“This was no common occasion for the display of these powers so peculiarly the instinctive gift of the Bar, and certainly they used it with all the enthusiasm of a _bonne bouche_.... How I trembled for the _Aurora_, when an elderly gentleman, with a wart on his nose, assured the court that the _Durham_ had her topsail backed ten minutes before the anchor fell; and then, how I feared again for the _Durham_, as a thin man in spectacles worked the Prussian about in a double-reefed main-sail, and stood round in stays so very beautifully. I thought myself at sea, so graphic was the whole description--the waves splashed and foamed around the bulwarks, and broke in spray upon the deck; the wind rattled amid the rigging, the bulkheads creaked, and the good ship heaved heavily in the trough of the sea, like a mighty monster in its agony. But my heart quailed not--I knew that Dr. Lushington was at the helm, and Dr. Haggard had the look-out ahead--I felt that Dr. Robinson stood by the lee braces, and Dr. Addison waited, hatchet in hand, to cut away the mainmast! These were comforting reflections, until I was once more enabled to believe myself in Her Majesty’s High Court of Admiralty. “Alas! ye Coopers, ye Marryats, ye Chamiers--ye historians of storm and sea-fight, how inferior are your triumphs compared with the descriptive eloquence of a law court. Who can portray the broken heart of blighted affection like Charles Phillips in a breach of promise case? What was Scott compared to Scarlett?--how inferior is Dickens to Counsellor O’Driscoll?--here are the men, who, without the trickery of trade, ungilt, unlettered, and unillustrated, can move the world to laughter and tears. They ask no aid from Colburn, nor from Cruikshank--they need not ‘Brown’ nor Longman, Heaven-born warriors, doctors, chemists, and anatomists; deep in every art, learned in every science--mankind is to them an open book, which they read at will, and con over at leisure--happy country, where your talents are so available that they can be had for the asking.” FOOTNOTE [1] A satire on barristers, by Charles Lever. CHAPTER I DIVORCE[2]