determination to work hard to provide for the woman I love."
John Scott came up to London, and took a small house in Cursitor Lane, where he settled down to the study of the law. He worked with great diligence and resolution; rising at four every morning and studying till late at night, binding a wet towel round his head to keep himself awake. Too poor to study under a special pleader, he copied out three folio volumes from a manuscript collection of precedents. Long after, when Lord Chancellor, passing down Cursitor Lane one day, he said to his secretary, "Here was my first perch: many a time do I recollect coming down this street with sixpence in my hand to buy sprats for supper." When at length called to the bar, he waited long for employment. His first year's earnings amounted to only nine shillings. For four years he assiduously attended the London Courts and the Northern Circuit, with little better success. Even in his native town, he seldom had other than pauper cases to defend. The results were indeed so discouraging, that he had almost determined to relinquish his chance of London business, and settle down in some provincial town as a country barrister. His brother William wrote home, "Business is dull with poor Jack, very dull indeed!" But as he had escaped being a grocer, a coal-fitter, and a country parson, so did he also escape being a country lawyer.
An opportunity at length occurred which enabled John Scott to exhibit the large legal knowledge which he had so laboriously acquired. In a case in which he was engaged, he urged a legal point against the wishes both of the attorney and
