ainst which a bill had been filed for a L300 legacy left in the
will bequeathing the farm. In reality there was only one defendant, but
in the bill, by the rule of the Court, there were seventeen; and, after
two years had been occupied over the seventeen answers, everything had
to begin over again because an eighteenth had been accidentally omitted.
"What a mockery of justice this is," says Mr. Challinor, "the facts
speak for themselves, and I can personally vouch for their accuracy. The
costs already incurred in reference to this L300 legacy are not less
than from L800 to L900, and the parties are no forwarder. Already near
five years have passed by, and the plaintiff would be glad to give up
his chance of the legacy if he could escape from his liability to costs,
while the defendants who own the little farm left by the testator, have
scarce any other prospect before them than ruin."

FOOTNOTES:

[164] This letter is now in the possession of S. R. Goodman Esq. of
Brighton.

[165] Here are two passages taken from Hunt's writing in the _Tatler_ (a
charming little paper which it was one of the first ventures of the
young firm of Chapman and Hall to attempt to establish for Hunt in
1830), to which accident had unluckily attracted Dickens's
notice:--"Supposing us to be in want of patronage, and in possession of
talent enough to make it an honour to notice us, we would much rather
have some great and comparatively private friend, rich enough to assist
us, and amiable enough to render obligation delightful, than become the
public property of any man, or of any government. . . . If a divinity had
given us our choice we should have said--make us La Fontaine, who goes
and lives twenty years with some rich friend, as innocent of any harm in
it as a child, and who writes what he thinks charming verses, sitting
all day under a tree." Such sayings will not bear to be deliberately
read and thought over, but any kind of extravagance or oddity came from
Hunt's lips with a curious fascination. There was surely never a man of
so sunny a nature, who could draw so much pleasure from common things,
or to whom books were a world so real, so exhaustless, so delightful. I
was only seventeen when I derived from him the tastes which have been
the solace of all subsequent years, and I well remember the last time I
saw him at Hammersmith, not long before his death in 1859, when, with
his delicate, worn, but keenly intellectual face, his large lu