class of man was before him? Later,
unexpectedly, we learn that the Judge was a steady member for fourteen
years of the Royal Humane Society, of which institution he was also a
Vice-President.

But we now come to a most extraordinary thing--the result of the young
author's telling and most sarcastic portrait of the irascible little
judge. It is curious that Forster, while enumerating various instances
of Boz's severe treatment of living persons, as a sort of chastisement
for their defects of manner or character, seems not to have thought of
this treatment of the judge--and passes it by. Nor did he notice the
prompt result that followed on the sketch. The report of the trial
appeared in the March number, 1837--and we are told, the luckless judge
retired from the Bench, shortly after the end of Hilary Term, that is in
April or the beginning of May. We may assume that the poor gentleman
could not endure the jests of his _confreres_ or the scarcely concealed
tittering of the Barristers, all of whom had of course devoured and
enjoyed the number. We may say that the learned Sergeant Buzfuz was not
likely to be affected in any way by _his_ picture; it may indeed have
added to his reputation. I confess to some sympathy for the poor old
judge who was thus driven from the Bench. Sam Foote was much given to
this sort of personal attack, and made the lives of some of his victims
wretched. Boz, however, seems to have felt himself called upon to act
thus as public executioner on two occasions only. After the fall of the
judge in June, 1837, he wanted a model for a tyrannical magistrate in
_Oliver Twist_--and Mr. Laing, the Hatton Garden Magistrate--a harsh,
ferocious personage, at once occurred to him. He wrote accordingly to
one of his friends that he wished to be _smuggled_ into his office some
morning to study him. This "smuggling" of course meant the placing him
where he would not be observed--as a magistrate knowing his "sketches"
might recognise him. "I know the man perfectly well" he added. So he
did, for he forgot that he had introduced him already in _Pickwick_ as
Nupkins--whose talk is exactly alike, in places almost word for word to
that of "Mr. Fang."

These palliations, Boz, a young fellow of three and twenty or so, did not
pause to weigh. He only saw a testy, red-faced old fellow with goggle
eyes, and seventy-four years old, and past his work. His infirmities
already made him incapable of carrying thro