Edmund Yates - 1884 Author:Edmund Hodgson Yates Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. PEOPLE I HAVE KNOWN. I Had the honour of an acquaintance with the late Lord Chief Justice of England, Sir Alexander Cockburn, which extended ov... more »er some years, and was to me the source of much pleasure. A better talker with a sweeter voice cannot be imagined: matter and manner were both excellent. He had lived so long, so much, and with such people that his experiences were as unique as the way in which he told them. I first met him at Lady Fife's in Cavendish Square, in the year '67, to my great delight—for I had heard much of him from Dickens, and had long admired him from a distance. The next week I dined with him at his house in Hertford Street, with a small party. His dinners were excellent, though not elaborate, and be the rest of the menu what it might, a joint of cold roast beef always prominently figured therein; he drank little wine himself, but gave much and good to his friends, and as a host he shone pre- eminent. As Mr. Disraeli said in the course of his notable reply to Dr. Kenealy in the House of Commons, " The Lord Chief Justice is not a man who enters our drawing-rooms with an air of adamantine VOL. II. K gravity." Nor did he assume such an air as he sat at the head of his own table, the model of a host in his mien and bearing, with all the vivacity of youth tempered by the wisdom of age. When the other guests left, Sir Alexander, to my delight, invited me to remain for a cigar and a chat. Palmer We arjourned to the library, a cosy room lined with trial- books on all sides from floor to ceiling, where his home-work was done. I took occasion to refer to the great Palmer trial, where he had conducted the prosecution, and of which I knew from Dickens he had most interesting anecdotes. My allusion had the desired effect, and my host started...« less