Sir Tat ton Sy/ces. 223 



hits, and to " clear a lane of such men" as once chose 

 to measure the gentleness of his fist by his voice, and 

 insult him at a wayside inn — and how he had consis- 

 tently nurtured himself on these deeds of daring on 

 ale and apple-pie. 



Time had taken off nearly all his old acquaintances, 

 except Mr. Bethell of Rise, who was three months 

 older ; but it never made him faithless to the old garb 

 of Yorkshire — the long straight-cut black coat, the 

 ample frill, the beaver gloves, the expansive umbrella, 

 the drab breeches, and the mahogany tops, which 

 were quite as much part and parcel of the constitution 

 as " Old Glory's." Both in dress and manner he was 

 one of those few men, who, like Charles Davis and 

 Tom Sebright, had such a stamped individuality 

 that you feel that the mould must have been broken. 

 He had been fashioned in stirring times, and there 

 was not the faintest analogy to him in life or book. 

 He could almost recollect the Declaration of Indepen- 

 dence, and he had got one glimpse of Doctor Johnson, 

 after much judicious perseverance, with his brothers 

 Mark and Christopher, the latter of whom bred Fleur 

 de Lis. 



He first longed to " take silk" himself after watch- 

 ing the Kavesmire running from a stile with his 

 brothers, when they were all three under a tutor at 

 Bishopthorpe. When he had risen to the dignity of 

 an " Old Westminster," he spent some terms at Braze- 

 nose, and then, during a short clerkship with Messrs. 

 Atkinson and Farrer, he listened to the awful accents 

 of Lord Thurlow in the Chancery Courts, or haunted 

 Westminster Hall when Erskine was in his zenith, 

 and the four judges who were destined for " the golden 

 time" of the King's Bench were still at the outer bar. 

 These days must have been very happy ones, varied 

 as they were by a couple of Derbies (a race which he 

 never saw after '92), and visits to Ranelagh and the 

 Five Courts. His recollections of them lent a strong 



