THE LOVES OF THE LAWYERS. THE average barrister is not, one need hardly say, a man of sentiment. He cannot harrow his feelings to order, in the facile manner of, for instance, the average poet, except, of course, when he is address ing the twelve shopkeepers in the jury-box, and for a very good reason. The profes sion of law brings one sharply into contact with the shady side of human nature, with its follies and its foibles, its passions and its prejudices, and so a lawyer " sees life steadily and sees it whole." He is not so easily moved as an ordinary man. Tears and the Virgilian erinibus solutis have little or no effect upon him. Yet, though law yers do not wear their hearts upon their sleeves for daws to peck at, it would be a mistake to suppose that, in their case, the organ of affection is entirely wanting. His tory proves the contrary. Love and law seem to have a closer connection than the merely alliterative one. In reading the biographies of famous lawyers, one is struck by the fact that many of them fell in love as raw schoolboys do — head over ears. It was the minority who loved soberly and dec orously, as behooved the lights of a learned profession. But all, or nearly all, were sus ceptible to what the newspapers are fond of calling the " tender passion " at some time or other in their lives. Sir Thomas More fell a victim to it twice. On the first occasion Sir Thomas allowed compassion to outweigh love. The object of his affection was the second daughter of one John Colt. She was young, pretty, and we have no reason to doubt, returned More's love with interest. But she had an elder sister called Jane, and More, though he sighed for the younger, thought " it would be both great grief and some shame to the elder to see her younger sister preferred before her in marriage, and he then in a certain pity framed his fancy toward the
elder," and married her. As to the younger sister's ideas on the subject, deponent is discreetly silent. Few men, we imagine, would be so sensitive and compassionate as Sir Thomas More. But we do not learn that he ever regretted having made Jane his wife; at all events, he seemed to have been very happy in the little house in Bucklersbury, where they lived after their marriage. The great Erasmrs ' ' ed him here, and remarked on the h rmor1y prevailing in the More menage. But in a few years Jane More died, and Sir Thomas, pleased with his first experience of matrimony, thought he would try another. This time he mar ried Alice Middleton. Alice, not to put too fine a point to it, was a tartar. She had both a tongue and a temper, and she led the poor chancellor a merry dance. She had absolutely no sympathy with her husband's ideals, and could not understand his resigning great honors and dignities be cause of a mere conscientious scruple. When Sir Thomas was thrown into the Tower, sweet Alice thought that things were going rather far. She pointed out to him all that he was forfeiting: freedom, a fine house at Chelsea, and her own charming society. And why! Because, forsooth, of some foolish ideas he had upon the subject of the legitimacy of the King's marriage. Alice gently but firmly told Sir Thomas that he was a fool. The ex-chancellor mildly replied : " Is not this house as nigh heaven as my own?" and proceeded with the writing of his " Utopia." Shortly after wards he was beheaded on Tower Hill. Cynics have said that Sir Thomas More had two alternatives — the block and Alice. Like a wise man he chose the block. Another great lawyer who had an un lucky experience of matrimony was Sir Edward Coke. Like More, too, Coke was married twice. History is comparatively
