"The sun never shines there--the houses take care of that; in fact, the very 'fretwork' of the heavens seemed of a parchment yellow; the air breathed of briefs! No merry laugh is heard in Chancery Lane; no girl trips gaily along! No! the moaning of the dupe is heard there; the decrepit, grief-worn widow totters there, to find that her hope of subsistence is faded in useless expense. I have spoken of the numerous conveyances in the street. The horses were half-starved, the people within seemed bailiffs; and the omnibus proprietors (unlike our '_Omnibus_') looked anxiously for in-comers.
"Chancery Lane is, indeed, a fit place for the law: the houses overhang the street--the smoky windows, ay even the few shops seem impregnated with it. I turned to a book-stall to relieve my aching gaze, when a massive row of calf-bound volumes frowned upon me; I looked in a fruiterer's stall,--dry musty raisins, bitter almonds, olives and sour apples met my view. I then cast my eyes at a perfumery-shop; the wax dummies were arrayed in judge's wigs and black legal drapery. In despair I turned to a tailor's: a figure arrayed in black, on a wooden mould, appeared; but it was swathed in a barrister's gown. There was another figure with finely-cut clothes certainly; but allegorically, I suppose, it had no head. Such is Chancery Lane. My associations with it are none of the pleasantest. What are yours?"
This question, addressed to everybody, was answered by nobody. We had now advanced to the upper end of Chancery Lane; and, passing those buildings on the left, in which Equity presides over the affairs of suitors, a passenger, who introduced himself under the designation of Sam Sly, and in whose eye there was a pleasant twinkle not ill associated with the appellation, observed in an inward tone, as if he were speaking to himself, "A poor devil who has once got into that court, must soon feel himself in the position of the letter _r_." As Mr. Sly's remark was not intended to be heard at all--so at least it seemed--it of course attracted general notice; and as there was a disposition manifested to know "why," Mr. Sly politely explained, "Because, though far advanced in Chancery, he can never get quite to the end of it. By the way," he proceeded, "all law is but an enigma; and talking of enigmas, I happen to have one--yes, here it is. Rather an old-fashioned sort of thing, an enigma, eh? True, but so are epics, you know. Am I to read? oh! very well, since you're all so pressing;"--and then to the following tune Mr. Sly trolled out his