the eighteenth century, students who wished to learn the practice of
the law usually entered the offices of attorneys in large practice. At
that period, the division between the two branches of the profession was
much less wide than it subsequently became; and no rule or maxim of
professional etiquette forbade Inns-of-Court men to act as the
subordinates of attorneys and solicitors. Thus Philip Yorke (Lord
Hardwicke) in Queen Anne's reign acted as clerk in the office of Mr.
Salkeld, an attorney residing in Brook Street, Holborn, whilst he kept
his terms at the Temple; and nearly fifty years later, Ned Thurlow (Lord
Thurlow), on leaving Cambridge, and taking up his residence in the
Temple, became a pupil in the office of Mr. Chapman, a solicitor, whose
place of business was in Lincoln's Inn. There is no doubt that it was
customary for young men destined the bar thus to work in attorneys'
offices; and they continued to do so without any sense of humiliation or
thought of condescension, until the special pleaders superseded the
attorneys as instructors.

[29] The mention of 'the Hardwicke' brings a droll story to the writer's
mind. Some few years since the members of that learned fraternity
assembled at their customary plate of meeting--a large room in
Anderton's Hotel, Fleet Street--to discuss a knotty point of law about
anent Uses. The master of young men was strong; and amongst
them--conspicuous for his advanced years, jovial visage, red nose, and
air of perplexity--sate an old gentleman who was evidently a stranger to
every lawyer present. Who was he? Who brought him? Was there any one in
the room who knew him? Such were the whispers that floated about,
concerning the portly old man, arrayed in blue coat and drab breeches
and gaiters, who took his snuff in silence, and watched the proceedings
with evident surprise and dissatisfaction. After listening to three
speeches this antique, jolly stranger rose, and with much embarrassment
addressed the chair. "Mr. President," he said--"excuse me; but may I
ask,--is this 'The Convivial Rabbits?'" A roar of laughter followed this
enquiry from a 'convivial rabbit,' who having mistaken the evening of
the week, had wandered into the room in which his convivial
fellow-clubsters had held a meeting on the previous evening. On
receiving the President's assurance that the learned members of a
law-debating society were not 'convivial rabbits,' the elderly stranger
buttoned his blue coat a