tudent's gown, and sate down with a crowd of nameless people to
hall-commons, he had himself a name, and a very ancient one, to support,
and could take rank with the first persons at home or in his own
country; and desired that he would study as a gentleman, not a mere
professional drudge. With this injunction the young man complied
obediently enough: so that he may be said not to have belonged to the
rank and file of the law, but may be considered to have been a volunteer
in her service, like some young gentlemen of whom we have just heard.
Though not so exacting as she since has become--though she allowed her
disciples much more leisure, much more pleasure, much more punch, much
more frequenting of coffee-houses and holiday-making, than she admits
nowadays, when she scarce gives her votaries time for amusement,
recreation, instruction, sleep, or dinner--the law a hundred years ago
was still a jealous mistress, and demanded a pretty exclusive attention.
Murray, we are told, might have been an Ovid, but he preferred to be
Lord Chief Justice, and to wear ermine instead of bays. Perhaps Mr.
Warrington might have risen to a peerage and the woolsack, had he
studied very long and assiduously,--had he been a dexterous courtier,
and a favourite of attorneys: had he been other than he was, in a word.
He behaved to Themis with a very decent respect and attention; but he
loved letters more than law always; and the black-letter of Chaucer was
infinitely more agreeable to him than the Gothic pages of Hale and Coke.

Letters were loved indeed in those quaint times, and authors were
actually authorities. Gentlemen appealed to Virgil or Lucan in the
Courts or the House of Commons. What said Statius, Juvenal--let alone
Tully or Tacitus--on such and such a point? Their reign is over now, the
good old Heathens: the worship of Jupiter and Juno is not more out
of mode than the cultivation of Pagan poetry or ethics. The age of
economists and calculators has succeeded, and Tooke's Pantheon is
deserted and ridiculous. Now and then, perhaps, a Stanley kills a kid,
a Gladstone bangs up a wreath, a Lytton burns incense, in honour of
the Olympians. But what do they care at Lambeth, Birmingham, the Tower
Hamlets, for the ancient rites, divinities, worship? Who the plague are
the Muses, and what is the use of all that Greek and Latin rubbish? What
is Elicon, and who cares? Who was Thalia, pray, and what is the length
of her i? Is Melpomene's name in