44 SIR JOHN STATHAM, OF WIGWELL. 
countenance, w™ compells me to shew I ought not to be thus used, 
& that some greater respect ought to be shewed me, w™ perhaps 
they were ignorant of.—As I am very near the end of my life 
being 7oY I wu’d not have any remembrance in the knowledge of 
my acquaintance, mean & little, Nor to think I look upon it as a 
reproach to own I was bred to the Law, tho’ the Profession is now 
sunk very low, or that I am fantastically fond of being called his 
hon’ or ever promoted it or desired it, & yet have an unquestion- 
able right to it, but no wond’ since they ridiculed S' N. C. claime 
to it, that they shu’d Jaugh at my pride & folly. In ord’ to set 
this affair in a true light, I am forced to be vain & an Egotist. 
1. Then I am of as ancient family as most in England, & can 
show a descent from the Royal ffamily of the Stewards & all the 
Crown’d heads in Europe. Vide the Epitaph settled by Garter 
from the Records. 
2. That my family have been K* of this County & Notting- 
shire United for many yeares appeares by the acc‘ of the Members 
on Records, & by diverse Wills and Evidences I can produce. 
3. That 3 of them have been Judges appeares by the printed 
Records. 
4. That one of them, S" John Statham wrote the Abridgem* of 
the Law, usefull to all thoro Lawyers, w*" might merrit some 
indulgence to his descend‘ the p‘ for any m** of inadvertency— 
Vide the original manuscript. 
The Temple of Hon’ was so situated that you must go to it 
thoro’ the Temple of Vertue, if the P" has gained it any other 
way, it’s rather a disgrace, and I beg therefore you’l hear a small 
historical part. From leaving Oxford and my entry in Grayes-inn 
in 1692, I continued there till I returned home, & from thence 
for a yeare under no Article or Ind" but verbally to M’ Turner, 
& so renewed and continued for several yeares—where no man 
was a better Lawyer nor more capable to instruct ; thence with 
Entring Clerk. I then returned home, 1696, & had contracted 
an intimate friendship with Vice-Chamberlain Coke, L* Bulling- 
broke, L* Lansdown, L* Buckley &c, w™ ever continued to the 
last ; by w™ meanes I neither was called to the Barr, nor admitted 
