Doctors’ Commons twenty years ago was a unique corner of the world.  It lay so hid away that you might live for years in London, and be within a stone’s throw of it, and yet never have its existence brought to your mind; and it had a life all its own.  The ecclesiastical lawyers were called doctors and proctors, instead of barristers and attorneys; and although the former did not arrogate to themselves a higher rank socially and professionally than that of barrister, a proctor considered himself a great many cuts above an attorney, and indeed was, for the most part, the equal of the best class of attorneys.  Proctors, it will be borne in mind, are sketched by Charles Dickens in the opening pages of David Copperfield, for Dora’s papa, Mr. Spenlow, was in proctorial partnership with the reputably inexorable Jawkins.  When the Probate Act came into force it was a frightful blow to the tribe of Spenlows.  Not so much on account of the pecuniary loss.  In that respect the blow was considerably tempered to the shorn lambs by a compensation all too liberal—­for John Bull is unsurpassed as a respecter of vested interests—­and the proctors were compensated on the basis of their incomes for the last five years, their returns proving in some instances curiously at variance with the amounts on which they had paid income-tax.  But they regarded themselves as terrible losers in prestige and position by this rude invasion of the classic and aristocratic ground of the Doctores Commensales, and above all by being leveled down to the rank of attorneys.  The clerks in the Prerogative Court—­of which the registrars and head-clerks were all proctors, who, taking the cue from Chief Registrar Moore, executed their work by deputy, the deputies being clerks working long hours for small salaries—­had kotooed to them with the most servile subserviency; but the Probate Office clerk was a government official, who could not be removed, even by the judge of the court, without the consent of the lord chancellor.  What cared he, then, for Spenlow and Jawkins?  “I am astonished, Mr. Spenlow,” said a young clerk of the new regime, “that you should have made such a mistake!” Mr. Spenlow, in turn, was too much astonished to utter a word.  Speechless with amazement and indignation, he left the “seat,” as the different departments were called, to weep bitter tears in regret for the past in the solitude of his dingy sanctum in Bell Yard, leaving an emancipated clerk, who had served under the thraldom of the old regime, exclaiming, “Good Heavens!  Only imagine any of us daring to use such language to a proctor two years ago!”

R.W.

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THE LAY OF THE LEVELER.