.

In conversing about him men would express a wonder how such a one had
ever risen to high office,--how, indeed, he could have thriven at his
profession. But in such matters we are, all of us, too apt to form
confident opinions on apparent causes which are near the surface, but
which, as guides to character, are fallacious. Perhaps in all London
there was no better lawyer, in his branch of law, than Sir Thomas
Underwood. He had worked with great diligence; and though he was shy
to a degree quite unintelligible to men in general in the ordinary
intercourse of life, he had no feeling of diffidence when upon his
legs in Court or in the House of Commons. With the Lord Chancellor's
wife or daughters he could not exchange five words with comfort to
himself,--nor with his lordship himself in a drawing-room; but in
Court the Lord Chancellor was no more to him than another lawyer whom
he believed to be not so good a lawyer as himself. No man had ever
succeeded in browbeating him when panoplied in his wig and gown;
nor had words ever been wanting to him when so arrayed. It had been
suggested to him by an attorney who knew him in that way in which
attorneys ought to know barristers, that he should stand for a
certain borough;--and he had stood and had been returned. Thrice
he had been returned for the same town; but at last, when it was
discovered that he would never dine with the leading townsmen,
or call on their wives in London, or assist them in their little
private views, the strength of his extreme respectability was broken
down,--and he was rejected. In the meantime he was found to be
of value by the party to which he had attached himself. It was
discovered that he was not only a sound lawyer, but a man of great
erudition, who had studied the experience of history as well
as the wants of the present age. He was one who would disgrace
no Government,--and he was invited to accept the office of
Solicitor-General by a Minister who had never seen him out of the
House of Commons. "He is as good a lawyer as there is in England,"
said the Lord Chancellor. "He always speaks with uncommon clearness,"
said the Chancellor of the Exchequer. "I never saw him talking with
a human being," said the Secretary to the Treasury, deprecating
the appointment. "He will soon get over that complaint with your
assistance," said the Minister, laughing. So Mr. Underwood became
Solicitor-General and Sir Thomas;--and he so did his work that no
doubt h