“Mr. Friend has sometimes a way of paying a compliment as if he were making a reproach, and of doing a favour as a matter of course. Just now I met him, and apropos to some observations I happened to make on a cause in which he is engaged, he said to me, as if he were half angry, though I knew he was thoroughly pleased, ‘Quick parts! Yes, so I see you have: but take care—in your profession ‘tis often “Most haste, worst speed;” not but what there are happy exceptions, examples of lawyers, who have combined judgment with wit, industry with genius, and law with eloquence. But these instances are rare, very rare; for the rarity of the case, worth studying. Therefore dine with me to-morrow, and I will introduce you to one of these exceptions.’
“The person in question, I opine, is the lord chief justice—and Friend could not do me a greater favour than to introduce me to one whom, as you know, I have long admired in public, and with whom, independently of any professional advantage, I have ardently wished to be acquainted.
“I have been told—I cannot tell you what—for here’s the bell-man. I don’t wonder ‘the choleric man’ knocked down the postman for blowing his horn in his ear.
“Abruptly yours,
“ALFRED PERCY.”
Alfred had good reason to desire to be acquainted with this lord chief justice. Some French writer says, “Qu’il faut plier les grandes ailes de l’éloquence pour entrer dans un salon.” The chief justice did so with peculiar ease. He possessed perfect conversational tact, with great powers of wit, humour, and all that felicity of allusion, which an uncommonly recollective memory, acting on stores of varied knowledge, can alone command. He really conversed; he did not merely tell stories, or make bonmots, or confine himself to the single combat of close argument, or the flourish of declamation; but he alternately followed and led, threw out and received ideas, knowing how to listen full as well as how to talk, remembering always Lord Chesterfield’s experienced maxim, “That it is easier to hear than to talk yourself into the good opinion of your auditors.” It was not, however, from policy, but from benevolence, that the chief justice made so good a hearer. It has been said, and with truth, that with him a good point never passed unnoticed in a public court, nor was a good thing ever lost upon him in private company. Of the number of his own good things fewer are in circulation than might be expected. The best conversation, that which rises from the occasion, and which suits the moment, suffers most from repetition. Fitted precisely to the peculiar time and place, the best things cannot bear transplanting.
The day Alfred Percy was introduced to the chief justice, the conversation began, from some slight remarks made by one of the company, on the acting of Mrs. Siddons. A lady who had just been reading the memoirs of the celebrated French actress, Mademoiselle Clairon, spoke of the astonishing pains which she took to study her parts, and to acquire what the French call l’air noble, continually endeavouring, on the most common occasions, when she was off the stage, to avoid all awkward motions, and in her habitual manner to preserve an air of grace and dignity. This led the chief justice to mention the care which Lord Chatham, Mr. Pitt, and other great orators, have taken to form their habits of speaking, by unremitting attention to their language in private as well as in public. He maintained that no man can speak with ease and security in public till custom has brought him to feel it as a moral impossibility that he could be guilty of any petty vulgarism, or that he could be convicted of any capital sin against grammar.
Alfred felt anxious to hear the chief justice farther on this subject, but the conversation was dragged back to Mademoiselle Clairon. The lady by whom she was first mentioned declared she thought that all Mademoiselle Clairon’s studying must have made her a very unnatural actress. The chief justice quoted the answer which Mademoiselle Clairon gave, when she was reproached with having too much art.—“De l’art! et que voudroit-on done que j’eusse? Etois-je Andromaque? Etois-je Phédre?”
Alfred observed that those who complained of an actress’s having too much art should rather complain of her having too little—of her not having art enough to conceal her art.
The chief justice honoured Alfred by a nod and a smile.