It is a very remarkable fact in natural history, that when a married couple have collected about them a family of children, and begin to think it time that such of those children as are boys should acquire some means of providing themselves with future food and raiment, they almost invariably put them to professions or to business, without any regard whatever to the fitness of the little individuals, either in mind, in manner, or in education, to the occupations to which it is their fate to be put, and by which they are to provide for themselves, and those dependant upon them, through life; and perhaps it is an equally remarkable fact in natural history, that so perverse is human nature, that if a lad had the luck to be apprenticed to an angel, he would, as he grew up, think (and perhaps correctly too) that it was a business for which he had no penchant, and for which his peculiar genius was not in anywise adapted.

I will not stay to investigate this matter, but proceed to the tale of my first client; first explaining to the reader how it happened that I came to be in the way of having a client at all.

I was one of the younger scions of a somewhat numerous family, and very early in life both my worthy parents imbibed an idea that it was a duty which they, in an especial manner, owed to me, to impress upon my mind, on each and every occasion, the positive necessity that existed for my concluding upon a business by which I could earn my future bread.

Solemnly and seriously did my father, twice every week, tell me to keep my eyes open, and if I saw any busi ness of which I approved to make him acquainted with the important discovery; and solemnly and seriously did my worthy mother, on each of those occasions, give me an admonition to choose a healthy business, and a money-making business, and a clean business, and a gentlemanly business, and I know not what all besides-but such a sing-song as I suppose has been rung in the ears of every young

brat by his anxious mother, from the time when children first began to learn a business to the present time.

My father and mother commenced the forcing operation upon me when I was about six years old, and carried it on until I made two or three attempts to choose a business for myself, in pursuance of their advice; but I was so unfortunate in my choice, that the matter was taken up by those who thought themselves more competent than I showed myself to be to decide in so momentous an affair.

But, anxious as were my father and mother that I should be satisfied with the business by which I was to obtain my living, and desirous as they were that I should make the choice myself; yet, like many other good and simpleminded people in similar circumstances, they never once thought of giving me any instructions in the choice of a business, or any directions for obtaining any knowledge or insight into the mode of carrying it on-its requisite capital-its probable profits its agremens or dis-agremens-and the thousand other things which give, in the minds of growing men and men of information, a preference of one business over another. No; I was put in my first breeches, and with them I, as a matter of course, put on all the knowledge necessary to enable me to form a sound and rational judgment.

I had received something like two hundred admonitions from my father to make choice of a business, and had been asked, I know not how many times, by my most anxious mother, whether I had yet concluded upon anything; in other words, I was arrived at something like the sapient age of eight or nine years old, when the usual question being asked by my mother, whether I had yet concluded on any thing, I determined to end the matter by making a choice at once.

My mother, in her schemes of economy for the management of a large family, frequently employed a Miss Jones to carry on the mystery of mantua-making in our house, thus making the new, and furbishing up the old

dresses of my mother and sisters at something like half-cost; and during her sojourn in the house, the younger branches of the family, of whom I was one, had a sort of saturnalia-revelling in all the luxury of dolls and doll rags --and thread and needles-and stitching and ripping--and making up and pulling to pieces, with more good-will, and ten times the avidity, of Miss Jones herself; and, by dint of great practice, I became a very expert assistant to my senior sister in doll-dressing.

I frequently heard my mother, in her confidential conversations with my father, tell him that Miss Jones was very industrious, and had got into a very good business, and made a great deal of money; and one day it occurred to me, when my mother put her old question, that being a good business and getting a deal of money were very likely requisites for me, and I gaily answered my mother's enquiry by saying I would be an apprentice to Miss Jones.

Instead of giving my mother great pleasure, as I thought I should do, by the announcement, she called me a silly lad, and told me to choose something more manly, as mantua-making was only the business of women.

A few days afterwards I was taken by a servant, with the rest of my young brothers and sisters, to see the performance of a mountebank, who paid a stray visit to the little town in which we resided. I never saw such a performance before, and I shall never see any thing again that will give me such an idea as that did of splendour and magnificence.

The first part of the performance was dancing on the slack-rope; and we children were standing in a row in breathless expectation, wondering in our hearts what dancing on a slackrope meant, when all at once there stepped before us a man in a velvet jacket, all slashed and adorned with satin and ribbons, and covered with gold lace, and spangles, and bugles, glittering so that we scarce could look at him; and on his head was a beautiful hat, from which ostrich feathers were gracefully waving, and in front was a shining button; and he had a splendid sash round his waist, and his continuations and his terminations, vulgo shoes, were white as snow. The sight was electrical! We all stood

and stared, and audibly wished that father and mother were there to sce the man, he was so fine.

He bowed to the spectators, waving his plumes, and displaying all his finery, and then, ascending the rope, he capered about with such an air, and twirled and twisted himself in all directions, so that my faculties of astonishment and delight were stretched to their very utmost extent; and my little sister Laura, who stood by my side, and was some two years my junior, appeared to be equally spellbound with myself. She pulled my sleeve to engage my attention, and whispered in my ear" It is the king

I am sure it is; for nobody but a king could be dressed so fine, or do such things as he does ;" and indeed I was very much of my sister Laura's notion.

I gazed at him with all my might, scarcely allowing my eyes to close in the act of winking, so fearful was I of missing the slightest motion of that wonderful man; and when he descended from the rope, I anxiously enquired from the servant what he would do next.

My attention was very soon attracted to sundry yards of fine flaunting coloured printed cotton, which were held up to the gaze of the spectators, and to a display of fine shining ware, such as tea and coffee-pots and trays, which I, in my innocence, looked upon as silver.

I enquired from the servant if the king intended to give those fine things away; and I was then informed, in reply, that the gentleman whose appearance and performance had so much astonished me was not the king, but a mountebank, whose business it was to make money, and that he would sell the things he displayed to the spectators for a great deal more money than they had cost him;—all which interesting information I communicated, in a whisper, to my little sister Laura.

I paid due attention to the proceedings, and saw the gentleman in the velvet jacket going round offering little bits of paper to the people, in exchange for which he received real silver shillings, in such numbers that he could scarcely manage to collect them as fast as they were offered.

My little sister Laura and myself

had been intrusted with a sixpence each, more to look at than with any intention that we should spend them; but, with the approbation, or rather with the tacit permission of our guardian the servant, we put them together, and saw them handed to the gentle man in spangles, in return for which one of those mysterious bits of paper was handed to me.

The servant directed me to keep the paper until it was asked for, which was not long; and I was at length requested to surrender it in exchange for a little black tray, about the size of my hand, with a flower painted upon it, and which the servant inform ed me was a tobacco dish, and worth about a halfpenny.

I had sense enough to know that our two sixpences were worth more than that, but in vain asked for something else; and, on finding that nothing more was to be had, it occurred to me that the business of the mountebank certainly met one of the requisitions of my worthy mother, inasmuch as it was evidently a money-making business; and I forthwith started off home, as quick as my legs would carry me, with my tobacco dish in my hand.

I went direct to my mother, and, holding up the dish, told her I had met with a man who sold those things for a shilling a-piece, and had plenty of custom; that he was a mountebank, and dressed much finer than my father, and that I would be an apprentice to him.

At first my mother only laughed at what she thought my nonsense; but finding on enquiry that the sixpences with which myself and my sister Laura had been intrusted, were really and bona fide bartered away for the little dirty-looking tobacco dish that I held in my hand, her amusement was changed to vexation, and she boxed my ears for what she called my folly. God help me! how often do children of eight years old get boxed, and kicked, and cuffed, for not being as wise as their parents of eight-andforty!

I afterwards made several other attempts to select a business answering the multifarious description given by my worthy mother; but, as all my attempts were singular failures, the matter was at length fairly taken out of my hands, and after three weeks'

serious cogitation betwixt my father and my mother, the former informed me that it was concluded I should be an attorney.

Now, what was meant by being an attorney I was greatly at a loss to know; for whether it meant that I was to grind scissors on a wheel, like a man whom I had frequently seen in the street, and whose performances I much admired, or that I was to go as a missionary to some uninhabited island like Robinson Crusoe, I had no more idea than the man in the moon ; and serious, indeed, were the ponderings of myself and my sister Laura on the subject, for I called her wisdom to my assistance on the occasion.

At length, a little light began to dawn upon me, for I was measured for a new suit of clothes, and I was told that I was to go to a new school, and I was desired to pay particular attention to learning Latin, that I might be qualified for an attorney; and from that day forth I concluded that an attorney and a schoolmaster meant the same thing.

I went to the school, and I paid attention to Latin, and in due time I was articled to an attorney; and after serving the usual time, and learning that to be an attorney was not exactly the same thing as to be a schoolmaster, I was duly admitted, and prepared to set up business.

I was very soon made the proprietor of an office in my native town, consisting of two rooms, one occupied by a dirty little lad (whom I dignified with the name of clerk), a desk, a deskstool, and a chair for a waiting client, if any such there should happen to be; and the other occupied by myself, a desk, three chairs, three or four law books, an almanac, a diary, a quire or two of writing paper, a bundle of quills, and an ink-stand; and thus was I equipped for all that might occur in the shape of legal warfare.

But I must pause to explain what then appeared, and still appears to me, to be a serious obstacle to my successful practice of the law.

It pleased my godfathers and godmothers, with (I am bound to presume) the consent and approbation of my father and mother, to give me the name of Gideon, a name that I am particular in mentioning, because I have a very strong notion that the name should be adapted to the busi

ness; and that, before parents bestow upon a child a name which they cannot afterwards very well alter, they should duly consider to what profession or business the child is to be devoted; so that there should be, if I may so term it, a moral fitness betwixt the name and the occupation; and there should also be a proper and suitable adaptation and fitness of the christian to the surname.

In both those particulars I have been unfortunate. I derived from my ancestors the name of Thropall; and, as I said before, my godfathers and godmothers, with the consent and approbation of my father and mother, bestowed upon me the name of Gideon-by the by, it was the only thing they ever gave me-Gideon Thropall!

Now, a man possessed of such a name as that of Gideon Thropall might have flourished very well as a respectable brazier, or ironmonger, or a timber-merchant, or a farmer; and I am not quite aware, that even the dead weight of such a name would absolutely have prevented a manufacturer from making a fortune; but, to a professional man, the very sound was like an extinguisher. However, I was placed in my office, with the privilege of subscribing myself Gideon Thropall, attorney-at-law, to any legal document that might be submitted to such an operation-a name and description that I felt conscious was quite enough to scare away the most litigious client that ever dirtied the steps of an attorney's office.

I trudged to my place of business every morning with the punctuality of the town-clock; and, after waiting there all day to little purpose, trudged home again at night, to prepare for the following day's repetition of the same routine. I wrote Gideon Thropall, attorney-at-law, five hundred and forty odd times over. I wrote the names of my father and mother, my sisters and brothers, and all my relations, male and female, married and single, times without number. I wrote the name and address of the gentleman whom I had named as my London agent, as regularly as the day came, as if I was in daily correspondence with that gentleman, though that sort of reminiscence was all that he had from me during the first two years I practised as an attorney. I wrote the names of

all my acquaintances, male and female, with their particular titles and places of address. I wrote, in short, until I had covered every bit of my paper; and I cut and slashed my quills until I reduced my stock to two decentlooking pens, and a very small remnant of a third. I had read my little stock of law-books until I knew their contents by heart; and I had paid my little dirty blackguard in the other chamber of the office, some ten pounds or thereabouts, in driblets of 2s. 6d. a-week; and still no client came!

I was almost in despair, and deliberated whether I ought not to strangle the clerk when his next two-and-sixpence became due, by way of lessening the outgoings, when, to my surprise, the postman came to my door with a letter-the first I had received since I became an attorney-and lo! I had a client! I was so unprepared for the circumstance, that it was at least five minutes, and not until after a very diligent search through all my pockets, that I was enabled to count out the necessary ninepence for the postage of the letter.

My father had an elderly friend of the name of Lee, who, some two or three-and-twenty years previous to my commencing practice, had retired into private life on the disbanding of a regiment of local militia, of which he had been the commander, carrying nothing with him into his retirement from his military career, but a pigtail, and the title of colonel; both of which he had borne for so many years, that he would have felt the loss of either as a real privation.

He was a man of property and of a kind disposition; and, during my clerkship, he had often promised me his patronage, when the time should arrive that I could undertake business on my own account. It was, therefore, with no surprise that I saw, on glancing my eye over the letter, that I was indebted for my client to the recommendation of Colonel Lee, though I was somewhat surprised to find that the letter related to business connected with the local militia, from the command of which the worthy colonel had retired so many years previously.

It was a letter from a person named Buckley, who, it appeared, had written to me respecting a drum belonging to the regiment. But his letter shall speak for itself, for I have carefully

.

preserved the original document, on account of its being the first letter I ever received on business :

"SIR,-I am commanded by my kornall-Kornall Lee-the kornall of the Condate local militia, to put the case in your hands in respect of the regimentle drum. And, sir, my kornall commands me to request that you will instantly, upon the receit of this, write a very savage lawyer's letter to Mrs Revett, and to all others whom it may concern, commanding her to deliver up the said drum, with the sticks and the ticking-case, to me forthwith, upon pain of all that will follow; for, sir, my kornall is determined to have it back, cost what it may. And, sir, the said drum was lent by me to John Revett, the husband of the said Mrs Revett, and by the consent of the kornall, and she has parted with it to somebody else; and you will please to rummage up her consarns, and threaten her with fire and brimstone if the said drum is not delivered to me without delay; and she lives in Glover's Court, in the Horsemarket, on the left-hand side in the Horsemarket in Warnton; and so you will please to write instantly on the receit of this, according to the command of my kornall,-and I am, sir, your friend and well-wisher,

THOMAS BUCkley,
Late drum major, Condate
local militia.

“N.B.—Sir, I live at No. 2 in Tib Lane in Manchester, and since I left of the drum-majoring line, I carry on the tailoring department.

"To Mr Gibbin Thropple,

Atturney-at-law."

I wrote a long letter in due form to Mrs Revett, threatening her with as much fire and brimstone as I could conveniently put in the compass of a sheet of paper; but I suppose she was too old a soldier to be terrified by such a flash in the pan as a lawyer's letter, for she treated both me and my client, the drum- major, with silent contempt, and took not the smallest notice of my fierce application.

It was about ten days after I had spoiled my first sheet of paper in the way of business, that I was standing in the street, talking to a farmer who had got into a dispute about a sack of

meal, and whom I was doing my very best to convert into a client, when a stout bulky man of middle age, or somewhat more, but of very erect figure and respectable bearing, walked towards us, and stopped, and by an insinuating and beseeching sort of look, gave me to understand that he wished to speak to me.

I had done my very utmost in the way of recommending myself to the too complacent farmer, and had for some time perceived that my attempt was a forlorn hope, and I consequently without delay answered the intelligible telegraph of the stout bulky man, and turned from the farmer to him; and this I did the more readily, as it af forded me an opportunity of showing the easy agriculturist that, if he would not bite, another would.

"I am come, sir," said the stout bulky man," about the regimentle drum; the kornall can't rest about it, and I am come, sir, to see if you have got it."

Here, then, was the ex-drum-major himself, and, as I had him fast, an avowed and proper client in person, I determined to make the most of him. I

desired him to accompany me to my office, to which place I took care to lead my fat friend in procession all round the town, that the world in general, and the inhabitants of my native town in particular, might see that I really and truly had a client.

Arrived at the office, I led the to the particular amazement of my little worthy drum-major to my own room, sooty-faced clerk of all work, who, never having seen a client during his practice, had a very indifferent notion of what such a thing might be, and was quite prepared to believe that it meant either a man or a fish, as he might be instructed.

For the first time in my life, a bona fide client sat in a chair in my office; and I explained to him, in answer to his enquiries, the sort of application I had made to Mrs Revett, and the result, which, in the language of an exciseman, was "nil."

"Well!" said the ex-drum-major, his countenance colouring like a turkey-cock with rage-" Well! that Mrs Revett is the greatest old shedragon that ever was born! But she always was the same when her husband John Revett was in the regiment-and he had no more music in