The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick | Page 4

an anecdote relating to
a distinguished lawyer of the present day--Sir Henry Hawkins. We
nearly lost that great man, I think about the year 1851, on the occasion
of some theatricals at Knebworth. The play was Every 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