demonstrated his
possession of remarkable energy, capable of being applied to higher
functions than the composition of countless leading articles. He was
henceforward one of the circle--not distinguished by any definite label
but yet recognised among each other by a spontaneous freemasonry--which
forms the higher intellectual stratum of London society; and is
recruited from all who have made a mark in any department of serious
work. He was well known, of course, to the leaders of the legal
profession; and to many members of Government and to rising members of
Parliament, where his old rival Sir W. Harcourt was now coming to the
front. He knew the chief literary celebrities, and was especially
intimate with Carlyle and Froude, whom he often joined in Sunday
'constitutionals.' His position was recognised by the pleasant
compliment of an election to the 'Athenaeum' 'under Rule II.,' which took
place at the first election after his return (1873). He had just before
(November 1872) been appointed counsel to the University of Cambridge.
Before long he had resumed his place at the bar. His first appearance
was at the Old Bailey in June 1872, where he 'prosecuted a couple of
rogues for Government.' He had not been there since he had held his
first brief at the same place eighteen years before, and spent his
guinea upon the purchase of a wedding ring. He was amused to find
himself after his dignified position in India regarded as a rather
'promising young man' who might in time be capable of managing an
important case. The judge, he says, 'snubbed' him for some supposed
irregularity in his examination of a witness, and did not betray the
slightest consciousness that the offender had just composed a code of
evidence for an empire. He went on circuit in July, and at Warwick found
himself in his old lodgings, writing with his old pen, holding almost
the same brief as he had held three years before, before the same judge,
listening to the same church bells, and taking the walk to Kenilworth
Castle which he had taken with Grant Duff in 1854. Although the circuit
appears to have been unproductive, business looked 'pretty smiling in
various directions.' John Duke Coleridge, afterwards Lord Chief Justice,
was at this time Attorney-General. Fitzjames differed from him both in
opinions and temperament, and could not refrain from an occasional smile
at the trick of rather ostentatious self-depreciation which Coleridge
seemed to have inheri