ess sat in the fetid
court of the Old Bailey, in the hope that her presence might rouse
amongst the jury or in the bench feelings favorable to her son. This
hope was disappointed. The verdict having been given against the young
peer, he was ordered to pay a fine of L5000, and undergo four months'
incarceration in Newgate, and--worse than fine and imprisonment--was
compelled to listen to a parental address from Sir William Scott on the
duties and responsibilities of men of high station. Either under the
influence of sincere admiration for the judge, or impelled by desire for
vengeance on the man who had presumed to lecture her son in a court of
justice, the marchioness wrote a few hasty words of thanks to Sir
William Scott for his salutary exhortation to her boy. She even went so
far as to say that she wished the erring marquis could always have so
wise a counsellor at his side. This communication was made upon a slip
of paper, which the writer sent to the judge by an usher of the court.
Sir William read the note as he sat on the bench, and having looked
towards the fair scribe, he received from her a glance and smile that
were fruitful of much misery to him. Within four months the courteous
Sir William Scott was tied fast to a beautiful, shrill, voluble
termagant, who exercised marvellous ingenuity in rendering him wretched
and contemptible. Reared in a stately school of old-world politeness,
the unhappy man was a model of decorum and urbanity. He took reasonable
pride in the perfection of his tone and manner; and the
marchioness--whose malice did not lack cleverness--was never more happy
than when she was gravely expostulating with him, in the presence of
numerous auditors, on his lamentable want of style, tact, and
gentlemanlike bearing. It is said that, like Coke and Holt under similar
circumstances, Sir William preferred the quietude of his chambers to the
society of an unruly wife, and that in the cellar of his Inn he sought
compensation for the indignities and sufferings which he endured at
home. Fifty years since the crusted port of the Middle Temple could
soothe the heart at night, without paining the head in the morning.

PART III.

MONEY.

CHAPTER XII.

FEES TO COUNSEL.

From time immemorial popular satire has been equally ready to fix the
shame of avarice upon Divinity Physic, and Law; and it cannot be denied
that in this matter the sarcasms of the multitude are often sustained by
the ind