more distant points, he did not have. Grigsby further comments: "He had probably learned the rudiments of Latin, and had acquired mathematics enough, if not to calculate an eclipse, to perform with the exactest skill the ordinary computations in the business of life. He wrote a hand neat and small, which retained for near seventy years after undiminished its steadiness and its beauty." Letters now at hand confirm the truth of the last statement. But he did have the discipline and acquired the technical knowledge of an experience on which so many others eminent in his profession were nourished—an apprenticeship for years under one of the court clerks of that early day. They were men rendered noteworthy by their positions, having something like a proprietary right in their offices, which, as Grigsby points out, they very generally administered at their own homes. And they were the repositories of the technical learning of the law, providing a training procurable then in no other way. In Judge Carrington's case, as a quotation from Grigsby already made indicates, the master was Colonel Clement Read, the Clerk of the County of Lunenburg. Few facts are at hand now to throw light on Judge Carrington's experience at the bar. It is noted by Brown that he received his law license in May, 1755, and that it was signed by Peyton Randolph, John Randolph, and George Wythe. It is recorded also that he had already practiced for twelve months before his own county court, whose recommendation of him to the examiners was a legal requirement. (Mercer's Abridgment, Laws of Virginia, 1759, p. 19) His life at the bar could not have covered much more than twenty years, for the interruption of the Revolution came in 1775, and he took judicial office in 1778, to hold it continuously until his retirement in 1807, when he was an old man. For this phase of his life, we must rely again on the authority. so often referred to, Hugh Blair Grigsby. It could hardly be otherwise than as Grigsby states, that Judge Carrington was industrious and highly successful and acquired eminence at the bar. In no other way could be accounted for the various offices that he filled under the Colonial establishment, both in the line. of his profession and otherwise, and the standing and high position he later held. All details of this period of his career are now lacking. But it would be interesting to glance into those neat and carefully kept fee-books with their numerous entries which Grigsby tells us were in his possession when he wrote his narrative in 1855if for nothing more than the contrasts they would help to draw. How different from the experience of today was the life of the busy and prominent lawyer of a century and a half ago, with his many cases in many courts-however small each case in the interests involved and in compensation-and the widely varied calls they made upon his learning and ability! We receive a better idea of the energy and attention to business required of the active lawyer of that time when we look within the yellowed leaves of Mercer's Abridgment and find that legal fees were prescribed by statute--five pounds the greatest in any case, and from that the scale ran down to a few shillings (pp. 21-2). Paul Carrington evidently measured up to the requirements of the situation. It is noted in Grigsby (pp. 40-1) that his docket of the cases in which he was engaged in Cumberland County Court for the single year 1770 covered fifty pages of foolscap. Charlotte County was formed from Lunenburg in 1765, and Paul Carrington was sent in that year as a burgess to Williamsburg. His father was already a member of long standing, first from Goochland and then from Cumberland. When he took his seat, the contest over the momentous resolutions against the Stamp Act was very shortly on. Whether he stood with some who became notable leaders in the Revolutionary period and opposed the resolutions or voted with Henry and the Western men, among whom he was classed, is a matter of doubt. The vote was not recorded. Grigsby gives some speculations on the subject, interesting to those who are concerned in all the facts of his life, but hardly calling for repetition here. That doubt, however as with the action of the great men referred to, whose course indicated no lack of sympathy with the grievances that were stirring all persons, but only their judgment of what was then wisest and best serves to give point to his position and the service that he rendered throughout all the struggle with Great |