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to his lessons an early taste I still retain for the genius and manner of writing of the Dean of St. Patrick."

There are, we imagine, not a few readers of these memoirs, who will feel a respect for Mr. Robert Scarlett, from the sole reason of his appreciation of the strength and beauty of Dean Swift's English. Nothing could have better fitted his son, at the age of fourteen or fifteen, for the career before him, than this training in good English authors. He had already determined to send his son to England to prepare for the bar. "I had entertained," says the latter, "a boyish predilection for the navy; but this soon yielded to his authority, and the advantages he set before me as the result of practising at the bar in Jamaica, where his influence and connections at that time were of considerable importance." Accordingly, James, now in his sixteenth year, sailed for England under the care of one of his uncles on the first of June, 1785. He never revisited his native island, nor does he seem ever to have seen his parents again, a remarkable illustration of how little people, even in opulent circumstances, travelled in the last century, and what an undertaking crossing the Atlantic, that we now think so little of, was considered before the invention of steamships. Shortly after his arrival in London he was admitted a student in the Inner Temple, under the auspices of a relation, who thought the proper consequence of his manly appearance was to add one year to his age in the memorandum of his admission. He was, a few weeks later, admitted as a fellow commoner at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he commenced his residence in November, 1785. Here, as many others have done under similar circumstances, he found a new world was opened to him.

"Accustomed from my infancy to live in my father's house, under the care of the most tender and affectionate of mothers, surrounded by a large family at home, and mixing, when allowed, with numerous relations and friends, who were ever studious to show me all kindness and attachment, I found myself transferred at once to a society consisting of various ranks, classes, and orders, altogether strange to me, and among the whole mass of whom I not only had no friend, but could not even claim an acquaintance. I was my own master too; my own order upon my father's agent in London commanded money without any limit but my own discretion, and I was accountable to no one on this side of the Atlantic for my conduct, or for the use of the confidence reposed in me.

"At Christmas, I had engaged myself to visit a family at Tittenhanger Park, near St. Alban's, the property of the Earl of Hardwicke. There I first met the lady to whom, after an attachment of nearly seven years, I was married. . . . I experienced from the whole family the greatest kindness, and though I was but sixteen, and the lady somewhat younger, she inspired me during that visit with a serious and lasting passion, which had a decided influence on my future life and conduct. I returned to college with a determination to apply myself with all possible diligence to my studies, and to obtain, as early as possible, that state of independence which might enable me to command the consent of my father, as well as of hers, to a union that was the leading object of all my wishes."

Fellow-commoners could not then compete for honors, and he could not, therefore, like his future friends and competitors, Copley, Pollock, and Alderson, begin his career with the great reputation of a high university degree. He seems, however, to have read with much assiduity.

"I labored assiduously to make up my deficiency in classics. I cannot boast of much progress in Greek; but I acquired great facility in the composition of Latin, and eagerly devoured the writers of the Augustan age, more especially Cicero, many of whose orations I translated into English, and, when I had nearly forgotten the original, back into Latin, by way of exercise. I became familiar with all his works, and my relish for them has never ceased. I read also, in French, the works of Racine, Boileau, Montesquieu, Rollin's History and Belles Lettres, Bossuet, and many others."

Nor did his being a stranger in the country, and without high connections, prevent his gaining a pleasant position among his fellow-students. With one of these, Prince William Frederick, nephew of George the Third, and afterwards second Duke of Gloucester, he formed an intimacy that seems to have lasted through life; and he was invited to join the True Blue Club, - a very exclusive society, whose membership was limited to twelve of the undergraduates of Trinity, -to fill the vacancy caused by Lord Belgrave's (afterwards Marquess of Westminster), taking his degree, but had the firmness to decline, a thing unprecedented, and which caused John Baynes, then a

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1 This friendship probably did not add much to Scarlett's intellectual enjoyment; for the Duke, although a very worthy, honorable man, went through life by the name of "Silly Billy."

Fellow of the college, and who had been second Wrangler at the age of eighteen, to seek his acquaintance.

Baynes is known to this generation as the intimate friend of Sir Samuel Romilly, who speaks of him with great respect and affection in his autobiography. He was practising as a special pleader in London, and only made occasional visits to Cambridge. Scarlett and he became warm friends, and Baynes gave him much assistance in his studies, and introduced him to Porson and Romilly.

There was

"It was upon one of my visits to town to keep a term in the Inner Temple that he introduced me to the celebrated Richard Porson. He had mentioned various particulars of that extraordinary man, one of which was the capacity he had for drinking and his indifference about the liquor. He said he had known him drink, at one sitting, sixteen cups of tea. It happened that, one Saturday evening, I was drinking tea at Baynes's chambers in Gray's Inn, after which we had agreed to go to the opera. a rap at the door, which induced him to go out of the room to desire the servant to deny him, but finding the visitor to be Porson, he brought him. into the room and introduced him to me. He then led him into a great variety of entertaining conversation, exhibiting his vast memory and sarcastic wit, during which he plied him with tea until he had filled up the measure of sixteen cups, upon which the party broke up, Porson declining to accompany us to the opera."

Baynes died rather suddenly, in August, 1788, just as Romilly, Scarlett, and he were about to set out on an excursion together into Yorkshire. By his will he divided his library between his two friends.

Scarlett took his degree in 1789, and transferred his residence to the Temple in London. He formed a close intimacy with Romilly, although it is rather singular that he is not mentioned in the latter's memoirs.1 He was also introduced to Pitt, the Prime Minister, and to Perceval, then a practising barrister, and who, twenty-two years later, met with such a melancholy fate. He had already begun to take an interest in politics, and to attend the debates in the House of Commons, where he heard the leading speakers Burke, Pitt, Fox, Sheridan, and Grey-"upon almost every important topic that occurred for several years." He also attended much of the

1 Romilly was twelve years Scarlett's senior, having been born in 1757 and called to the bar in 1783.

trial of Warren Hastings, "and heard the entire reply of Mr. Burke, which occupied two hours each day for eight consecutive days."

"Upon my first coming to settle in town I had recourse to my friend Romilly's advice to govern me in my study of the law. He recommended that I should read Blackstone's Commentaries, Coke upon Littleton, and the leading cases under each head in Comyns's Digest,1 which I should continue in my own manuscript as to cases published since the last edition of that work, and thus make myself acquainted with the terms and principles of the science before I encountered the jargon of a special pleader's office. I was already familiar with Cicero's 'Offices,' with Paley's 'Moral Philosophy,' with Locke, with Montesquieu Sur l'Esprit des Loix, and with some portions of Grotius De Jure Belli atque Pacis ... With Blackstone's Commentaries I was delighted. .. Comyns's Digest and the cases, I must own, I at first found very hard of digestion; but after some study bestowed upon the cases and arguments in the reports, I found much entertainment and exercise of the intellect in reading the modern cases."

He gradually, in reading, adopted the practice, when he had finished the arguments, of forming his own judgment of the merits of the case before looking at the decision. At first he found himself very inadequate to this practice, and his "presumption was often rebuked by the learning and wisdom of the judges." After some perseverance, however, he was delighted to find that he made progress, and that the practice afforded him not only entertainment, but the best means of judging what proficiency he had made in his studies.

"At length I was overjoyed to find that I was right in the majority of instances, and, what might have been a source of vanity to me, I generally found that I had hit upon the same system of reasoning as Mr. Justice Buller had adopted in his judgment. This, of course, gave me a high idea of that learned judge's superiority in legal learning and acuteness.

"The practice has been of great use in giving me the early habit of reflecting upon the principles and rules of the law, and applying them to new cases by my own reading; and I may here observe, what a long course of experience has taught me, that the lawyers least to be depended upon are those who are in constant pursuit of cases in point to govern their judgment, and who therefore seldom have sufficient knowledge of the principles to judge for themselves."

1 This famous work is printed twice in one page (Shades of Littledale and Metcalf!), "Connyer's Digest."

2 See Cornfoot v. Fowke, 6 M. & W. 380, 381.

In 1790, he entered the office of Mr. George Wood, an eminent special pleader, and afterwards a Baron of the Exchequer. Mr. Wood was a great character in his day. He never aspired to a silk gown, but was an accurate lawyer, and numbered among his pupils, besides Lord Abinger, Lords Erskine, Ellenborough, and Tenterden, as well as Mr. Canning.

Scarlett was called to the bar in 1791. The question now was, whether he should return to Jamaica immediately, where he was pretty sure of success, or remain for a time in England. Romilly advised the latter course, and it was adopted; and, after some indecision as to circuits, he selected the Northern Circuit, which, if not so at that time, soon became the great one.

"My first circuit produced nothing but two or three accidental briefs which fell to me as the junior, and one other which was due to my industry in Wood's office. It was a very complicated case, in which I had been trusted to draw the pleadings. As soon as I arrived in Carlisle, a brief was brought to me with a statement that the agent had been instructed to seek some special pleader on the circuit who would give assistance to Mr. Wood in the cause, and that he had returned for answer that no one would do it better than the gentleman who had prepared the pleadings under Mr. Wood's inspection. I entertained some doubts whether this was a legitimate mode of acquiring business; but these were soon removed by my old master Wood, who, upon my representing them to him, said nothing could be more honorable to me.

"Upon this occasion I made my début at Carlisle, and here, it may be said, was laid the foundation of my reputation. Some questions having arisen in the course of the trial upon the construction of the pleadings, it fell to my lot to explain them, which I had the good fortune to do to the satisfaction of the judge, and to receive from Mr. Law, afterwards Lord Ellenborough, who was on the other side, a very flattering compliment."

The mention of his hesitancy in accepting the brief makes this a proper place to speak of the high praise which all his contemporaries bestow on his professional conduct. Unlike one or two of his eminent brethren and some other great lawyers in England and America, he was, throughout his life, distinguished for his high professional integrity.1

1 He was once sued for slander, by an attorney whose chicanery he had commented upon very severely at the bar. The court held, that, as the subject was pertinent to the issue then trying, the comments were privileged. Hodgson v. Scarlett, 1 B. & Ald. 232.

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