a licentious and venal press; and before legislation endowed
English journalism with a certain measure of freedom and security, it
was seldom manly and was often corrupt. It is therefore probable that
our grandfathers had some show of reason for their dislike of
contributors to anonymous literature. At the bar men of unquestionable
amiability and enlightenment were often the loudest to express this
aversion for their scribbling brethren. It was said that the scribblers
were seldom gentlemen in temper; and that they never hesitated to puff
themselves in their papers. These considerations so far influenced Mr.
Justice Lawrence that, though he was a model of judicial suavity to all
other members of the bar, he could never bring himself to be barely
civil to advocates known to be 'upon the press.'

At Lincoln's Inn this strong feeling against journalists found vent in a
resolution, framed in reference to a particular person, which would have
shut out journalists from the Society. It had long been understood that
no student could be called to the bar _whilst_ he was acting as a
reporter in the gallery of either house; but the new decision of the
benchers would have destroyed the ancient connexion of the legal
profession and literary calling. Strange to say this illiberal measure
was the work of two benchers who, notwithstanding their patrician
descent and associations, were vehement asserters of liberal principles.
Mr. Clifford--'O.P.' Clifford--was its proposer and Erskine was its
seconder. Fortunately the person who was the immediate object of its
provisions petitioned the House of Commons upon the subject, and the
consequent debate in the Lower House decided the benchers to withdraw
from their false position; and since their silent retreat no attempt has
been made by any of the four honorable societies to affix an undeserved
stigma on the followers of a serviceable art. Upon the whole the
literary calling gained much from the discreditable action of Lincoln's
Inn; for the speech in which Sheridan covered with derision this attempt
to brand parliamentary reporters as unfit to associate with members of
the bar, and the address in which Mr. Stephen, with manly reference to
his own early experiences, warmly censured the conduct of the society of
which he was himself a member, caused many persons to form a new and
juster estimate of the working members of the London press. Having
alluded to Dr. Johnson and Edmund Burke, who ha