Lawyers as Biographers.

while yet a student, and unable to practise above-board. He was contented to " underpull," taking various suits for country friends and relations. In bringing, on one occasion, chancery business to a solicitor, he was of fered a commission usual then (perhaps now) " for encouragement to them that brought business." To his credit, he de clined the offer. About this time in the experience of the young lawyer, the author turns on a side light, showing the roughness and coarseness of the old Lord North, his grandfather, and it may be of that of the aristocracy of the period. He was very tyrannical and vindictive, " hav ing taken a resolution never to be in the wrong." He cared not whom he persecuted, nor how unjustly nor unreasonably, if it tended, as he thought, to justify anything he had done. The more mistaken he was, the more violent was he in his proceedings, as if by that means he was to set himself right. His son, Sir Dudley North, father of Roger, was an eldest son of a peer, at the age of sixty-three, but would never put on his hat or sit down before his father unless he en joined it. This old lord happened to have an unfaithful servant, and was yet so blind to his vices that he had determined to pro mote him. Francis, at the suggestion of his father, gently remonstrated with the old man. At this the old lord became thoroughly vexed, and lapping his cloak about him as he used when angry, went to his cabinet, and took out a codicil he had made to his will, and carried it to his son Dudley, saying: "Look here, son, I had given Frank twenty pounds a year; but he has offended me, and here is his reward; " and so threw the codicil into the fire. But we are told that the old lord still made use of Frank for his diversion, and " teeth outward " was kind to him; but he did not forget, after the young lawyer had gone up to London, to have a letter written to him, at the bottom of which were words in Latin to the effect that " he should not offer his advice before he was asked." Roger adds the reason of this reminder was "that

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the bitterness of his (Frank's) repentance might not wear off; " for the twenty pounds' annuity was gone forever. Such was parental or grand-parental training in high quarters in England in the seventeenth century. It being now time for the young lawyer to come fully upon the stage of action, there is a sparkling and loving description by Roger of his figure, bearing, rules as to dress, man ners, habits, and whatever else may serve to characterize the man and give him to the reader sharpness of individuality. In this vivid description there are some interesting touches. It is stated that cadets of noble family were then accustomed to go into the country sporting on horseback, and that twice a week there was killing of deer. The method then was for the keeper with a large cross-bow to wound the deer, and two or three disciplined pack-hounds pursued till he dropped. The "cadet," it is to be presumed, got the credit of a successful hunt. Another fact of interest is that it was then in good form for a young gentleman in search of information or diversion to visit shows, lec tures, " and even so low as to hear Hugh Peters preach." Hugh Peters was a striking figure of the day in New England as well, with little regard for ecclesiastical conven tionalities. When he made his close of his sermon, he told his congregation that " a gifted brother had a desire to, hold forth; and then up rose Sir Peter Pet; and he, though a mere layman, prayed and preached his turn out." Sir Peter lived to be an old man in town, — few thought that he had been once a preacher. He and Lord Anglesey at the Revolution published books, wherein one of the chief performances lay in the com mending of each other. It would seem that "mutual admiration" societies are more an cient than has been commonly supposed. The first thing done when Francis was called to the bar was to obtain a "practising chamber." A chamber, to be of this class, must not be above two pair of stairs high. The ground floor was not so well esteemed as one pair of stairs, but better than two; and