deserted, but which were then the especial abodes of lawyers, namely,
those adjacent to Bedford Square, where the gardens were the daily
resort of their children, all playing together and knowing one
another with that familiarity that childhood only gives.

'Sir John Patteson's contemporaries have nearly all, one by one,
passed away,' writes one of them, Sir John Taylor Coleridge. 'He has
left few, if any, literary monuments to record what his intellectual
powers were; and even in our common profession the ordinary course
and practice are so changed, that I doubt whether many lawyers are
now familiar with his masterly judgments; but I feel that I speak the
truth when I describe him as a man of singularly strong common sense,
of great acuteness, truthfulness, and integrity of judgment. These
were great judicial qualities, and to these he added much simplicity
and geniality of temper and manners; and all these were crowned by a
firm, unhesitating, devout belief in the doctrines of our faith,
which issued in strictness to himself and the warmest, gentlest
charity to his fellow-creatures. The result was what you might
expect. Altogether it would be hard to say whether you would
characterise him as a man unusually popular or unusually respected.'

Such was the character of Mr. Justice Patteson, a character built
upon the deep, solid groundwork of religion, such as would now be
called that of a sound Churchman of the old school, thoroughly devout
and scrupulous in observance, ruling his family and household on a
principle felt throughout, making a conscience of all his and their
ways, though promoting to the utmost all innocent enjoyment of
pleasure, mirth, or gaiety. Indeed, all who can look back on him or
on his home remember an unusual amount of kindly genial cheerfulness,
fun, merriment, and freedom, i.e. that obedient freedom which is the