THE BARBER'S BOY OF CANTERBURY. This he had none of that precocious talent which pro- On the 7th October, 1762, a child was born in Canterbury. In the old city, on that day, probably more than one child may have been brought into existence; but this birth occurred in the barber's house, at the corner of the street, opposite the western gate of the cathedral. The business was carried on at that time by John Abbott, and although barbers were then in greater request than they are likely to be hereafter, if the beardcultivating propensity increases, we can yet believe that care was, like industry, necessary to keep, in this family, their earnings and expenditure together. Their youngest boy grew up, as in every similar case, without all the attention required by more fortunate children-yet a silver spoon was in his mouth from his infancy. He had been allowed, first to creep, and next to walk and wander round the cathedral, and through the precincts of his native city. Like other boys of his class he had learned to struggle with the world at a very early period of his life. It is wonderful how one half of mankind ever get out of infancy; for although one half perish before they clear its years, it is still wonderful by what means the half of those children, who grow into men and women, ever came to that stage. They are exposed to accidents innumerable, and yet they acquire soon a tact in avoiding them, that seems instinctive. They are clothed indifferently often; and rain or sunshine makes very little change in their engagements. Henry VIII. was a bluff villain. No doubt exThey go weary and wet to bed on rainy even- ists of that statement; and yet he did many good ings," and rise to be wet and weary as soon deeds. Amongst others he founded the King's as possible the next morning. Their food is School in connection with the Canterbury Catheoften carelessly prepared, rather than insufficient dral. Charles Abbot was sent to that school. He of quantity; but a hundred years ago—and we are was indebted for his eminence in after life to the nearly a hundred years from the birth of this per- care and discrimination of Dr. Beauvoir, who was son-matters of that importont nature were man- then the teacher. That gentleman saw farther aged worse than at the present day. Their games into the mind of the dull and silent boy, than his are severe labour, and they go through in that father had penetrated. He encouraged the young way, during a week, an immense amount of work. lad by the means at the disposal of a clever They become sick, and they get convalescent teacher, and his pupil became soon known for his again, without much attention being given to their classical attainments. The school was celebrated maladies. A headache is nothing to them-nor at that period, and attended by the sons of the indeed any other illness, unless they are prostrated gentlemen around Canterbury. One of Charles by great danger. The number of deaths under Abbot's schoolfellows was Sir Egerton Brydges-five years of age is easily explained by those who of course, not a baronet at that time. Abbot was understand the position of three-fourths of the dux in the class, and Brydges second for several families composing our population. Many cir Many cir- years. The friendship which then commenced becumstances in their position might be improved- tween the boys, in circumstances so dissimilar, unand many sanatory and social reforms have oc- like many school friendshlps, continued to the curred in a century; but our barber's boy be- close of their lives. When in his fourteenth year, longed to a struggling and worthy class-who young Abbot became a candidate for the appointstrive to make the best of everything-and to ment of a singing boy in the Cathedral. He would leave the world, if possible, and as respects their have been successful, from what Lord Campbell families, somewhat better than they found it. says, "for his father's popularity among the Charles Abbot was sent early to school. It was a members of the Chapter being so great; but dame's school; but many of our first men in objections were made to him, from the huskiness mental strength have learned their letters at a of his voice," and another candidate was predame's school. The boy was a dull scholar-and ferred. Я в His fame and fortune were saved by a bad voice. At the time the defeat was felt severely by the candidate. Even in years long subsequent to this disaster, he confessed the successful cho rister was the only person he ever envied. The musical disaster did not prevent him from pursu ing his classical studies. He wrote Latin verses at that period of his life, which were circulated among the clergymen of the neighbourhood by Dr. Beauvoir, who believed fervently in the classical and imaginative genius of his favourite pupil; who seems to have enjoyed the favour of his teacher, partly from the difficulties which he was compelled to meet and to surmount. The elder Abbot, after his son had reached his seventeenth year, determined to make him a good barber and hairdresser. Genius sufficient to dress the wigs of the clergy and dignitaries of Canterbury, must have been elicited by the young man, whose Latin verses made quite a stir among the classical coteries of that city; and whom Dr. Beauvoir was willing to match in the production of Latin poetry against any scholar at Westminster, Winchester, or Eton. The failure to gain a place in the Cathedral choir had vexed the father who, even after a life spent in a classical region, was unable to place scholarship against voice, and sup pose that the former was more valuable than the latter. And, indeed, Mr. Abbot was right, or society is in our age wrong; for it would be difficult for the most learned man of our day to make that out of his studies that may be produced by a very good voice. Young Abbot's friends at the school, and those to whom his fame had reached, rescued him from the paternal business on which, with all the resig nation of a dutiful son, he would have entered. Lord Campbell, in his lives of the Chief Justices of England, describes this passage in his life, with more elegance than some others that were more interesting, except for the simple fact that this was his Rubicon, and Dr. Beauvoir, the tempter that bade him pass to honour and renown. We quote the passage from the volumes of the present Chief Justice, but we may say that no dread of allusions to his origin, appears in any part of Charles Abbot's life. He was above any dread of that kind, and above eqnally the vulgar parade of his own achievements. He had no reason to be ashamed of his parentage, for his family were creditable and deserving persons in that position which they occupied. He had no great reason to fear the task of associating upon a footing of equality "with the sons of the prime nobility of England." He had done that for some time at school, and he was now a young man, seventeen years of age, whose correspondence with Sir Edward Brydges, given on the following page, proves that they were then upon terms of the most intimate friendship : The crisis of the young man's fate occurred as he reached * Vol. III. London: Murray. the age of seventeen. He was then captain of the school, and it was necessary that some course should be determined pon by which he was to earn his bread. His father proposed that he should be regularly bound apprentice to the trade in which he had been instructed from his infancy, and for which his capacity could no longer be questioned. This not only horrified Dr. Beauvoir, but caused a shock to the whole Chapter, and to all the more cultivated inhabitants of Canterbury, who had heard of the fame of their young townsman, and a general wish was entertained that he might be sent to the University. A sum sufficient for his outfit was immediately collected in a manner calculated to prevent his feelings being hurt by hearing of the assistance thas rendered to him; and the trustees of his school unanimously conferred upon him a small exhibition in their gift which happened to be then vacant; but this was not sufficient for his maintenance while he remained an undergraduate, and a delicacy existed about the supply being raised by an annual subscription of individuals. For some days there was a danger of a plan so creditable to Canterbury being entirely defeated, and the indenture binding the future Chief Justice to the ignoble occupation of shaving being signed, sealed, and delivered, when the trustees of the school came to a vote, that they had power to increase the exhibition from the funds of the school and they did prospectively rise it for three years to a sum which, with rigid economy, might enable the object of their bounty to keep soul and body together till he should obtain his Bachelor's degree; then, by taking pupils, or some other expedient, it was hoped that he might be able to provide for himself. The bounty of individuals was carefully concealed from him, but at a subsequent period of his life, when he had been placed as a Judge on the Bench, he showed he well knew the obligations under which he lay to the trustees. Attending a meeting of that body of which he had been elected a member, among the Agenda there was "to consider the application from an exhibitioner of the school, now at Oxford, for an increase to his allowance." The secretary declared, that after a diligent search for precedents, only one conld be found, which occurred many years before. That student was myself," said the learned Judge, and he immediately supplied the required sum from his own private purse. When it was announced to him that he was to be sent to the University he was much pleased, without being elated; for while he escaped the drudgery and degradation of a trade, not considered so equitable as that of a grocer, from which Lord Eldon had shrunk when in a very destitate condition, he foresaw that there might be much mortification in store for him, and that although all knowledge was to be within his reach, he might ere long find it difficult to provide for the day passing over him. He had likewise serious misgivings as to how he should appear as a gentleman among gentlemen. Hitherto he had only been noticed as the barber's son, and in the pressure of business on the Saturday night, when he carried home any article to a customer, he was well pleased to receive by way of gratuity a shilling, or even a smaller coin. Not entering as a ser. vitor, he was now to sit at table, and to associate on a footing of equality, with the sons of the prime nobility of England. While struggling forward in life he used to read any allusion to such topics, but in his latter days he would freely talk of his first journey from Canterbury to Oxford, and the suddenness of his transition into a new state of existance. He was, on this occasion, accompanied by a prebendary of the Cathedral, who was a corpus man, and who acted the part of a father to him. At Oxford, Mr. Abbot succeeded at once in obtaining a vacant scholarship. He was only second in a contest for the prize of the Latin poetry-the point wherein he expected to have achieved success. The failure did not, however, damp his ardour. He applied his mind zealously A LAW STUDENT. to classical learning, and in 1785 he took his degree. During his collegiate career he increased his means by fees as a private teacher, and he was successful in this work, which was to himself extremely agreeable. In 1787 he became a student of law, but that is so particularly in Lord Campbell's department, that we borrow his lan guage: Being thus reassured, on the 16th November, 1787, he was admitted a student of the Middle Temple, and he soon after hired a small set of chambers in Brick-court. By Judge Buller's advice, to gain the knowledge of writs and practice, for which in ancient times some years were spent at an Inn in Chancery, he submitted to the drudgery of attending several months in the office of Messrs. Sandys and Co., eminent attorneys in Craig's Court, where he not only learned from them the difference between a Latitat, a Capias, and a Quo Minus, but gained the good will of the members of the firm and their clerks, and laid the groundwork of the repu tation for industry and civility which finally made him Chief Justice. His next step was to become the pupil of George Wood, the Great master of Special Pleadings, who had initiated in this art the most eminent lawyers of that generation. Re solved to carry away a good pennyworth for the hundred guinea fee which he paid, he here worked night and day; he seemed intuitively to catch an accurate knowledge of all the most absolute mysteries of the DOCTRINA PLACITANDI, and he was supposed more rapidly to have qualified himself to practise then than any man before or since. The great model of perfection in this line, in giving an account of his status pupillaris under the eminent special pleader, Tom Tewkesbury, says:— "Three years I sat his smoky room in, Pens, paper, ink, and pounce consumin'." But at the end of one year, Abbot was told that he could gain nothing more by quill-driving under an instructor. With characteristic prudence he resolved to practise as a special pleader below the bar, till he had established such a connexion among the attornies as should render his call no longer hazardous, citing Mr. Law's splendid success from following the same course. He accordingly opened shop, hired a little urchin of a clerk at ten shillings a week, and let it be understood by Messrs. Sandys and all his friends, that he was now ready to draw Declarations, Pleas, Publications, and Demurrers with the utmost despatch, and upon the most reasonable terms. Clients came in greater numbers than he had hoped for, and no client that once entered his chambers ever forsook him. He was soon, and continued to be, famous, for "the ever open door, for quick attention whenever despatch was particularly requested, for neat pleadings, and for safe opinions." Mr. Abbot continued in this plodding course of industry until he had amassed a business that yielded him £1,000 yearly, and then in 1795 he went to the bar, with a high character for solid law, and a low one, which he never improved for jury practice. He never rose higher at the bar than a Junior Counsel, and he did not seek any superior position. He shrunk from a leadership, and on the few occasions when he was compelled, much against his will, to address a Jury, he failed invariably. His natural diffidence and modesty opposed his progress at the bar, for his knowledge of law was extensive, and his judgment was very correct. This nervous feeling which prevented his success in one department of business, did not interfere with his progress in another. He had married not early in his actual but in his legal life, or twelvemonth before his call at the bar. It is not easy to see how he succeeded with the lady, but we believe that he must have put the question in verse, and enclosed the verses in an envelope. He managed differently with the lady's father, to whom he exhibited, not his rent roll, for he had none, but the fee-simple of his mind, even in his inferior position; and the gentleman was quite delighted with the one thousand pounds annually, and thus this difficulty was Mr. Abbott lived very happily with his wife; and some of his best English poetry, for even when a judge he wrote verses, were addressed to the lady. overcome. On one occasion when attending the Canterbury Cathedral with a brother judge, he pointed out the successful candidate for the place in the chair, which he endeavoured to gain; remarking that this man was the only person whom he had ever envied. Upon another, when on a circuit to that city he was accompanied by his son, he pointed out to him the house where he was born, and bade him always remember that his grandfather shaved for two-pence. But we have forgotten, while referring to him as a judge, that we have not mentioned the occasion of his accession to that dignity. His history as a barrister is not interesting, although he made a fortune as a junior counsel, and in a stuff gown. He was elevated to the bench in 1816, in the Court of Common Pleas ; and early in 1819 he reached the summit of his fame as Chief Justice of England. Unfortunately he was also elevated to the Peerage where his Tory principles were evinced with extreme violence during the discussions before the Reform Bill. It is singular that many and honest men who have been elevated from the lower classes of society, have exhibited this detestation of popular rights. Did they deem the aristocratic policy necessary to vindicate their claim to consideration? The supposition would scarcely consist with the sincere opinion which all who knew Lord Tenderden formed of his honesty. He parted from his political friends on political questions, and like Lord Eldon, who once ran a great risk of passing through life as a grocer, he was found among the faithless faithful to extreme Toryism to the end. There is no doubt that the Reform Bill broke his heart, or at least accelerated that illness which he cheered in writing as his solace to the end of life-copies of Latin verses. Lord Campbell has preserved some of his Latin poems. They are extremely elegant. But, although he was happy in his clsssics, in his family, and his friends, he sunk under disease, accompa nied by strong political excitement, in 1832. Our purpose in noticing the life of the last Chief Justice in Lord Campbell's biography was to draw the attention of students, who may not be endowed with many friends or great riches, to the simple facts in the history of Lord Tenterden, who, by great application, without brilliant genius, | advancements, began the world as a barber's boy without many friends, without flattering the great, in Canterbury, and died the Lord Chief Justice of or changing his principles, or frequently soliciting | England. A CANTICLE FOR CANNING: THE MOAN OF THE MAUDLIN-MERCIFUL. 'Twas wrong to harm your brethren black-the butchers of Cawnpore, friends, And sure those most misguided men-whose deeds fill many a letter Although they dabbled brutal hands in British blood before, By England should have pitied been-because they don't friends; know better! We oft acquit our murderers here, upon the plea-" in- Had done all our brave soldiers did within the walls of sanity," Delhi! W. B. B. S. RAMSGATE AND ITS ENVIRONS. THE wanderers of summer and autumn have gene- | rally resumed their comfortable manner of life at home; sea-bathing quarters are lonely; and it is curious to notice how easily people live without some peculiar waters that were absolutely indispensable to existence three months since. The citizens of Glasgow, who can afford what they call a stock of health, have laid it in for five months. They are the most assiduous and diligent travellers for health in these islands, and are seldom at home from April to October-the first of the former and the last day of the latter month inclusive. The central towns of England have deserted "the northern Brighton," of which we have read flattering accounts, and seen alluring engravings, for years now past, in railway carriages; and even Harrowgate, and all their other temptations, from the Dee to the Tyne, are left desolate. A family bent on economising money might subsist for house rent, at the lowest possible terms, in numerous cottages of several villages on the South shore of the Frith, or the North. The owners of that description of property have reached the winter of their discontent, and will have to pass through it; in forgetfulness, perhaps, that it is the winter which makes their summer. We are conscious, therefore, that nobody particularly wants to know the best of watering places within a circle of one to two, three, or four hundred miles-or that if we could tell them, there is any probability whatever of their remembering the information until it could be available. That is not, therefore, our RAMSGATE. purpose, but a conviction that mankind should be acquainted with their own country, in preference to the lands on the Rhine or the Rhone; and that a person who has never seen the Mourne mountains, being either Celt or Saxon, need not travel to the Alps; nor climb Lebanon, until he has looked at the three Seas from the top of Ben MacDhui, which he never will do in the flesh-if therein he is rather corpulent-over fifteen stones and fifteen years of age; a conviction of that kind carried us into the old county of Kent. There is not any good reason for calling it old, in particular. All our counties are nearly of an nge. There are no mountains visible in it, but only a few hills. It is classical, however. The Romans landed within its boundaries, and there must have been a good deal of fighting on the subject of Kent at that time. Other aggressors followed them, and altogether the men of Kent were in the fore-front of the battle for some ages. Then it is full of old, quaint-looking towns and villages, with more thoroughly English characteristics than the midland or northern counties. The people, we presume, are less contaminated Saxons than those of many other counties, although railways and cheap travelling are gradually bringing us to an equality of characteristics. We shall all be pretty much the same by-and-bye. Farther, however, Kent has the oldest churches in abso lute service and use in England as witnesses of its respectability; and next it is a strongly conservative county; full of hop grounds; and it is refreshing to see a population who are staunch to anything at present, even if it be something as absurd as the conservation of politics or the destruction of good land in the growth of hops, at a time when land, like everything else, should be used for some good purpose. So we got down into Kent, for no better object than to look over its old towns, and by some blunder consequent upon our abhorrence of chronology; extending farther back than 1832, the date of that unhappy measure-the Reform Bill, of coursc-unhappy in the oddity of pleasing nobody since its commencement in business, except those who were displeased with it before-we managed to be set down in the only town that is said to be new and young in the county; not that it is quite in the way of travellers, for it is farther from the great centres of civilisation, and so on than any of the other Kentish towns-so far as we know anything of them. Ramsgate runs a race with Margate for the Metropolitan dignity of the Isle of Thanet; and in spite of guide-books and the other accessories of bathing and watering places, which seem to favour Margate, its rival has the superiority in population, in position, and in trade. Margate, we are told, in Knight's "Handbook to the Southeast Coasts of England," ""was a place of some note when Ramsgate as yet was not, or was only a fishing village of the narrowest dimensions," and yet the writer acknowledges that, on the authority of Hasted,* Margate remained, till a few years before 1799, a poor inconsiderable fishing village, built for the most part in the valley adjoining the harbour." What then could Ramsgate have been in these years, Mr. Knight? Why, certainly, a busy port, in which the Government were constructing a vast naval harbour of refuge, at a cost of an almost fabulous number of hundreds of thousand pounds. We do not propose, however, to place any reliance on Mr. Knight, for he says:-"At an early period it (Margate) ranked among the Ciuque Ports, though only as a member subordinate to Dover." That was published in 1853, and it would lead a careless reader to suppose that Margate no longer ranked among the Cinque Ports, and was no more subject to Dover; whereas it has only escaped in this present year, we believe, from under the authority and wing of Dover, which, curiously enough, is further removed from Margate than any other of the Cinque Ports; and we give the rival of our own subject credit for the spirit necessary to escape from this thraldom into a constitution of its own. The management of all these Cinque Ports is anomaRamsgate is dealt with as a suburb of Sandwich. The municipality of the latter town appoint their deputy, and he governs Ramsgate, really in a very respectable manner, we have no doubt but he is still a servant of Sandwich, a small town with a third or a fourth of the population contained in its subordinate. lous. The Cinque Ports, are in some way, not very intelligible to any person whom we ever met; under the control of their warder. The late Duke of Wellington, held the appointment for many years, and rather liked it, liked Walmer-castle, and occaWe have no sionally rode round the towns. doubt that he clearly comprehended his duties in the case, and discharged them. The Marquis of Dalhousie, now governs them with all his Indian experience; and except for the absence at Malta, by sickness, of that noble statesman, we should have expected the annexation of Canterbury or Chatham, long ere now to his government, accor ding to his Eastern practice. Everything that any one wants to know concerning the Cinque Ports, may surely be found in a Parliamentary blue book. The name of the town is supposed to be corrupted in the course of two thousand years from Romsgate; for we are assured by some antiquaries that when Thanet was an island, the breach in its cliff at this point, was the only accessible entrance for the Roman galleys, and we might add slaves; that they adopted it; and thus the port became known as Ramsgate; or the Roman's-gate; but now and long ago, Rome and the Romans have been corrupted into Ram, and Rams-" gate" remaining as before; and thus is the name explained. are always so thankful to have any reasonable explanation of the name given to a town, and to be * Hasted's History of Kent. We |