw a bill for him. "I said that he was out of town, but would return immediately on receiving a communication from me. Oh, no! I will not have him called back for a trifle like this; he does not often take a holiday. Now, don't write to him, and I will find someone else to do it.' I did not, therefore, communicate to Mr. Bickersteth Mr. Holme's visit, but on his return I told him what had passed. He gave me a gentle reproof for not writing, and concluded, saying, 'Remember, though it was of no consequence to Mr. Holme whether I or someone else drew the bill, yet it might be of much importance to meand to you, too.'"

As the clock struck nine he was invariably at his desk, either "drawing" or studying his case and preparing materials for his argument. His habit was to read through every case that was reported which bore upon or had any analogy to that before him-reports, luckily for him, had not multiplied to the extent they have now-noting every point or shade of difference. The result was a large mass of manuscript, and of this he again made a series of analyses, narrowing the whole into the smallest compass, generally in a tabular form. He had thus every point of his case at his fingers' end, and had no occasion to refer to his brief either at consultation or in court. In one respect the young Chancery barrister was handicapped.

THE BAR SINISTER OF RADICALISM.

He was a Radical, a disciple of Bentham and a friend of Sir Francis Burdett and the elder Mill, and, as Sydney Smith said, it was an awful period then for those who had the misfortune to entertain Liberal opinions. Many a solicitor remarked to his clerk, "I should like to give your master business, for I hear he is a very rising man; but he is such a Radical I can't, for fear I should