d man was announced. 'We had
better go in to him,' said my father. 'No, no,' said the astute lawyer.
'John,' said he, turning to the butler, 'show him into the study, and
take him a bottle of the old port.' Then turning to my father, 'A glass
of port will do him good; it will soften him.' After waiting about
twenty minutes they went into the study; the farmer was sitting bolt
upright in an arm-chair, stern and uncompromising; the bottle of port had
not been touched. Negotiations then proceeded very much in favour of the
farmer, and a bargain was struck. The old man then proceeded to turn his
attention to the port, and in a very few minutes he had finished the
bottle."

Mr. Dickens also told me of his father's knowledge of the legal
profession, and of the distinguished members of it. Though not himself,
he writes, of the legal profession, my father was very fond of lawyers.
He numbered among his intimate friends Lord Denman, Lord Campbell, Mr.
Justice Talfourd, Chief Justice Crockford; in fact, it is difficult to
name any eminent lawyer who could not claim acquaintance, at any rate,
with our great author. And he tells me, too, an anecdote relating to a
distinguished lawyer of the present day--Sir Henry Hawkins. We nearly
lost that great man, I think about the year 1851, on the occasion of some
theatricals at Knebworth. The play was _Every Man in his Humour_, and
Frank Stone, the artist, father of Mr. Marcus Stone, R.A., was allowed to
play a part with a sword. (Those of you who have had any experience of
theatrical matters know how dangerous it is to trust a sword to an
amateur.) He came up flourishing the sword, and if Mr. Hawkins had not
ducked we should have lost that eminent man; but he did it just in time.

Before I introduce you to the types of the judge, the counsel, the
solicitors, let me say something to you of the district in which lawyers
live, or rather in Dickens's time lived, and still do congregate. From
Gray's Inn in the north to the Temple in the south, from New Inn and
Clement's Inn in the west to Barnard's Inn in the east. I once lived
myself in Clement's Inn, and heard the chimes go, too; and I remember one
day I sat in my little room very near the sky (I do not know why it is
that poverty always gets as near the sky as possible; but I should think
it is because the general idea is that there is more sympathy in heaven
than elsewhere), and as I sat there a knock came at the door, and the