n is so exceedingly
expensive that I almost sink under it. I have got a house barely
sufficient to hold my small family, which will, in rent and taxes, cost
me L.60. I have been buying books, too, for the last ten years; but I
have got the mortification to find that, before I can settle, that
article of trade--for so I consider it--will cost me near L.200." Of
Duane's service to him, he said, a little more than a fortnight before
his death, "The knowledge I acquired of conveyancing in his office, was
of infinite service to me during a long life in the Court of Chancery."

In Hilary Term 1776, Scott was called to the bar by the Society of the
Middle Temple. When we recollect what a leviathan of wealth the Lord
Chancellor was in his latter days, it is amusing to read the statement
of his early struggles, however painful they must have been at the time.
"When I was called to the bar," said he, "Bessy (his wife) and I thought
all our troubles were over. Business was to pour in, and we were to be
almost rich immediately. So I made a bargain with her, that, during the
following year, all the money that I should receive during the first
eleven months should be mine, and whatever I should get in the twelfth
month should be hers. What a stingy dog I must have been to make such a
bargain! I would not have done so afterwards. But, however, so it was--
that was our agreement; and how do you think that it turned out? In the
twelfth month I received _half-a-guinea_. Eighteen-pence went for fees,
and Bessy got nine shillings. In the other eleven months I got not one
shilling." This was but sorry encouragement; but such is the profession.
Men must wait. Property, or perhaps life, will not trust themselves to
inexperience; and thus, from the very nature of the Bar, a long period
of probation must be borne by all.

There had been an old and invidious conception which represented the
Lord Chancellor as the son of a coal-heaver. It appears from the memoir
that his father was, on the contrary, possessed of property very
considerable in those days. He was what we should now call a broker in
the coal-trade--technically, a coal-fitter or factor--who transacted
business between the coal-owner and the ship-owner. He was intelligent
and industrious, and prospered accordingly; leaving, at his death,
property worth L.25,000 to his eldest son William; another L.1000 to
John; making, in the whole, L.3000, and respectable sums to his other
children.