The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick | Page 4

Man in his Humour, and Frank Stone, the artist, father of Mr. Marcus Stone, R.A., was allowed to play a part with a sword. (Those of you who have had any experience of theatrical matters know how dangerous it is to trust a sword to an amateur.) He came up flourishing the sword, and if Mr. Hawkins had not ducked we should have lost that eminent man; but he did it just in time.
Before I introduce you to the types of the judge, the counsel, the solicitors, let me say something to you of the district in which lawyers live, or rather in Dickens's time lived, and still do congregate. From Gray's Inn in the north to the Temple in the south, from New Inn and Clement's Inn in the west to Barnard's Inn in the east. I once lived myself in Clement's Inn, and heard the chimes go, too; and I remember one day I sat in my little room very near the sky (I do not know why it is that poverty always gets as near the sky as possible; but I should think it is because the general idea is that there is more sympathy in heaven than elsewhere), and as I sat there a knock came at the door, and the head of the porter of Clement's Inn presented itself to me. It was the first of January, and he gravely gave me an orange and a lemon. He had a basketful on his arm. I asked for some explanation. The only information forthcoming was that from time immemorial every tenant on New Year's Day was presented with an orange and a lemon, and that I was expected, and that every tenant was expected, to give half-a-crown to the porter. Further inquiries from the steward gave me this explanation, that in old days when the river was not used merely as a sewer, the fruit was brought up in barges and boats to the steps from below the bridge and carried by porters through the Inn to Clare Market. Toll was at first charged, and this toll was divided among the tenants whose convenience was interfered with; hence the old lines beginning "Oranges and lemons said the bells of St. Clement's." I have often wondered whether the rest of the old catch had reason as well as rhyme.
Dickens loved the old Inns and squares. Traddles lived in Gray's Inn: Traddles who was in love with "the dearest girl in the world"; Tom Pinch and his sister used to meet near the fountain in the Middle Temple; Sir John Chester had rooms in Paper Buildings; Pip lived in Garden Court at the time of the collapse of Great Expectations; Mortimer Lightwood and Eugene Wrayburn had their queer domestic partnership in the Temple. The scene of the murderous plot in "Hunted Down" is also laid in the Temple, "at the top of a lonely corner house overlooking the river," probably the end house of King's Bench Walk. Mr. Grewgious, Herbert Pocket, and Joe Gargery are associated with Staple Inn and Barnard's Inn.
Lincoln's Inn has not been forgotten; for though Mr. Tulkinghorn lived in the Fields, yet Serjeant Snubbin was to be found in Lincoln's Inn Old Square.
I never could understand why Dickens located the Serjeant in the realms of Equity; but what should interest us more to-night is the fact that the greater part of "Pickwick" was written in Furnival's Inn, which, as Dickens describes it, was "a shady, quiet place echoing to the footsteps of the stragglers there, and rather monotonous and gloomy on summer evenings."
But to know the Inns as Dickens knew them, let us accompany Mr. Pickwick to the Magpie and Stump in search of Mr. Lowten, Mr. Perker's clerk.
"Is Mr. Lowten here, ma'am?" inquired Mr. Pickwick.
"Yes, he is, sir," replied the landlady. "Here, Charley, show the gentleman in to Mr. Lowten."
"The gen'lm'n can't go in just now," said a shambling pot-boy, with a red head, "'cos Mr. Lowten's singin' a comic song, and he'll put him out. He'll be done d'rectly, sir."
Well, you know, respectable solicitors (clerks) don't sing comic songs at public houses nowadays, but that is how Mr. Pickwick found Mr. Lowten.
"Would you like to join us?" said Mr. Lowten, when at length he had finished his comic song and been introduced to Mr. Pickwick. And I am very glad that Mr. Pickwick did join them, as he heard something of the old Inns from old Jack Bamber.
"I have been to-night, gentlemen," said Mr. Pickwick, hoping to start a subject which all the company could take a part in discussing--"I have been to-night in a place which you all know very well, doubtless, but which I have not been in for some years, and know very little of; I mean Gray's Inn,