friend he says: "But a little while past, to be a scholar of Corpus was the height of my ambition; that summit is (thank Heaven) gained, when another and another appears still in view. In a word, I shall not rest easy till I have ascended the rostrum in the theatre." That is, until he had gained the Chancellor's medal, and recited a prize composition from the rostrum of the Sheldonian. He competed for the prize Latin poem, Calpe Obsessa," on the recent successful defence of Gibraltar by General Elliot and his gallant followers. The prize fell to William Lisle Bowles, afterwards the genial and accomplished sonneteer; but the examiners commended Abbott's effort as quam proxime accessit." In the following year (1784) on the subject of balloon voyages, Globus Aerostaticus," Abbott's muse was more propitious. He won the prize, * and fulfilled his ambition by reciting his poem from the rostrum of the Sheldonian theatre. Afterwards he gained the Chancellor's medal for a tersely written essay on "The Use and Abuse of Satire." So far Abbott had lost nothing by starting "without a shilling." 66 In 1785, he took his degree of B.A., obtained a fellowship, and was appointed junior tutor. Though in improved circumstances, he lived with the most rigid economy, in order to contribute freely to the support of his mother, who had been left a widow. He was *The Latin is certainly elegant and the expression is sometimes ingenious, as in the following lines : "Quid dicum, et quales novit tibi chymicus artes ? meditating the important step of taking holy orders, when fortune again interfered to direct him into his proper career. He was invited to become tutor to a son of Mr. Justice Buller, one of the most eminent of the many eminent men who have illustrated the English bench; and the judge's quick eye, detecting the logical power of Abbott's intellect, strongly advised him to adopt the legal profession, as better suited to him than the clerical. "You may not possess," he said, "the garrulity called eloquence, which sometimes rapidly forces up an impudent pretender, but you are sure to get early into respectable business at the bar, and you may count on becoming in due time a puisne judge." Acting on this encouraging advice, Abbott articled himself for a year to a special pleader of the name of Wood, who, at the end of the year, told him he had learned all he had to teach.* "With characteristic prudence," says his biographer, "he then resolved to practise as a special pleader below the bar, until he had laid the basis firm and wide of an enduring reputation; and, hiring chambers in Brick Court, with a small boy as clerk at ten shillings a week, he sat down to wait for clients. These came to him more numerously and more quickly than his most sanguine dreams could have anticipated; for it was soon known that his advice was sound and promptly given, and that he possessed an almost unrivalled faculty for despatching business. After seven years of this laborious apprenticeship, he was called to the bar (1796), and started on the Oxford circuit. He had previously taken to himself a wife. The father of the lady he loved, a country squire, called upon him at his chambers, and "He seemed intuitively to catch an accurate knowledge of all the most abstruse mysteries of the Doctrina Placitandi, and he was supposed more rapidly to have qualified himself to practise them than any man before or since."-CAMPBELL, "Lord Chief Justices," iii. 270. inquired how, when married, he proposed to keep up his household. By these books in this room,' he answered, and two pupils in the next.' A year or two afterwards the Canterbury barber's son was making £8000 a-year." In 1816, he accepted a puisne judgeship, and fulfilled. Judge Buller's prophecy. But two years later he went beyond it, being appointed Lord Chief-Justice of England on the retirement of Lord Ellenborough. In this high office his peculiar intellectual qualifications, his quickness of perception, his closeness of reasoning, his solidity, and his patience, found a fitting arena for their exercise; and all lawyers agree that his administration of the business of his court was beyond praise. His tenure of office was, indeed, a golden age for lawyers and suitors. "Every point made by counsel was then understood in a moment; the application of every authority was understood at a glance; the counsel saw when he might sit down, his case being safe, and when he might sit down, all chance of success for his client being at an end. During that golden age law and reason prevailed. The result was confidently anticipated by the knowing before the argument began, and the judgment was approved of by all who heard it pronounced, including the vanquished party. Before such a tribunal the advocate becomes dearer to himself by preserving his own esteem. I do not believe that so much important business was ever done so rapidly and so well before any other court that ever sat in any age or country." The climax of the barber's son's successful career was reached when, in 1827, he was raised to the peerage by the title of Baron Tenterden, a promotion acknowledged by all to be but the due reward of his merits as a scholar, a gentleman, a lawyer, and a judge. When Wilberforce asked Lord Eldon how two young friends of his could best make their way at the bar, the great ex-Chancellor replied, "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." He spoke from his own experience. Born the son of a Newcastle coalfiller, he started on his career with no special advantages. His education was indifferent; and at school he gave no promise of future distinction. His father was actually hesitating whether he should bring him up to his own. trade, or apprentice him to a grocer, when his elder brother William (afterwards Lord Stowell), having just gained a scholarship at Oxford, wrote to him, "Send Jack up at once, I can do better for him." can do better for him." At all events, Jack did better for himself. He went to Oxford, applied himself to his studies with assiduity, and carried off a fellowship. When at home in the vacation, he met and fell in love with a beautiful girl, who was rich in everything but that which the world values as wealth—eloped with her, married her, and entered upon life without home or fortune. By this marriage he had forfeited his fellowship, and hence was compelled to abandon all intention of joining the Church. He turned his attention to the study of law, repaired to London, took a small house in Cursitor Street, and devoted all his energies to his new pursuit. No worker ever exhibited greater self-command or more determined perseverance. Rising at four in the morning, he studied until far into the following night, though frequently compelled to bind a wet towel round. his head to keep himself awake. As he was too poor to pay the fee of a "special pleader," he copied out no fewer than three folio volumes of "precedents" from a manuscript collection; and when the day's labours were at an end, he and his wife would sit down to a supper of sprats. At length he was called to the bar; but even then few clients came to his door, and his first year's earnings did not exceed nine shillings. However, that opportunity eventually came which patience and energy sooner or later never fail to command, and he had the skill and courage to make the most of it. Succeeding in a very difficult case, he rose at once into favour with solicitors and clients; and so rapid was his progress that, at the age of thirty-two, he was appointed King's Counsel. In due time he became Solicitor-General, AttorneyGeneral, and finally Lord Chancellor, holding the last distinguished position for a quarter of a century. When a person thought to compliment the great Chancellor Thurlow by asking him whether he was not sprung from the family of Thurlow, the secretary of Cromwell, the "law-lion" replied: "There were two Thurlows in my country. Thurlow the secretary, and Thurlow the carrier. I am descended from the latter." His father was a clergyman, occupying a small poor benefice at Ashfield, in Suffolk. Poor as he was, he contrived to give his son a decent education, and to send him to college, selecting Peter House, Cambridge, which is one of the least expensive. Most of our great lawyers have been remarkable for their studious youth; and, indeed, it would seem that in no profession is early application more indispensable than in that of the law. Thurlow was an exception. He devoted much of his time to pleasure, acquiring by his irregular babits an unfavourable reputation in the university. His natural powers, however, were so great that he contrived in his oocasional intervals of study to gain a considerable know But |