arristers; George IV. to twenty-six; whereas the list of
William IV.'s appointments comprised sixty-five names, and the present
queen has conferred the rank of Q.C. on about two hundred advocates--the
law-list for 1865 mentioning one hundred and thirty-seven barristers who
are Q.C.'s, or holders of patents of precedence; and only twenty-eight
sergeants-at-law, not sitting as judges in any of the supreme courts.
The diminution in the numbers of the sergeants is due partly to the loss
of their old monopoly of business in the Common Pleas, and partly--some
say chiefly--to the profuseness with which silk gowns, with Q.C. rank
attached, have been thrown to the bar since the passing of the Reform
Bill.

Under the old system when 'silk' was less bountifully bestowed, eminent
barristers not only led their circuits in stuff; but, after holding
office as legal advisers to the crown and wearing silk gowns whilst they
so acted with their political friends, they sometimes resumed their
stuff gowns and places 'outside the bar,' on descending from official
eminence. When Charles York in 1763 resigned the post of Attorney
General, he returned to his old place in court without the bar, clad in
the black bombazine of an ordinary barrister, whereas during his tenure
of office he had worn silk and sat within the bar. In the same manner
when Dunning resigned the Solicitor Generalship in 1770, he reappeared
in the Court of King's Bench, attired in stuff, and took his place
without the bar; but as soon as he had made his first motion, he was
addressed by Lord Mansfield, who with characteristic courtesy informed
him that he should take precedence in that court before all members of
the bar, whatever might be their standing, with the exception of King's
Counsel, Sergeants, and the Recorder of London. On joining the Northern
Circuit in 1780, Edward Law found Wallace and Lee leading in silk, and
twenty years later he and Jemmy Park were the K.C.'s of the same
district; Of course the circuit was not without wearers of the coif, one
of its learned sergeants being Cockell, who, before Law obtained the
leading place, was known as 'the Almighty of the North;' and whose
success, achieved in spite of an almost total ignorance of legal
science, was long quoted to show that though knowledge is power, power
may be won without knowledge.

From pure dislike of the thought that younger men should follow closely
or at a distance in his steps to the highest em