RANK AND TALENT; A NOVEL. BY THE AUTHOR OF “TRUCKLEBOROUGH-HALL.” When once he’s made a Lord, Who’ll be so saucy as to think he can Be impotent in wisdom? COOK. Why, Sir, ’tis neither satire nor moral, but the mere passage of an history; yet there are a sort of discontented creatures, that bear a stingless envy to great ones, and these will wrest the doings of any man to their base malicious appliment. MARSTON. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: HENRY COLBURN, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 1829. RANK AND TALENT. CHAPTER I. “Law is the world’s great light, a second sun To this terrestrial globe, by which all things Have life and being; and without which Confusion and disorder soon would seize The general state of men.” BARRY. The Summer assizes for the county of ----, in the year 18--, excited in the county-town where they were held rather more than the usual sensation; but in the remote and smaller town of Brigland, they roused a stirring interest. Long before the day of the trial, every vehicle which could be hired was engaged to carry the curious to the assizes, to hear the action brought by poor old Richard Smith against the Hon. Philip Martindale, for an assault and false imprisonment. The defendant was by no means popular at Brigland, and there were circumstances, which rendered the injury done to the plaintiff peculiarly hard and oppressive; and whenever the sympathy of the multitude is with the poor oppressed against the rich oppressor, that sympathy is very strong, and indignation is not choice in the terms of its expression, nor does cool deliberation precede judgment. It was the common, and almost universal wish, that the defendant might have to pay heavy damages; and that he might hear from the lips of the plaintiff’s counsel some home truths, which might mortify his pride, and abate his arrogance. In addition to the excitement which this action produced, there was also another, though smaller stimulus to curiosity, in the first appearance on the circuit of a young barrister, who was a native of the town in which the assizes were held. These two circumstances, therefore, filled the court at an early hour with anxious and curious expectants.