wearied before the close of the first discourse; but when, after singing and prayer, the good minister opened the Bible, read a second text, and prepared to give a second sermon, the girl, being both tired and hungry, lost all patience, and cried out to her grandmother, "Come awa, granny, and gang hame, this is a lang grace, and nae meat.”

Very droll are the estimates of some congregations of the merits of their ministers. A worthy old clergyman having, upon the occasion of a communion Monday, taken a text involving a discussion of a strictly moral or practical question, was thus commented on by an ancient dame of the congregation, who was previously acquainted with his style of discourse :-" If there's an ill text in a' the Bible, that creetur's aye sure to tak it."

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A poor woman was asked if she ever attended Dr. Chalmers's church, in the West Port, for Divine Service. "Ou ay," she replied; "there's a man ca' Chalmers preaches there, and I whiles gang in and hear him, just to encourage him, puir body!"

A clergyman in the country had a stranger preaching for him one day, and meeting his beadle, he said to him, "Well, Saunders, how did you like the sermon to-day?" "I watna, sir, it was rather o'er plain and simple for me. I like thae sermons bae that jumbles the joodgement and confounds the sense; Od, sir, I never saw ane that could come up to yoursel' at that."

Canine intruders have been known to upset the gravity of many an audience. Dean Ramsay relates that a clergyman had been annoyed in the course of his sermon by restlessness and occasional whining of a dog, which at last began to bark outright. He looked out for the beadle, and directed him very peremptorily, "John, carry that dog out." John looked up to the pulpit, and, with a very knowing expression said, "Na, na, sir; I'se just make him gae out on his ain four legs."

A dog had been very troublesome in one of the Glasgow churches, and disturbed the congregation for some time, when the minister at last gave orders to the beadle, "Take out that dog; he'd waken a Glasgow magistrate."

LAW AND LAWYERS.

CHANCES OF THE BAR.

Sir Walter Scott used to amuse his friends by his account of an early anticipation of Cranstoun's professional success. Within a few weeks after he, Scott, and William Erskine had put on the gown, being in Selkirkshire, they were all invited to dinner by an old drunken Selkirk writer, who had-what was worth three young advocates' attention—a great deal of bad business. Cranstoun, who was never anything at a debauch, was driven off the field, with a squeamish stomach and awful countenance, shamefully early. Erskine, always ambitious, adhered to the bowl somewhat longer; but Scott, who, as he said, "was at home with the hills and the whiskeypunch," not only triumphed over these two, but very nearly over the landlord. As they were mounting their horses to ride home, the entertainer let the other two go without speaking to them; but he embraced Scott, assuring him that he would rise high," And I'll tell you, Maister Walter,—that lad Cranstoun may get to the tap o' the bar if he can; but tak' ma word for't,-it's no by drinking."

Lord Chief-Justice Kenyon once said to a rich friend, asking his opinion as to the probable success of a son, “Sir, let your son forthwith spend his fortune; marry, and spend his wife's; and then he may be expected to apply with energy to his profession."

This advice has also been attributed to Lord Thurlow, who with Dunning might be cited as practical examples of the stimulating effects of poverty. They used generally to “dine together, in vacation time, at a small eating-house near Chancery-lane, where their meal was supplied to them at the

charge of sevenpence-halfpenny a-head." Horne Tooke, who frequently made a third, added, in telling this, "Dunning and myself were generous, for we gave the girl who waited on us a penny a-piece; but Kenyon, who always knew the value of money, rewarded her with a halfpenny, and sometimes with a promise." Erskine often spoke of the incentive at home in his wife and children twitching at his gown, and constraining him to exertion.

Lord Abinger was so strongly impressed with the conviction, that independence in point of circumstances was requisite, as well to give the candidate a fair chance as to keep up the respectability of the calling, that at one time he had serious thoughts of proposing a property qualification for barristers. In his opinion, 400l. a-year was the smallest income on which a barrister should begin.

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Sir Thomas Buxton relates that he once asked Lord Abinger what was the secret of his pre-eminent success as an advocate. He replied that he took care to press home the one principal point of the case, without paying much attention to the others. He also said that he knew the secret of being short. find," said he, "that when I exceed half an hour I am always doing mischief to my client; if I drive into the heads of the jury important matter, I drive out matter more important that I had previously lodged there."

STUDY OF THE LAW.

When Mr. Wilberforce had a long talk with Lord Eldon, on the best mode of study for some young friends of his to be lawyers, the reply was not encouraging :- "I have no rule to give them, but that they must make up their minds to live like a hermit, and work like a horse." Nevertheless the real labour once mastered, we may "drive several accomplishments abreast."

Mr. Charles Butler tells us that Fearne, the author of the Essay on Contingent Remainders, was profoundly versed in medicine, chemistry, and mathematics-had obtained a patent for dyeing scarlet-and written a treatise on the Greek accent. The period of life at which students impair their health by study is generally from eighteen to twenty-five.

As to the overwhelming labour of the law, when it has been learned, the late Lord Abinger used to boast that he dined

out every day during the whole of a long Guildhall sittings; and lawyers in full business spend evening after evening in the House of Commons.

In a long list of examples, nothing strikes us more than the variety of plans of study, modes of life, kinds of talent, and degrees of industry, presented by it. Thurlow at Nando's, and Wedderburn in the green-room; Murray before the looking glass, and Eldon with the wet towel round his head; a judge's son (Camden) neglected for twelve years, and an attorney's (Hardwicke) fairly forced into the Solicitor-Generalship in five; Kenyon loving law, and Romilly detesting it; Dunning brought forward by an East India director, and Erskine by an old seaman; such things set all speculation at defiance, or bring us back at last to the sage remark of Vanvenargues, that " every thing may be looked for from men

and from events."

RISE OF LORD LOUGHBOROUGH.

When Lord Loughborough first came to London, he was a constant attendant at the green-room, and associated with Macklin, Foote, and Sheridan (the father of Richard Brinsley), who assisted him to soften down his Scotch accent. But the main chance was not neglected. It is stated in Boswell's Johnson, that he solicited Strahan the printer, a countryman, to get him employed in city causes; and his brother-in-law, Sir Harry Erskine, procured him the patronage of Lord Bute. When a man of decided talent and good connexion does not stand on trifles, there is no necessity for speculating on the precise causes of his success.

By the laws of England, the Lord Chancellor is held. to be the guardian of the persons and property of all such individuals as are said to be no longer of sound mind, and good disposing memory-in fine, to have lost their senses. Lord Chancellor Loughborough once ordered to be brought to him a man against whom his heirs wished to take out a statute of lunacy. He examined him very attentively, and put various questions to him, to all of which he made the most pertinent and apposite answers. "This man mad!" thought he; "verily, he is one of the ablest men I ever met with." Towards the end of his examination, however, a little scrap of paper, torn from a letter,

was put into Lord Loughborough's hand, on which was written "Ezekiel." This was enough for such a shrewd man as the Chancellor ; who forthwith took his cue. "What fine poetry," said his Lordship, "is in Isaiah!" "Very fine," replied the man, "especially when read in the original Hebrew." "And how well Jeremiah wrote!" 66 said the man. "What a genius, too, was Ezekiel !" you like him?" said the man; "I'll tell you a secret—I am Ezekiel!"

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THE CHANCELLOR'S PURSE.

Lady Hardwicke, the wife of the Chancellor, loved money as well as his lordship did, and what he got she saved. The purse in which the Great Seal is carried, is of very expensive embroidery, and was provided, during Lord Hardwicke's time, every year. Lady Hardwicke took care that it should not become the Seal-bearer's perquisite, for she annually retained the purse herself; having previously ordered that the velvet. of which it was made should be of the length of the height of one of the state rooms at Wimpole, Lord Hardwicke's seat in Cambridgeshire. So many of the old purses were thus saved, that Lady Hardwicke had enough velvet to hang the state-room throughout, and make curtains for the state bed.

Lord Hardwicke, on one occasion, made a warlike harangue on quitting the woolsack to address the House of Lords; carried away by the national enthusiasm, beyond his accustomed moderation and even gentleness of speech, he was declaiming with vehemence on the Spanish depredations in 1739, when Sir Robert Walpole, standing on the throne, said to those near him, "Bravo, Colonel Yorke, bravo!"

LORD FOLEY'S WILL.

Lord Foley, finding his two sons inordinately addicted to gambling, left the bulk of his property to the son of his eldest son, and only gave a life income to the two brothers. The sons, who had reckoned on their father's death to clear off their gambling debts, actually attempted to get an Act of Parliament passed to set aside the will; and so strong was the pressure exercised by a fashionable society, which thought very hard on two fine young men to be kept from gambling,

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