mastery, he returned to chambers, able better to avail himself of the
advantages afforded by Mr. Blick's extensive practice; very frequently
surprising that gentleman by his mental vigour, and accurate and
extensive legal knowledge. "I was very cunning," he has more than once
said to me, "at chambers; for I soon saw how to go to work, better than
the other pupils. They would be all for the 'heavy papers,' the great
cases that came in, not caring for the shoal of small things that were
continually appearing and disappearing. Now it seemed to me, that
_these_ constituted three-fourths of a lawyer's business, and that to be
able to do _them_, was three-fourths of the battle: so I very quietly
let my fine gentlemen take all the great papers, while I did nothing but
these same despised common things, till at length I really began to feel
that I was improving, and learning a good deal of law. But, as to the
other sort of cases and papers, as soon as my fellow-pupils had done,
puzzling their brains over them, and written the opinions, or drawn the
pleadings, and Mr. Blick had revised them, and given them his
_imprimatur_, I _then_ read them over very diligently, and with great
profit: but you must remember that this was before the late revolution
in pleading." All this he repeated to me one day, only a few months
before his death.--He never studied under any other practitioner than
Mr. Blick, with whom, moreover, he spent only one year: yet such was his
close application, his wonderful memory, his clear, vigorous, and
disciplined understanding, and the soundness and extent of his
previously acquired law, that on quitting Mr. Blick, Mr. Smith was
really an able pleader, and had laid the basis of an extended, profound,
and scientific knowledge of the law. Even at that early period, I
frequently heard his opinion deferentially asked by men far his seniors,
and of considerable standing in business. On quitting Mr. Blick, Mr.
Smith read a number of other law books, in his usual attentive and
thorough manner, completely mastering both them and the "cases"