st pangs of gout. It is recorded
that as he limped from the woolsack to the bar of the House of Lords, he
once muttered to a young peer, who watched his distress with evident
sympathy--"Ah, my young friend, if I had known that these legs would one
day carry a Chancellor, I would have taken better care of them when I
was at your age." Unto this had come the handsome legs of young
Counsellor Henley, who, in his dancing days, stepped minuets to the
enthusiastic admiration of the _belles_ of Bath.

Some light is thrown on the manners of lawyers in the eighteenth century
by an order made by the authorities of Barnard's Inn, who, in November,
1706, named two quarts as the allowance of wine to be given to each
mess of four men by two gentlemen on going through the ceremony of
'initiation.' Of course, this amount of wine was an 'extra' allowance,
in addition to the ale and sherry assigned to members by the regular
dietary of the house. Even Sheridan, who boasted that he could drink any
_given_ quantity of wine, would have thought twice before he drank so
large a given quantity, in addition to a liberal allowance of stimulant.
Anyhow, the quantity was fixed--a fact that would have elicited an
expression of approval from Chief Baron Thompson, who, loving port wine
wisely, though too well, expressed at the same time his concurrence with
the words, and his dissent from the opinion of a barrister, who
observed--"I hold, my lord, that after a good dinner a certain quantity
of wine does no harm." With a smile, the Chief Baron rejoined--"True,
sir; it is the _uncertain_ quantity that does the mischief."

The most temperate of the eighteenth-century Chancellors was Lord
Camden, who required no more generous beverage than sound malt liquor,
as he candidly declared, in a letter to the Duke of Grafton, wherein he
says--"I am, thank God, remarkably well, but your grace must not seduce
me into my former intemperance. A plain dish and a draught of porter
(which last is indispensable), are the very extent of my luxury." For
porter, Edward Thurlow, in his student days, had high respect and keen
relish; but in his mature years, as well as still older age, full-bodied
port was his favorite drink, and under its influence were seen to the
best advantage those colloquial powers which caused Samuel Johnson to
exclaim--"Depend upon it, sir, it is when you come close to a man in
conversation that you discover what his real abilities are; to make a
spe