“Law, then, is your profession—I mean a profession you give your mind and time to—but how ‘fag as a clerk?’ Clerk is a name for a learned person, I know, in our Church; but how the same hand which held the pen of Marmion, holds that with which a clerk fags, unless a clerk means something vastly more than I understand—is not to be comprehended. I wait for elucidation. Know you, dear sir, I have often thought I should love to read reports—that is, brief histories of extraordinary cases, with the judgments. If that is what is meant by reports, such reading must be pleasant, but, probably, I entertain wrong ideas, and could not understand the books I think so engaging. Yet I conclude there are histories of cases, and have often thought of consulting Hatchard whether he knew of such kind of reading, but hitherto I have rested in ignorance. . . . . . . . . . . Yours truly,
