inences of legal success,
Lord Eldon was disgracefully stingy in bestowing honors on rising
barristers who belonged to his own party, but his injustice and
downright oppression to brilliant advocates in the Whig ranks merit the
warmest expressions of disapproval and contempt. The most notorious
sufferers from his rancorous intolerance were Henry Brougham and Mr.
Denman, who, having worn silk gowns as Queen Caroline's Attorney General
and Solicitor General, were reduced to stuff attire on that wretched
lady's death.

It is worthy of notice that in old time, when silk gowns were few, their
wearers were sometimes very young men. From the days of Francis North,
who was made K.C. before he was a barrister for seven full years'
standing, down to the days of Eldon, who obtained silk after seven
years' service in stuff, instances could be cited of the rapidity with
which lucky youngsters rose to the honors of silk, whilst hard-worked
veterans were to the last kept outside the bar. Thurlow was called to
the bar in November, 1754, and donned silk in December, 1761. Six years
had now elapsed since his call to the English bar, when Alexander
Wedderburn was entitled to put the initials K.C. after his name, and
wrote to his mother in Scotland, "I can't very well explain to you the
nature of my preferment, but it is what most people at the bar are very
desirous of, and yet most people run a hazard of losing money by it. I
can scarcely expect any advantage from it for some time equal to what I
give up; and, notwithstanding, I am extremely happy, and esteem myself
very fortunate in having obtained it." Erskine's silk was won with even
greater speed, for he was invited within the bar, but his silk gown
came to him with a patent of precedence, giving him the status without
the title of a King's Counsel.

Bar mourning is no longer a feature of legal costume in England. On the
death of Charles II. members of the bar donned gowns indicative of their
grief for the national loss, and they continued, either universally or
in a large number of cases, to wear these woful habiliments till 1697,
when Chief Justice Holt ordered all barristers practising in his court
to appear "in their proper gowns and not in mourning ones"--an order
which, according to Narcissus Luttrell, compelled the bar to spend L15
per man. From this it may be inferred that (regard being had to change
in value of money) a bar-gown at the close of the seventeenth century
cost