skine will be
Solicitor General, and if he is, and indeed whether he is or not, he
will have had the most rapid rise that has been known at the bar. It is
four years and a half since he was called, and in that time he has
cleared L8000 or L9000, besides paying his debts--got a silk gown, and
business of at least L3000 a year--a seat in Parliament--and, over and
above, has made his brother Lord Advocate."

Merely to mention large fees without specifying the work by which they
were earned would mislead the reader. During the railway mania of 1845,
the few leaders of the parliamentary bar received prodigious fees; and
in some cases the sums were paid for very little exertion. Frequently it
happened that a lawyer took heavy fees in causes, at no stage of which
he either made a speech or read a paper in the service of his too
liberal employers. During that period of mad speculation the
committee-rooms of the two Houses were an El Dorado to certain favored
lawyers, who were alternately paid for speech and _silence_ with
reckless profusion. But the time was so exceptional, that the fees
received and the fortunes made in it by a score of lucky advocates and
solicitors cannot be fairly cited as facts illustrating the social
condition of legal practitioners. As a general rule, it may be stated
that large fortunes are not made at the bar by large fees. Our richest
lawyers have made the bulk of their wealth by accumulating sufficient
but not exorbitant payments. In most cases the large fee has not been a
very liberal remuneration for the work done. Edward Law's retainer for
the defence of Warren Hastings brought with it L500--a sum which caused
our grandfathers to raise their hands in astonishment at the nabob's
munificence; but the sum was in reality the reverse of liberal. In all,
Warren Hastings paid his leading advocate considerably less than four
thousand pounds; and if Law had not contrived to win the respect of
solicitors by his management of the defence, the case could not be said
to have paid him for his trouble. So also the eminent advocate, who in
the great case of Small _v._ Attwood received a fee of L6000, was
actually underpaid. When he made up the account of the special outlay
necessitated by that cause, and the value of business which the
burdensome case compelled him to decline, he had small reason to
congratulate himself on his remuneration.

A statement of the incomes made by chamber-barristers, and of the sums