d in the adjacent shires of Derby and
Nottingham.'

A circuit bar, adds Mr. Lushington, 'may be roughly divided into three
classes: those who are determined to make themselves heard; those who
wish to be heard if God calls; and those who without objecting to be
heard wish to have their pastime whether they are heard or not.
Fitzjames was in the first category, and from the first did his utmost
to succeed, always in the most legitimate way.' No attorney, looking at
the rows of wigs in the back benches, could fail to recognise in him a
man who would give his whole mind to the task before him. 'It was
natural to him to look the industrious apprentice that he really was;
always craving for work of all kinds and ready at a moment's notice to
turn from one task to another. I used to notice him at one moment busy
writing an article in complete abstraction and at the next devouring at
full speed the contents of a brief just put into his hand, and ready
directly to argue the case as if it had been in his hand all day.'

Fitzjames not long afterwards expressed his own judgment of the society
of which he had become a member. The English bar, he says,[63] 'is
exactly like a great public school, the boys of which have grown older
and have exchanged boyish for manly objects. There is just the same
rough familiarity, the same general ardour of character, the same kind
of unwritten code of morals and manners, the same kind of public opinion
expressed in exactly the same blunt, unmistakable manner.' It would
astonish outsiders if they could hear the remarks sometimes addressed by
the British barrister to his learned brother--especially on circuit. The
bar, he concludes, 'are a robust, hard-headed, and rather hard-handed
set of men, with an imperious, audacious, combative turn of mind,'
sometimes, though rarely, capable of becoming eloquent. Their learning
is 'multifarious, ill-digested and ill-arranged, but collected with
wonderful patience and labour, with a close exactness and severity of
logic, unequalled anywhere else, and with a most sagacious adaptation to
the practical business of life.'

Fitzjames's position in this bigger public school had at any rate one
advantage over his old Etonian days. There was no general prejudice
against him to be encountered; and in the intellectual 'rough and
tumble' which replaced the old school contests his force of mind was
respected by everyone and very warmly appreciated by a chosen few. Among