known to her
father. Miss Anne Bawdon's father was a wealthy merchant, styled Sir
John Bawdon--a man proud of his civic station and riches, and thinking
lightly of lawyers and law. When Somers stated his property and
projects, the rental of his small landed estate and the buoyancy of his
professional income, the opulent knight by no means approved the
prospect offered to his child. The lawyer might die in the course of
twelve months; in which case the Worcestershire estate would be still a
small estate, and the professional income would cease. In twelve mouths
Mr. Solicitor might be proved a scoundrel, for at heart all lawyers were
arrant rogues; in which case matters would be still worse. Having
regarded the question from these two points of view, Sir John Bawdon
gave Somers his dismissal and married Miss Anne to a rich Turkey
merchant. Three years later, when Somers had risen to the woolsack, and
it was clear that the rich Turkey merchant would never be anything
grander than a rich Turkey merchant, Sir John saw that he had made a
serious blunder, for which his child certainly could not thank him. A
goodly list might be made of cases where papas have erred and repented
in Sir John Bawdon's fashion. Sir John Lawrence would have made his
daughter a Lord Keeper's lady and a peeress, if he and his broker had
dealt more liberally with Francis North. Had it not been for Sir Joseph
Jekyll's counsel, Mr. Cocks, the Worcestershire squire, would have
rejected Philip Yorke as an ineligible suitor, in which case _plain_
Mrs. Lygon would never have been Lady Hardwicke, and worked her
husband's twenty purses of state upon curtains and hangings of crimson
velvet. And, if he were so inclined, this writer could point to a
learned judge, who in his days of 'stuff' and 'guinea fees' was deemed
an ineligible match for a country apothecary's pretty daughter. The
country doctor being able to give his daughter L20,000, turned away
disdainfully from the unknown 'junior,' who five years later was leading
his circuit, and quickly rose to the high office which he still fills to
the satisfaction of his country.

Disappointed in his pursuit of Anne Bawdon, Somers never again made any
woman an offer of marriage; but scandalous gossip accused him of immoral
intercourse with his housekeeper. This woman's name was Blount; and
while she resided with the Chancellor, fame whispered that her husband
was still living. Not only was Somers charged with open