Note 15 — Chapter XV
Reading edition
It should be observed that many persons are of opinion that the Lord Keeper's assertion on this point was not an artifice, but a simple statement of fact. To those who take this view, his lordship's position seems alike ridiculous and respectable—respectable because he actually intended to forbear from taking the barrister's money; ridiculous because, through clumsy and inadequate arrangements, he missed the other and not less precious gifts which he did not mean to decline. Anyhow, the critics admit that credit is due to him for persisting in a change—wrought in the first instance partly by honorable design and partly by accident.