have _fees_ for some time to come. I am armed with patience--I am told that
I have got through the worst part of my profession, the reading of dry law.
This is tiresome enough, to be sure; but I think the courting of attorneys
and solicitors is the worst part of the beginning of my profession: for
this I was not, and I believe I never shall be, sufficiently prepared. I
give them no dinners, and they neglect me; yet I hope I pay them proper
attention. To make amends, however, I have been so fortunate as to form
acquaintance with some gentlemen of the bar, who possess enlarged minds and
general knowledge: their conversation is of the greatest use and pleasure
to me. But many barristers here are men who live entirely among themselves,
with their heads in their green bags, and their souls narrowed to a point:
mere machines for drawing pleas and rejoinders.

"I remember Burke asserts (and I was once, with true professional
party-spirit, angry with him for the assertion) that the study of the law
has a contractile power on the mind; I am now convinced it has, from what
I see, and what I feel; therefore I will do all I can to counteract this
contraction by the expansive force of literature. I lose no opportunity
of making acquaintance with literary men, and cultivating their society.
The other day, at Hookham's library, I met with a man of considerable
talents--a Mr. Temple: he was looking for a passage in the life of the
lord-keeper Guildford, which I happened to know. This brought us into a
conversation, with which we were mutually so well pleased, that we agreed
to dine together, for further information--and we soon knew all that was to
be known of each other's history.

"Temple is of a very good family, though the younger son of a younger
brother. He was brought up by his grandfather, with whom he was a
favourite. Accustomed, from his childhood, to live with the rich and great,
to see a grand establishment, to be waited upon, to have servants, horses,