XVII Bars and Barristers
The profession of a barrister is a curious one. Theoretically, he is the champion and protector of right and justice; but, practically, he often is but the hired advocate of wrong and injustice. It is only when he has attained high distinction at the Bar that he can, like Serjeant Ballantine, be independent enough to say that he will undertake no case of the justice of which he is not fully satisfied. True, counsel is assumed to base his arguments on behalf of his client on the instructions he receives from the solicitor who employs him; yet he, counsel, having had a legal education, and practice, too, cannot fail to see the weak points, supposing there are any, in the case before him, and the evidence adduced in examination and cross-examination must very soon satisfy him as to the real merits of his case; hence we often see counsel throwing up his brief. It is related in Laud’s Diary that, when he was standing one day near his unfortunate master, then Prince Charles, the Prince said that, if necessity compelled him to choose any particular profession, he could not be a lawyer, ‘for,’ said he, ‘I could neither defend a bad cause, nor yield in a good one.’ By the Roman laws every advocate was required to swear that he would not undertake a cause which he knew to be unjust, and that he would abandon a defence which he should discover to be supported by falsehood and iniquity. This is continued in Holland at this day, and if an advocate brings forward a cause there which appears to the court plainly to be iniquitous, he is condemned in the costs of the suit; and if, in consequence of this, a cause, just in itself, should not be able to find a defender because of some strong and general prejudice concerning it, the court has authority to appoint a counsel.
The universal opinion that advocates are ready to support injustice for the sake of gain—that they will undertake more work than they can possibly attend to—is of very ancient date. The Lord Keeper Puckering, directing attention to the grasping habits which too frequently disgraced the leaders of the Bar, observed: ‘I am to exhort you also not to embrace multitude of causes, or to undertake more places of hearing causes, than you are well able to consider of or perform, lest thereby you either disappoint your clients, when their causes be heard, or come unprovided, or depart when their causes be in hearing.’ That the administration of justice is much improved in modern days is sufficiently proved by the fact that now no judge would be allowed, as he was in the closing years of the fourteenth century, to give opinions for money to his private clients, although he was forbidden to take gold or silver from any person having ‘plea or process hanging before him.’
It is, in fact, still a moot point, and, we suppose, always will be, what lengths an advocate may go to, consistently with truth and honour, in pleading the cause of a client whom he knows to be guilty. The conduct of Charles Phillipps, in defending Courvoisier, has always been condemned. Courvoisier did not confess his guilt to his counsel, but admitted to him that he had made away with some plate from Lord William Russell’s house immediately after the murder. This was damning evidence, but the communication was made by the prisoner not to admit his guilt, but merely to prepare his counsel to deal with the evidence. But Phillipps made a remark in his speech which the Bar considered as unjustifiable. He said: ‘Supposing him to be guilty of the murder, which is known to God Almighty alone, I hope, for the sake of his eternal soul, he is innocent.’ These words were not only in bad taste, but conveyed a positive falsehood. Counsel’s part is to lay before the jury possibilities, and not his own opinion of the prisoner’s guilt or innocence; and a strange feature of the etiquette of the Bar is that if counsel is prepared to throw up his brief because he sees his cause to be bad, yet he is bound, after accepting the retainer, to continue defending the case if his client insists on his doing so. He may then be compelled to go on arguing on behalf of a man whom he knows to be a thorough scoundrel.
Barristers were first appointed by Edward I. about 1291, but there is an earlier mention of professional advocates in England, who were of various ranks, as King’s or Queen’s Counsel, Serjeants, etc. At more recent dates we read of utter or outer and inner barristers; these terms appear to have been derived from local arrangements in the halls of the Inns of Court. In the public meetings held in these halls, the benchers and readers—superior to barristers—occupying the daïs, which was separated by a bar, some of the barristers who had attained a certain standing were called from the body of the hall to the bar—that is, to the first place outside the bar—for the purpose of arguing doubtful questions and cases, whence they probably obtained the name of outer barristers. The course of legal education consisted principally of readings and mootings. The readings were expositions of important statutes. These readings being accompanied by costly entertainments, especially at Lincoln’s Inn, their original object was forgotten in the splendour of the tables, for which the benchers were severely reprimanded by Charles I. The readings were eventually suspended, but were revived about 1796. Mootings were questions on doubtful points of law, argued between certain of the benchers and barristers in the hall. There was also another exercise in the Inns of Court, called ‘bolting’—not gastronomically—which was a private arguing of cases by some of the students and barristers. The term was probably derived from ‘bolter,’ a sieve, with reference to the sifting of cases.
As to the fees paid to barristers, how they have altered! In 1500 the Corporation of Canterbury paid for advice regarding their civic interests 3s. 4d. to each of three Serjeants, and gave the Recorder of London 6s. 8d. as a retaining-fee. Five years later Mr. Serjeant Wood received a fee of 10s. from the Goldsmiths’ Company. In the sixteenth century it was customary for clients to provide food and drink for their counsel. In a bill of costs in the reign of Edward IV. we find:
s. d.
For a breakfast at Westminster to our counsel. 1 6
To another time for boat hire and breakfast.. 1 6
In like manner the accountant of St. Margaret’s, Westminster, entered in the parish books: ‘Paid to Roger Fylpott, learned in the law, for his counsel given, 3s. 8d., with 4d. for his dinner.’
In Elizabeth’s reign, and during the time of her successors, barristers’ fees showed a tendency to increase. Counsel then received 20s. fees, though 10s. was the usual fee. A ten-shilling piece was then called an ‘angel,’ whence arose the witty saying: ‘A barrister is like Balaam’s ass, only speaking when he sees the angel.’ When Francis Bacon was created King’s Counsel to James I., an annual salary of £40 was assigned to him; but at present the status of a Q.C. is simply an affair of professional precedence, to which no fixed emolument is attached. But Francis Bacon, though he received as his official salary £40 only, made £6,000 in his profession; other King’s Counsel earned even larger sums in fees. But the barristers were not all greedy. In the days of Sir Matthew Hale, professional etiquette permitted clients and counsel to hold intercourse without the intervention of an attorney. When those who came to Hale for his advice gave him a sovereign, he used to return half, saying his fee was 10s. When appointed arbitrator, he would take no fees, because, as he said, he acted in the capacity of a judge, and a judge should take no money. If he took bad money, as he often did, he would not pass it on again, but kept it by him. At last he had a great heap of it, and his house being once entered by burglars, this accumulation of bad money attracted their attention, and they carried it off in preference to other valuables, fancying that this must be the lawyer’s hoarded treasure.
Readers who wish to know in what estimation lawyers were held in the seventeenth century should study the pamphlets and broadsides of the Commonwealth, which show how universal was the belief that wearers of ermine and gentlemen of the long robe would practise any sort of fraud or extortion for the sake of personal advantage. How happy we are to live in this century, when the legal profession is in a state of high purification! It does, indeed, sometimes surprise an outsider that so many barristers should be necessary to carry through one case—it looks as if they were brought in merely for the benefit of the lawyers; but, in justice to the profession, let us say that this is not so. Barristers have their special gifts, and a long and involved case brings them all into play to the advantage of the client. One man has unrivalled powers of statement; another is sound in law; another excels in cross-examination; another in reply; another has the ear of the court, or is all-persuasive with the jury. A barrister, to be successful at the Bar, needs, indeed, many qualifications. Lord Brougham states that Mansfield’s powers as an advocate were great; he possessed an almost surpassing sweetness of voice, and it was said that his story was worth other men’s arguments, so clear and skilful were his statements. Concerning Lord Erskine, another famous debater in the forensic lists, juries declared that they felt it impossible to remove their looks from him when he had riveted and, as it were, fascinated them by his first glance; and it used to be a common remark of men, who observed his motions, that they resembled those of a blood-horse—as light, as limber, as much betokening strength as speed. His voice was of surpassing sweetness, clear, flexible, strong, less fitted, indeed, to express indignation or scorn than pathos. Lord Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty, having brought an action for libel against persons who had charged him with having appointed landsmen as Greenwich pensioners to serve his own electioneering purposes, Erskine undertook the defence, and such was the effect of his speech that, before he left the court, thirty retainers were presented to him. Fortune comes to those who can wait. Lord Ellenborough first distinguished himself as the leading counsel for Warren Hastings, and soon after rose to the head of the Northern Circuit; Lord Brougham attained his subsequent position by his defence of Queen Caroline.
But counsel must not only be able to expound his case clearly, bringing into prominence all its favourable points, and effacing or putting out of sight all those of an opposite character, but he must also be observant and quick enough on the spur of the moment to take advantage of any rift in his opponent’s flute, of any weakness in his argument; he must be sharp in dealing with the plaintiff, supposing he is for the defendant, and especially so with his witnesses. He should, in civil cases, by skilful cross-questioning, entrap the principal or his witnesses into damaging admissions and contradictions. The following case, if not vero, is ben trovato to illustrate our meaning. A man brought an action against a coach proprietor, for having by the carelessness of the latter’s servants suffered bodily hurt, to wit, been thrown from the coach on to the ground, the hind wheels of which passed over his body, and injured his chest and lungs. In his examination-in-chief he testified to these facts. Then the defendant’s counsel took him in hand. As the plaintiff was about to leave the box, ‘One moment, my friend,’ said counsel quite blandly. ‘According to the evidence you have just given, you obviously have suffered much; your voice is gone, you say?’
‘Yes, sir; I cannot speak above a whisper.’
‘Very sad. The coach, you say, gave a sudden lurch backwards, and thus threw you off the hind seat under the coach wheels? Were you sitting or standing just then?’
‘Well, I was standing up just then.’
‘What made you stand up whilst the coach was in motion?’
‘Well, you would have stood up had you been there.’
‘Just answer my question; never mind what I should have done.’
‘I don’t know why I should answer this question.’
The judge pointed out to him that he must answer it.
‘Well, I wanted to look at a pretty girl who had passed the coach; you would have done so.’
‘Possibly.’ Counsel might have given him a sharper reply, but he did not want to lose his hold over the witness by riling him. So he went on: ‘Possibly. And then, like the gallant gentleman you are, you kissed your hand to the lady, and then the accident happened?’
‘That’s about it,’ innocently replied the plaintiff.
‘That’s how it happened,’ said counsel, turning to the jury.
And then, turning to the plaintiff again: ‘And the coach-wheels passing over you broke no bones, but ruined your voice, which we all can hear is very weak; this must be a sad affliction, for you especially, because I am given to understand that you were before this accident a famous singer at free-and-easies and other convivial meetings, and made much money by your voice?’
‘That’s the fact,’ hoarsely whispered the plaintiff.
‘Very sad. I am told your voice was not only melodious, but very powerful. Perhaps,’ continued counsel in the most insidiously flattering tones, ‘you might give his Lordship and the jury a specimen of what your voice was before this unlucky accident.’
And the fool, entrapped by counsel’s apparent sympathy and the petty vanity clinging to all singing men to show off, actually broke forth into a rollicking drinking song, which shook the walls of the building. Thereupon counsel asked for a verdict for his client the defendant, and for costs, and got the first, if not the second.
The terms barrister and counsel are often used indiscriminately; every barrister is a counsel, but not every counsel a barrister. There are barristers whose names are in everybody’s mouth, and who earn their thousands a year; there are counsel unknown to the public, who never, or only under peculiar circumstances, appear at the Bar, but who are well known to the legal profession, and make more than twice as much as the barrister practising at the Bar; they are ‘consulting’ counsel. When you go to a joiner and tell him to make you a cabinet, he takes your order, and sets about making the piece of furniture you want; he does not say that, as such an article is not one he ever heard of in his trade, he will go and learn from someone more experienced than himself how to execute your order, and that you will have to pay for his improving himself in joinery. But if you go to your lawyer with a case which is not of the most usual description, he informs you that he must have counsel’s opinion, for which you have to pay from two to five guineas, to improve your lawyer’s legal knowledge. And he sends a number of questions to a ‘consulting’ counsel. Now, as every lawyer of any standing has in his library all the legal handbooks and reports of cases which are the consulting counsel’s only guides, the lawyer might as well look up the precedents himself, but that would not be etiquette, nor so profitable all round, and so the more expensive method must be followed. The consulting counsel sits in his chambers as the soothsayers of old sat in their temples, whence, like them, he sends forth oracular utterances as obscure and ambiguous as those of the ancient mummers, and straightway solicitors and clients feel relieved of all anxiety: they have counsel’s opinion and their case is as good as won. For their counsel’s opinion is favourable, or, at all events, this is the interpretation they put on it, though counsel’s opinion on the same case on the other side reads the very reverse. Should it so happen that on the day in which counsel has given his opinion a case should be decided in a law-court, which shows that his opinion is not worth a rap, will counsel rush off to the lawyer to tell him so? Not he; he is not going to admit that he is fallible. And he will not give his opinion on the same case twice. A lawyer’s clerk having obtained such an opinion from counsel, and passing a pub, where he had agreed to meet a friend of his to settle a little betting transaction, left the opinion in the omnibus in which he had come, and did not discover his loss till it was too late to go to counsel again the same day. So he went the next day, prepared to pay out of his own pocket for another copy of the document. Counsel honestly said: ‘I could not do that, my friend, for to-day I might give you an opinion totally opposed to the one I gave you yesterday, which would be awkward if the first should turn up.’
Sometimes consulting counsel will condescend to come into court to argue some disgustingly technical point about ‘contingent remainders’ or ‘conveyancing.’ On such occasions they evince unbounded contempt for the court, whose ignorance necessitates their presence. They will consume a whole day in dull and dry arguments, and send some judges to sleep, and those who remain awake after counsel’s speech know less of the matter than they knew before; their brains are muddled with the legal rigmarole they have been listening to. The ecclesiastical counsel, who flourished in the days before the Probate and Divorce Courts were established, and from ‘doctors’ became ‘counsel,’ when called out into the general practice of the new system, were like so many owls suddenly brought into daylight, Sir Cresswell Cresswell so bedevilled them, and yet did it so politely that they could not complain.
Barristers had a good time of it in those old days of the Ecclesiastical Courts; the system of appeal was splendidly organized—the pettiest case could gradually be raised into one of great importance. There were courts throughout the country—royal, archiepiscopal, episcopal, decanal, sub-decanal, prebendal, rectorial, vicarial, and manorial. A case arises in any one of these courts, and the verdict being unsatisfactory to one of the parties, he appeals to the courts of the archdeacons and others, where the case is again heard, decided, and again appealed against. Poor men, who cannot go on for ever, must stop; but the party who can afford it goes to the Consistorial Court, where the whole process of hearing, deciding, and appealing is repeated. The third step is the Chancellor’s Court; the fourth the Court of Arches. If the appellant still has some money left, he may go to the Privy Council—formerly to the Court of Delegates at Doctors’ Commons, now abolished. This is no mere imaginary case. ‘There was a case,’ says Dr. Nicholls, ‘in which the cause had originally commenced in the Archdeacon’s Court at Totnes, and thence there had been an appeal to the Court at Exeter, thence to the Arches, and thence to the Delegates; and the whole question at issue was simply the question which of two persons had the right of hanging his hat on a particular peg. Fancy, what an army of barristers must have grown fat on this oyster!’
Success at the Bar comes to barristers in the most capricious manner. In this profession, as in many other pursuits, modest merit but slowly makes its way. Manners make the man, but impudence an advocate; without this latter quality even high connections and powerful patronage often seem ineffectual. Earl Camden, the son of Chief Justice Pratt, was called to the Bar in his twenty-fourth year, and remained a briefless barrister for nine long years, when he resolved to abandon Westminster Hall for his College Fellowship; but at the solicitation of his friend Healey, afterwards Lord Chancellor Northington, he consented once more to go the Western Circuit, and through his kind offices received a brief as his junior in an important case. His leader’s illness threw the management of the case into Mr. Pratt’s hands; his success was complete, and, after many years’ lucrative practice, he was made Attorney-General, and three years after, in 1762, raised to the Bench as Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. In 1766 he was made Lord Chancellor, and raised to the peerage. The Earl of Eldon was on the point of retiring from the contest for clients, when fortune unexpectedly smiled upon him, and the records of the Bar are full of similar instances.
We have spoken of cross-examination. Its legitimate object is not to produce startling effects, but to elicit facts which will support the theory intended to be put forward; but in most cases the first is aimed at, and frequently with success. Counsel, however, must perform this operation with much discretion. To a barrister who was recklessly asking a number of questions in the hope of getting at something, Mr. Baron Alderson said: ‘You seem to think that the art of cross-examination consists in examining crossly.’ Judges frequently give hints to counsel; to one who was terribly long-winded, the judge said: ‘You have stated that before, but you may have forgotten it—it was so long ago.’ Counsel must not allow himself to be carried away by the fervour of his oratorical powers, and thus overshoot the mark. Arabin, the Commissioner, a shrewd, quaint little man, uttered absurdities without knowing he did so. ‘I assure you, gentlemen,’ he one day said to the jury, ‘the inhabitants of Uxbridge will steal the very teeth out of your mouth as you walk through the streets. I know it from experience.’ When technical expressions are likely to be brought up in a case before the court, counsel should be careful to get posted up in them, or he may make a strange and laughable mess of it. A question of collision between two boats down the river Thames was being investigated. The master of one of the boats was in the witness-box.
‘Now,’ said counsel, cross-examining him, ‘what time was it when the other boat ran into you, as you say?’
‘It was during the dog-watch,’ replied the mariner.
‘You hear this, gentlemen?’ said counsel, turning to the jury. ‘According to this man’s evidence, a boat, laden with valuable merchandize, is left in charge of a dog! And, guilty of such contributory negligence, this man has the impudence to come into court and claim compensation and damages!’ And, turning to the witness again: ‘Was your boat attached to a landing-stage?’
‘No; to a buoy.’
‘A boy! These are curious revelations. A mere boy is made to hold the boat! And where was the boy?’
‘Why, in the water, of course!’
‘This is getting more strange every moment. The poor boy is actually kept standing in the water whilst he is holding the boat! I had no idea such cruelties were practised in the shipping—shipping interest. The Legislature should see to this.’ Then, fumbling among his papers, counsel went on: ‘You said, when questioned by my learned friend, that you had gone on shore? Why did you go on shore?’
‘To get a man to bleed the buoy. It wanted bleeding very much.’
‘You went to get a surgeon, you mean?’
‘No; a workman from the yard.’
‘What, to bleed a boy! To perform so delicate an operation on a boy, then standing in the water, and, in the state of health he was in, no doubt in great pain, whilst holding the boat all the time—shocking inhumanity!’
Here judge and jury thought it time to interfere. They all knew the meaning of the technical terms; but as they enjoyed the fun of seeing counsel getting deeper and deeper into the mire, they allowed him to go on, and the court being full of sailors, who cheered counsel vociferously as he stumbled from blunder to blunder, the trial was one of the most amusing in that court, and gave judge and jury a splendid appetite for their lunch.
Some counsel are very fond of reminding a witness at every other question they put to him that he is ‘on his oath.’ The practice is absurd, the very reminder sounds sarcastic. This ‘taking the oath’ is a relic of ancient barbarism and superstition; for the man who means to tell the truth it is unnecessary, and on the man who intends to tell a lie it is no check; he looks on the proceeding as a ridiculous ceremony. The very official who administers the oath in court, by the way he rattles it off, shows in what estimation he holds it. Nay, in matters far more important than the mere stealing of a piece of cheese off a counter, on occasions when one would expect taking the oath to be invested with some solemnity, how is it done? I once accompanied an Italian friend of mine, who was being naturalized in this country, to the court where he was to take the oath of allegiance. This is how the official authorized to administer the oath rushed through it: ‘I A. B. do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Victoria her heirs and successors according to law so help me God it will be half a crown.’ My friend produced the half-crown, which, I suppose, stood in place of a seal, and the performance was over. With the court ‘So help me God it will be half a crown’ was evidently the chief point, the crowning glory and confirmation of the allegiance business.
Swearing children as witnesses leads to very ludicrous scenes, enough to cover the whole proceeding with contempt, and show its utter futility. Montagu Williams, Q.C., tells a good story:
At a trial a discussion arose as to whether or no a boy of very tender age was old enough to be sworn. The judge, at the suggestion of counsel for the prosecution, interrogated the boy: ‘Do you know what will become of you if you tell an untruth?’
The boy, evidently brought up in the Spurgeon school, replied: ‘Hell fire.’
‘What will become of you if you play truant, and do not go to school?’
‘Hell fire,’ again answered the boy.
‘What if you spill the milk?’
‘Hell fire.’
His lordship ran through a list of trifling faults; the punishment was always the same—‘Hell fire.’
Counsel then suggested that the boy was scarcely intelligent enough to be sworn. But the judge thought otherwise, and expected he would grow up a very good man, seeing he believed that the most trifling error involved the penalty of hell fire, and the boy was sworn. The boy, of course, was a fool, through no fault of his, but through that of his bigoted teachers.
It was mentioned above that in the days of Sir Matthew Hale professional etiquette allowed clients to have interviews with counsel without the intervention of a solicitor. But gradually, after his time, the public were deprived of this privilege, and a rigid rule was enforced that all communications to counsel must be through the solicitor only, a rule highly detrimental to litigants, since it caused constant misunderstandings and misleading instructions. It is a roundabout way of doing business, which would not be tolerated for a day in any commercial transaction. It was from the first a tyrannical assumption on the part of the profession that the public should submit to a restriction, based nominally on professional etiquette, but really on professional interest. The public have begun to object to the rule, and in 1888 the Attorney-General (Sir R. Webster), on being asked to express his views in reference to the occasions when a barrister may advise and otherwise act for a client without the intervention of a solicitor, replied that in contentious business, necessitating inquiry into facts, which could not possibly be undertaken by a barrister, it was essential that the latter should have the advice of a solicitor. But might this advice not be given in the presence of the client to exclude the possibility of misapprehension? As to non-contentious business Sir Richard allowed of direct communication between counsel and client. My own rule, whenever it has been my misfortune to be involved in a legal dispute, has always been to push aside this bogie of professional etiquette, and insist on telling counsel my own story myself.
The profession, as we hardly need remind the reader, has produced many distinguished characters; to choose from amongst them those most deserving of praise would be difficult, and perhaps invidious; still, the actions of those whose conduct has not imparted to them the mere splendour of passing meteors, but has conferred permanent benefits on the country, seem to entitle them to a certain pre-eminence. A man entitled to such pre-eminence and the grateful remembrance of Englishmen was Sir Samuel Romilly. His father was a jeweller in Frith Street, Soho; the boy was first placed with a solicitor, then with a merchant, and finally articled to one of the sworn clerks of Chancery. At the expiration of his articles he qualified himself for the Bar, but he had to wait long before he was rewarded with any practice. But when briefs came, they came in a flood; his income rose to about £9,000 a year. He was returned to Parliament in 1806 by the electors of Westminster, without the expenditure of a shilling on his part—a significant fact of his merits in those days of bribery and corruption. He was also appointed Solicitor-General and knighted. He distinguished himself in the House by his speeches in favour of the abolition of the slave trade, but his great claims to the gratitude of the nation are the efforts he made to mitigate the Draconic code of the criminal law, in which nearly three hundred offences, varying from murder to keeping company with a gipsy, were punishable with death. The first success he had was the repeal of the statute of Elizabeth which made it a capital offence to steal privately from the person of another. He next tried to get several statutes repealed which made it a capital offence to privately steal from a house or a shop goods to the value of five shillings. But this Bill was lost. What bloodthirsty savages the members of the House must have been in those days! Some of this savagery remains in their blood now, for when the abolition of training children to become acrobats, contortionists and similar horrors, the abolition of vivisection and such-like cruelties, are mooted in the House, the introducer of the Bill is hooted down. Romilly, as we have seen, did not succeed in all his humane efforts, but he kept on agitating session after session, and cleared the way for the modification and mitigation of the ferocious laws which turned England into human shambles. And what Romilly had been striving for was a long time in coming. In the first decades of this century it was no unusual sight to see from a dozen to twenty criminals, many for slight offences only, hanged in one morning in front of Newgate. The end of Romilly was sad; it showed the malignity of fate. He who had spent his life in endeavouring to lighten the lot of others was terribly stricken himself. In 1818 he lost his wife, whom he had married twenty years before, and her loss was such a shock to him that he fell into delirium, and in an unwatched moment he sprang from his bed, cut his throat, and expired almost instantly.
Nowadays briefless barristers utilize their legal knowledge as financiers and company promoters; before those two honest pursuits had been invented they had to turn their attention to other specs. Thus Francis Forcer the younger, the son of Francis Forcer, a musician, had received a liberal education, and, on leaving Oxford, entered Gray’s Inn, and was afterwards called to the Bar, where he practised for a short time. He was very gentlemanly in his manners, and in person remarkably tall and athletic. In 1735, having been disturbed by legal interference, or some other cause, he petitioned Parliament for a license for Sadler’s Wells, which application, we are told, was rejected at first, but in the end it must have been granted, for we are informed that he was the first who exhibited there the diversions of rope-dancing and tumbling, and performances on the slack wire. It is doubtful whether the speculation paid, for at the time of his death (he died in 1743) he directed by his will that the lease of the premises, together with the scenery, implements, stock, furniture, household stuff and things thereunto belonging, should be sold for the purpose of paying his debts, which direction was carried out soon after his decease. This seems as if the refreshment bar, for which Mr. Forcer had left the legal Bar, had not proved very remunerative; perhaps he had better have stuck to the litigation oyster, than to the native he dispensed at Sadler’s Wells.