In 1669 Roger North was admitted a student of the Middle Temple, Francis being then a Bencher of that learned society. Roger had chambers on the west side of Middle Temple Lane, and £10 wherewith to furnish them and buy a gown, and other necessaries. He says it was not enough, but that he managed to make it serve. His excellent mother, though she had some ten children and a difficult husband, produced £30, with which he bought law books. His father allowed him £40 a year, and he had his big brother at hand to help him out of debt now and again. He was, we feel as we read, a little uneasy under his brother’s eye. The elder North had a disagreeable fashion of putting ‘little contempts upon his brother,’ and a way of raising his own character by depressing Roger’s, which was hard to bear. But Roger North bore it bravely; he meant sticking to his brother, and stick he did. In five years he saw Francis become King’s Counsel, Solicitor, and Attorney-General. ‘If he should die, writes Roger, ‘I am lost.’ But Francis did not die, which was as well, for he was much better suited for this world than the next. Roger North was no great student of the law. He was fond of mathematics, optics, mechanics, architecture, music, and of sailing a small yacht--given him by Mr. Windham, of Felbrigge--on the Thames; and he gives in his Autobiography interesting accounts of these pastimes. He was very anxious indeed to get on and make money, but he relied more upon his brother than upon either his own brains or his own industry.