ts of law for the daily
journals and the now almost innumerous legal publications, from the
recognized reports down to the two-penny pamphlet; then some are
secretaries to public boards or bodies, some to private individuals. All
these are comparatively well off in the world, and may "bide their
time," though that time very rarely comes in any prolific shape, and
meanwhile devote their _tempora subseciva_ to the profession without the
physical necessity of doing any thing ungentlemanly. But there are
hundreds of others hanging on to the profession in a most precarious
position from day to day, who would do any thing for business, and who
taint the whole mass with the disgrace of their proceedings. These are
the persons who resort to the arts of the lowest tradesmen, such as
under-working, touting for employment, sneaking, cringing, lying, and
the like. These are the persons who, in such shabby or fraudulent cases
as may succeed, share the fees with low attorneys, and who sign
habitually, for the same pettifogging practitioners, half-guinea motions
in the batch, for half-a-crown or eighteenpence apiece; and, in short,
do any thing and every thing that is mean and infamous. Alas for the
_dignity_ of the bar! The common mechanic, who earns his regular thirty
shillings a week, the scene-shifter, the paltry play actor, enjoys more
of the comforts and real respectability of human life than one of those
miserable aspirants to the wool-sack, who spends his day in the
desperate quest for a brief, and sits at night in his garret shivering
over a shovel-full of coals and an old edition of Coke upon
Littleton.--_Frazer's Magazine._

SONNET ON THE DEATH OF WORDSWORTH.

_23d April, 1850._

Beneath the solemn shadow he doth sleep
Of his own mountains! closed the poet's eyes
To all earth's beauty--wood, and lake, and skies,
And golden mists that up the valleys creep.
Sweet Duddon's stream and Rydal's grassy steep,
The "snow-white lamb," his cottage-maiden's prize,
The cuckoo's note, and flowers, in which his wise
And gentle mind found "thoughts for tears too deep"--
These, Wordsworth! thou hast left; but oh, on these,
And the deep human sympathies that flow
Link'd with their beauty, an immortal train,
Thy benediction rests; and as the breeze
Sweeping the cloud-capp'd hills is heard below.
Descends to us a rich undying strain!