That same trial of Mrs. Cotton stands out vividly in my remembrance from among the many criminal cases which I have witnessed in the Courts. I remember Russell telling me afterwards that the several cases actually proved against her, amounting, I think, to five or six, were only a few from among many others in which her guilt was equally assured; and yet, during her trial, this elderly woman, who in appearance resembled rather a comfortable monthly nurse, never evinced the smallest trace of emotion or concern. It was proved that she had sat up night after night assiduously nursing her victims, as, one after another, they succumbed to the poison she had administered. And yet it was only when her advocate, whose case from the first was hopeless, endeavoured to appeal to the jury by a purely fanciful picture of her constant affection for these helpless children, that Mrs. Cotton--moved rather, as it would seem, by the artistic skill of his eloquence than by any deeper feeling--shed a few tears such as might have been wrung from a spectator at a play. My own experiences as a barrister are too slight to deserve any record. Mainly through the kindly influence of Charles Crompton I appeared in one or two civil causes, but these were before an arbitrator and not in open court. Once, and once only, I was entrusted with a brief to defend a person who was accused of having stolen a moth-eaten pillow from a passing barrow containing the household effects of a neighbour who was shifting her quarters. I was assured by my friends on Circuit that had I chosen to pursue my career I should have made an effective advocate. But the expenses incident to this side of my calling were already beginning to press heavily upon me; and as I was then almost entirely dependent on what I could earn for myself, I rather grudged the constant drain upon my income as a journalist which my life at the Bar involved; and when in the month of July 1873 I became engaged to be married, I quickly perceived that the only speedy prospect of making a home for my wife was to devote the whole of my energies to literature and journalism, in which I had already made a successful start. But the profession of the Law, so eagerly adopted and so speedily abandoned, has always had for me a strong fascination, and among its professors, both past and present, I have counted many of my closest friends. [Illustration: _Emery Walker_ DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI From the portrait by himself in the National Portrait Gallery. _To face page 59._ ] CHAPTER V DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI I can hardly say what it was that gave to my early efforts in journalism a decided bent towards the study of Art; for although my first experiments, as I have already said, were made as a dramatic critic, I very soon found myself employing the best of my energies in another direction.