Hroni Law to Literature. devoted most of his time to literature and to associating with wits and scholars. Henry Hallam was a solicitor before he engaged in historical studies. Leigh Hunt spent some time in an attorney's office. John Stuart Mill began to study for a legal career. Wilkie Collins, after a try at the tea trade, took to the law, and was admitted to practice. Jovial Tom Hughes, of Oxford story fame, was connected with the profession. Law rence Oliphant forsook the law for journal ism. H. D. Traill did likewise. Theodore Vatts-Dunton and Frederic Harrison are two more on the list. Joseph Hatton was taken in hand by a man who could have ad vanced him in the legal profession, but the young fellow had other plans. Alfred Austin, the present poet laureate of England, was a student of the Inner Temple, and was called to the bar. In France, Montaigne studied law and at tained to a magistracy, but being dissatisfied with the state of French jurisprudence, and strongly objecting to the use of torture, he resigned his office. Boileau tried law and theology before he settled down to letters. Le Sage of "Gil Bias" fame, in his early years gave some attention to law and philos ophy. Montesquieu attained a counselship to the Parliament of Bordeaux, but he had little taste for the profession, and was more of a philosopher than a practical lawyer. Thiers studied law at Aix and in the course of time made his appearance at the bar. He felt, however, that he were better employed writing history, and to that he took. Vol taire, after some study in a procureur's office, found the legal atmosphere stifling. Carlyle says of him : " Law with its wigs and sheep skins, pointing towards high honors and deep fleshpots, had no charms for the young fool; he could not be made to like the law." Balzac was apprenticed to a notary in Paris, but spent most of his time writing for the journals. Diderot and Pirón are two other French writers who had been connected with the law.
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Germany too can supply us with examples. Goethe studied law and received the Doc tor's degree. He began to practice at Frankfort, but soon slid into literature. Schiller's parents wished him to be a divine, and it was his own choice also, but circum stances led him into the study first of law, then of medicine, and finally landed him in the profession which gave him his fame. Heine tried banking, trading and lawyering before he gave himself up to poetising. In Russia, Tolstoi spent some time in the law department at the University of Kazan, but he got tired of the study, went home and became a soldier. Metastasio, the Ital ian poet and dramatist, was educated by Gravina, the jurist. Nor are there lacking contributions to the list from our own country. Washington Irving entered Judge Hoffman's office in the year 1801, and studied there for three years. He says in his " Life and Letters," " I felt my own deficiency and despaired of ever suc ceeding at the bar. I could study anything else rather than law, and had a fatal pro pensity to belles lettres." Lindley Murray was a lawyer in New York in 1768, and in England a few years later. He settled in England, gave up the law, and devoted the remainder of his life to literary and scientific pursuits. Noah Webster at twenty made up his mind to be a lawyer. He had no money and was compelled to take up school-teach ing, studying law in his spare hours. He was admitted to the Connecticut bar, but could not make a living from the practice of his profession, so he took to writing school books, and later to the making of his great dictionary. Motley, our American historian, studied law, and so did Prescott. The latter had trouble with his eyes, owing to an acci dent at school, and his studying made him temporarily blind. For this reason he had to give up law. Walt Whitman was a lawyer's clerk in 1832, before he began his roving life as a printer, schoolmaster, editor, printer again,
