it. This great house can hardly contain it; all the clerks we saw rushing
about cannot get through the work, and much of the mechanical copying or
engrossing goes to London to be done. The entire round of country life
comes here. The rolling hills where the shepherd watches his flock, the
broad plains where the ploughman guides the share, the pleasant meadows
where the roan cattle chew the cud, the extensive parks, the shady woods,
sweet streams, and hedges overgrown with honeysuckle, all have their
written counterpart in those japanned deed-boxes. Solid as is the land
over which Hodge walks stolid and slow, these mere written words on
parchment are the masters of it all. The squire comes here about intricate
concerns of family settlements which in their sphere are as hard to
arrange as the diplomatic transactions of Governments. He comes about his
tenants and his rent; he comes to get new tenants.

The tenants resort to the solicitor for farms, for improvements,
reductions, leases, to negotiate advances, to insure for the various
affairs of life. The clergyman comes on questions that arise out of his
benefice, the churchyard, ecclesiastical privileges, the schools, and
about his own private property. The labourer comes about his cottage and
garden--an estate as important to him as his three thousand acres to the
squire--or as a witness. The tradesman, the builder, the banker come for
financial as well as legal objects. As the town develops, and plots are
needed for houses and streets, the resort to the solicitor increases
tenfold. Companies are formed and require his advice. Local government
needs his assistance. He may sit in an official position in the County
Court, or at the bench of the Petty Sessions. Law suits--locally great--
are carried through in the upper Courts of the metropolis; the counsel's
name appears in the papers, but it is the country solicitor who has
prepared everything for him, and who has marshalled that regiment of
witnesses from remote hamlets of the earth. His widening circle of
landlord clients have each their attendant circles of tenants, who feel
confidence in their leader's legal adviser. Parochial officers come to
him; overseer, rate-collector, church warden, tithing-man. The
all-important work of registering voters fills up the space between one
election and another. At the election his offices are like the
head-quarters of an army. He may represent some ancient college, or
corporation wi