Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 | Page 5

consequent extensive
suffering had got abroad amongst the public, thousands of pounds came
pouring in for the relief of that suffering. The large sum of L.60,000
was collected for the unfortunates; and it is an undoubted, though
surprising fact, that the collectors had at last to intimate that they
required no more. It is thus that human nature often appears unworthy
and contemptible when contemplated with regard to some isolated
circumstance, as misanthropes, poets, and such like, are apt to regard it.
But take it in wider relations, take it in the totality of its action, and the
lineaments of its divine origin and inherent dignity are sure to shine
out.

REMINISCENCES OF AN ATTORNEY.
THE INCENDIARY.
I knew James Dutton, as I shall call him, at an early period of life,
when my present scanty locks of iron-gray were thick and dark, my
now pale and furrowed cheeks were fresh and ruddy, like his own.
Time, circumstance, and natural bent of mind, have done their work on
both of us; and if his course of life has been less equable than mine, it
has been chiefly so because the original impulse, the first start on the
great journey, upon which so much depends, was directed by wiser

heads in my case than in his. We were school-fellows for a
considerable time; and if I acquired--as I certainly did--a larger stock of
knowledge than he, it was by no means from any superior capacity on
my part, but that his mind was bent on other pursuits. He was a born
Nimrod, and his father encouraged this propensity from the earliest
moment that his darling and only son could sit a pony, or handle a light
fowling-piece. Dutton, senior, was one of a then large class of persons,
whom Cobbett used to call bull-frog farmers; men who, finding
themselves daily increasing in wealth by the operation of circumstances
they neither created nor could insure or control--namely, a rapidly
increasing manufacturing population, and tremendous war-prices for
their produce--acted as if the chance-blown prosperity they enjoyed
was the result of their own forethought, skill, and energy, and therefore,
humanly speaking, indestructible. James Dutton was, consequently,
denied nothing--not even the luxury of neglecting his own education;
and he availed himself of the lamentable privilege to a great extent. It
was, however, a remarkable feature in the lad's character, that whatever
he himself deemed essential should be done, no amount of indulgence,
no love of sport or dissipation, could divert him from thoroughly
accomplishing. Thus he saw clearly, that even in the life--that of a
sportsman-farmer--he had chalked out for himself, it was indispensably
necessary that a certain quantum of educational power should be
attained; and so he really acquired a knowledge of reading, writing, and
spelling, and then withdrew from school to more congenial avocations.
I frequently met James Dutton in after-years; but some nine or ten
months had passed since I had last seen him, when I was directed by
the chief partner in the firm to which Flint and I subsequently
succeeded, to take coach for Romford, Essex, in order to ascertain from
a witness there what kind of evidence we might expect him to give in a
trial to come off in the then Hilary term, at Westminster Hall. It was the
first week in January: the weather was bitterly cold; and I experienced
an intense satisfaction when, after despatching the business I had come
upon, I found myself in the long dining-room of the chief market-inn,
where two blazing fires shed a ruddy, cheerful light over the
snow-white damask table-cloth, bright glasses, decanters, and other
preparatives for the farmers' market-dinner. Prices had ruled high that

day; wheat had reached L.30 a load; and the numerous groups of hearty,
stalwart yeomen present were in high glee, crowing and exulting alike
over their full pockets and the news--of which the papers were just then
full--of the burning of Moscow, and the flight and ruin of Bonaparte's
army. James Dutton was in the room, but not, I observed, in his usual
flow of animal spirits. The crape round his hat might, I thought,
account for that; and as he did not see me, I accosted him with an
inquiry after his health, and the reason of his being in mourning. He
received me very cordially, and in an instant cast off the abstracted
manner I had noticed. His father, he informed me, was gone--had died
about seven months previously, and he was alone now at Ash
Farm--why didn't I run down there to see him sometimes, &c.? Our
conversation was interrupted by a summons to dinner, very cheerfully
complied with; and we both--at least I can answer for myself--did
ample justice to a more than usually capital dinner, even in those
capital old market-dinner