Excerpt from Law and Lawyers: A Sketch Book of Legal Biography, Gossip, and Anecdote It may be questioned whether poverty, and the difficulties which so often beset men in their passage through life, have all the beneficial influence which is ascribed to them. The school of adversity as often indurates as softens the affections of mankind. In many minds instead of producing humility and industry, it produces only disgust and indifference. Again, looking particularly to the legal profession, it may be doubted whether poverty has not, in many cases, the effect of distracting the attention from professional pursuits. Lord Erskine said that the first time he addressed the court, he was so overcome with confusion, that he was about to sit down. "At that time," he added, "I fancied I could feel my little children tugging at my gown, so I made an effort - went on, and - succeeded." With a man of less sanguine temperament, the same feeling would have only added to his confusion the conviction that, upon his success at that time, depended the future welfare of those he loved, would only have aggravated the embarrassment of his novel situation. About forty years ago, a young man, member of a respectable family, came up to London to prepare himself for the bar. His means were small, but his wants were limited, and well aware that if fortune does not always favour the deserving, she has at least for the ignorant and dissolute no honours or rewards, he applied himself with zeal and assiduity to the study of his profession. Nature had blessed him with an acute mind - his perseverance was untiring, and he could boast that pleasure never allured him from the paths of duty. In due time he took his seat on the back benches in the Court of Kings Bench. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.