This (though not the end of Mr. Starkie's reflections) is the conclusion of the whole matter. Here is the final crown of the work, the last stage of the long evolution of opinion. concerning the attorney. Not always is his nature subdued to what it works in, like the dyer's hand. The work which earns his body's bread need never stain the soul. The attorney, also, even he, like the critics, "is Man."

Here, then, the tale should have its ending. But the poets are like honest Verges-" a good old man, sir, he will be talking." And the true word having been spoken, Mr. Robert Buchanan found himself compelled to fall back upon the legend. Mr. Buchanan was "ever a fighter." He would have made pretty play with his cudgel in the old swashbuckling days; Grub Street would have resounded with his shouts of triumph and the howls of his victims. He costumes his solicitor in the style of the Adelphi, a "villain of halfpenny sheets."

"Sharp like a tyrant, timid like a slave,

A little man with yellow, bloodless cheek;
A snappish mingling of the fool and knave,

Resulting in the hybrid compound-Sneak."

It is not for the reader to contest Mr. Buchanan's criticism on his own creation; Mr. Thomas Sneak, the respectable solicitor, a man of principle, of means, of regular church-going habits, is not the most probable result of the union of a tramp, with a "half tramp, half pedlar and whole scamp." Yet such Mr. Buchanan declared his parentage. Mr. Sneak himself explained the position :

Put execution in on Mrs. Hart

If people will be careless, let them smart.

Oh, hang her children! just the common cry!

Am I to feed her family? Not I.

I'm tender-hearted but I dare be just,

I never go beyond the law, I trust;

I've work'd my way, plotted and starved and plann'd,

Commenced without a penny in my hand,

And never howl'd for help, or dealt in sham

No! I'm a man of principle, I am.

What's that you say? Oh! father has been here?
Of course you sent him packing? Dear, oh, dear!
When one has work'd his weary way like me,
To comfort and respectability,

Can pay his bills and save a pound or two,

And say his prayers on Sunday in a pew,

Can look the laws of England in the face,
'Tis hard, 'tis hard, 'tis shame and 'tis disgrace,
That one's own father-old and worn and gray-
Should be the only hindrance in his way.
Swore, did he very pretty! Threatened? Oh!
Demanded money? You, of course, said “No”?
'Tis hard-my life will never be secure-

He'll be my ruin some day, I am sure.

Mr. Sneak's pride in his profession is very pleasing. Not everyone can feel his exultation in being on the roll-"the height on which I stand." But Mr. Sneak had, as he said, more than his fair share of trouble. A prodigal father is a severe trial. Mr. Sneak's mistake, in dealing with the problem, was his attempt to make his father a clerk. An old gentleman of wandering habits, given to potations, and in his cups excessively sentimental, if not maudlin, would upset the discipline of any office. The picture of the old man, fed and clothed by his son, and reproaching him for his baseness in prospering in the world, and especially for ingratitude, possesses a humour which Mr. Buchanan, perhaps, did not realize. Mr. Sneak, senior, was of the race which derided attorneys. Set down to copy documents, he preferred to use his son's foolscap to draw (inter alia, as his son would have said):

A shape in black, that kick'd and agonised,
Strung by a pauper to a gallows great

And underneath it written," Tommie's Fate !"

So do the wits repeat their fancies, and Mr. Woty's crowning jest recurs unchanged after the lapse of a hundred years. More in accord with modern feeling than this outmoded satire is the presentation of a professional man given by Mr. W. S. Gilbert. Mr. Monkhouse first among poets admitted that the solicitor is a man; Mr. Gilbert with

penetrating insight goes deeper to the heart of things, and reveals him as a man of feeling and delicacy almost excessive in its refinement. Mr. Gilbert, indeed, refers many times to the profession. He first made known the Solicitor of Ealing, who wedded a fairy; he refers in fitting terms to the fame of Ely Place; but nowhere has he drawn a more careful portrait than that of "Baines Carew, Gentleman": BAINES CAREW, GENTLEMAN.

Of all the good attorneys who

Have placed their names upon the roll,
But few could equal BAINES CAREW,

For tender-heartedness and soul.
Whene'er he heard a tale of woe

From Client A or Client B,
His grief would overcome him so,

He'd scarce have strength to take his fee.

It laid him up for many days,

When duty led him to distrain;
And serving writs, although it pays,

Gave him excruciating pain.

He made out costs, distrained for rent,

Foreclosed and sued, with moistened eye

No bill of costs could represent

The value of such sympathy.

No charges can approximate

The worth of sympathy with woe ;

Although I think I ought to state

He did his best to make them so.

Of all the many clients, who

Had mustered round his legal flag,

No single client of the crew

Was half so dear as CAPTAIN BAGG.

Now CAPTAIN BAGG had bowed him to

A heavy matrimonial yoke;

His wifey had of faults a few

She never could resist a joke.
Her chaff at first he meekly bore,
Till unendurable it grew.

"To stop this persecution sore

I will consult my friend CAREW.

"And when CAREW's advice I've got,

Divorce a mensâ I shall try."

(A legal separation-not

A vinculo conjugii).

"O BAINES CAREW, my woe I've kept

46

A secret hitherto, you know; (And BAINES CAREW, Esquire, he wept To hear that BAGG had any woe).

'My case, indeed, is passing sad,

My wife-whom I considered true-
With brutal conduct drives me mad."
"I am appalled" said BAINES Carew.

"What! sound the matrimonial knell
Of worthy people such as these!
Why was I an Attorney? Well-
Go on to the saevitia, please."
"Domestic bliss has proved my bane,
A harder case you never heard,

My wife (in other matters sane)
Pretends that I'm a Dicky Bird!

“She makes me sing, 'Too-whit, too-wee!' And stand upon a rounded stick,

And always introduces me

To every one as Pretty Dick!'”

"Oh dear," said weeping BAINES Carew, "This is the direst case I know". "I'm grieved," said BAGG, "at paining youTO COBB and POLTERTHWAITE I'll go.

"TO COBB's cold calculating ear

My gruesome sorrows I'll impart.”—

"No; stop," said BAINES, "I'll dry my tear, And steel my sympathetic heart!"

"She makes me perch upon a tree,

Rewarding me with 'Sweety-nice!'

And threatens to exhibit me

With four or five performing mice."

"Restrain my tears I wish I could "

(Said BAINES)" I don't know what to do."

Said CAPTAIN BAGG," You're very good."

"Oh, not at all," said BAINES CAREW.

"She makes me fire a gun," said BAGG;

"And at a preconcerted word, Climb up a ladder with a flag,

Like any street-performing bird.
"She places sugar in my way—

In public places calls me Sweet!'
She gives me groundsel every day,

And hard canary seed to eat."

"Oh, woe! oh, sad! oh, dire to tell!"

(Said BAINES), "Be good enough to stop." And senseless on the floor he fell

With unpremeditated flop.

Said CAPTAIN BAGG, "Well, really I
Am grieved to think it pains you so,

I thank you for your sympathy;

But hang it come--I say, you know!"
But BAINES lay flat upon the floor,
Convulsed with sympathetic sob-

The Captain toddled off next door,

And gave the case to MR. COBB.

Here, then, "the wheel has come full circle." Where the poets of a century ago saw mere greed and villainy the modern seer descries a perfect exemplification of the generous qualities, carefully graduated from the delicate sensibility of Mr. Carew, to the robust helpfulness of Mr. Cobb, and the unassuming but serviceable virtues of Mr. Polterthwaite. An anonymous singer has gone even farther, and pictured the solicitor (as in fact he is) not the oppressor, but the victim of his clients.

So the truth prevails, and at last the attorney's virtues are recognised. True this has happened only when Parliament is busy depriving him of his livelihood; but at least truth has prevailed, and doubtless soon from the Bodley Head will proceed a Six-and-eightpenny Garland for its fuller E. B. V. CHRISTIAN.

utterance.