employ, it might be supposed that he spent several years in wandering over distant lands and sojourning at foreign. courts.' He did cross the English Channel, but, upon examining dates, it will be found that his "travels over the continent of Europe" shrink into a long-vacation trip to France and Italy, which most practicing lawyers have taken. On the 24th of June, 1730, after keeping Trinity Term at Lincoln's Inn, he was present in the schools at Oxford, and, with the usual forms, received the degree of M.A. On the 23rd day of November following, he was called to the bar in Lincoln's Inn Hall; and he probably had returned some weeks previously, to make preparations for commencing his professional career.' I believe there is not extant any account of his adventures-but thus speculates one author, who would have us believe that, as Gibbon conceived the plan of his "Decline and Fall" on viewing the ruins of the Capitol, so Murray was first fired with the ambition of being a great lawyer and orator on beholding the scene where Cicero had triumphed :

"At Rome Mr. Murray was probably inspired and animated with the love of Ciceronian eloquence; at Rome he was prompted to make Cicero his great example and his theme. At Tusculum, and in his perambulations over classical ground, why might he not be emulous to lay the foundation of that noble superstructure of bright fame which he soon raised after he became a member of Lincoln's Inn."'

I make no doubt that, ever industrious and eager for improvement, he turned his jaunt of two or three months to the best advantage, and that, having introductions to our ministers abroad and to the most eminent literary characters in the cities which he visited, he saw, and reflected and profited more in this short interval than

'Lord Brougham describes him as “enjoying all the advantages of a finished classical education; adding to this the enlargement of mind derived from foreign travel, undertaken at an age when attentive observation can be accompanied by reflection." (Statesmen, i. 100.)

"At a Council held the 23rd day of Nov., 1730.-Ordered that the Honble Wm. Murray, Esqre, one of the fellows of this Society, being of full standing, and having performed all his exercises, be called to the bar, first paying all his arrears and duties to this Society; and that he be published at the next Exercises in the Hall."

Holliday, pp. 9, 10.

the ordinary "sons of earth," who waste years on the Continent, chiefly employed in critising the performances of opera singers, or in exposing themselves to ridicule. for their determined adherence to English prejudices and absurdities.

When he put on the long robe, it may be safely affirmed that there had not hitherto appeared at the English bar a young man so well qualified by his acquirements to follow the law as a liberal profession Without having become a deep black letter lawyer, he was scientifically familiar with our municipal jurispru dence, and capable of conquering any particular point in it which he might have occasion to encounter. He had made himself acquainted not only with international law, but with the codes of all the most civilized nations, ancient and modern; he was an elegant classical scholar; he was thoroughly imbued with the literature of his own country; he had profoundly studied our mixed constitution; he had a sincere desire to be of service to his country; and he was animated by a noble aspiration after honorable fame. A very different being this from the dull plodder, who, having gained a knowledge of forms and technical rules, looks only to make his bread by law as a trade-or the empty adventurer, who expects to secure wealth and high office by a flashy speech!

CHAPTER XXXI.

CONTINUATION OF THE LIFE OF LORD MANSFIELD TILL HE WAS MADE SOLICITOR GENERAL AND

M

ENTERED THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

URRAY remained at the bar above two years without a brief, or, at least, without being employed in a cause of importance. During this trying interval his courage fully supported him, and, although he must have passed anxious moments, he still felt the confidence of ultimate success which genius sometimes prompts. His friends were most afraid, from his literary connections and propensities, that he would be induced to relax his resolution to raise himself by the law, and that he would attempt authorship or prematurely mix in political strife. The recent examples of Addison and Prior were very seducing to those who might be disposed to prefer the primrose path of poetry. But Murray now, and ever after, displayed a rooted attachment to his profession, and a firm purpose to establish his reputation by reaching its highest honors. He therefore actually declined an offer made to him to bring him immediately into parliament,-being convinced that a barrister ought not, in prudence, to expose himself to this distraction till he is fully established in practice and may fairly expect to be appointed Solicitor General; and we shall see that he afterwards preferred a seat on the bench to the leadership of the House of Commons and the near prospect of being Prime Minister. I do not believe that he looked upon the fame of a great judge with more respect than that of a great poet or a great statesman, but he made a prudent estimate of his own powers. He certainly had not sufficient imagination for poetry, or moral courage for statesmanship, although his fine understanding and his eloquence were sure to command success in the career on which he had

entered. Thus, in the words which he himself employed "he had genius and resolution enough to raise himself above the common level:

'Victorque virum volitare per ora.'"

Never absent from chambers when there was a possibility of a client calling to consult him, or from Westminster Hall when a diligent young barrister ought to be seen there, he still contrived to keep up an intercourse with the witty and the powerful. He now took chambers at No. 5 King's Bench Walk, in the Temple; and here Pope frequently visited him in the evening, to save him from the suspicion of neglecting his profession by haunting coffee-houses, as he had allowed himself to do while a student. We may easily imagine that the lawyer and the poet occasionally met at the Grecian, or Dick's, or The Devil's Tavern, which were close by,or in the shop of Lintot between the two Temples, or that of Tonson in Chancery Lane; or that they went together to the theater in Lincoln's Inn Fields, to see the performances of Betterton and Mrs. Clive; but for such meetings I find no authority; and we must tell what we know to be true, not what we consider to be probable.

Murray continued as eager as when he was a student under the bar to increase his store of professional learning, and by no means (after the common fashion of lawyers who have had an academical education) abandoned liberal studies. Through the busiest part of his life he found time to keep up his acquaintance with the Greek and Latin classics, and to gain a knowledge of new publications of merit soon after they issued from the press. In an interval of leisure he showed that he was qualified, like M. Guizot, the Prime Minister of Louis Philippe, to gain celebrity as a professor in a university. For the benefit of the heir of the ducal house of Portland, he wrote two very long letters to that young nobleman "On the Study of Ancient and Modern History,"which would constitute an admirable syllabus for a course of lectures. It is with some humiliation that I look to the members of the profession at the present day without being able, either at the bar or the bench, to

discover any one with such an extensive, exact, and philosophical acquaintance with historical books, historical events, and historical characters. You would suppose that he had lived in every age which he describes, having witnessed the occurrences which he narrates, and conversed with the men to whom he presents his readers In ancient history I think he most excites admiration by his remarks on the causes of the decline of the Roman empire, which, even with the assistance of Montesquieu and Bossuet, till Gibbon arose few so thoroughly understood. The familiarity which he displays with modern history is quite astounding,— and I had almost said appalling, for it produces a painful consciousness of inferiority, and creates remorse for time mis-spent. He seems to have carried in his memory every remark of every French historical writer from Philip de Comines to Voltaire; and by a few masterly strokes he gives a better notion of Clovis, Charlemagne, Louis XI., and Henry IV., than is to be gathered from perusing many tomes of ordinary book-makers.' Some will regret that he did not devote himself to historical composition, and so wipe off the reproach which in this department of our literature attached to it before the age of Robertson and Hume. But I must proceed to show what benefits he conferred on the community in the employments to which his destiny carried him.

It has often been said that Lord Mansfield "never knew the difference between total destitution and an income of £3000 a year." This is a common instance of a perversion of truth from a love of the marvelous. He had been above seven years at the bar before his gains reached or approached this amount; but from his third year, at all events, he had very encouraging practice, and he must have been comparatively wealthy.

He had long before dedicated his first professional earnings to the purchase of a set of tea china, with suit

Holliday, 12-23. Murray seems to have had rather an excessive admiration of French genius, to which Scotsmen are liable; and he had a respect for Voltaire which few now would have the courage to confess, for, since the French Revolution, an indiscriminate abuse of this author has been in England the text of orthodoxy and loyalty.

Character of Lord Mansfield by Mr. Buller Seward's Anecdotes, iv 192; Koscoe's Eminent Lawyers, 171.