receives his doom by the speechless gesture of
the judge's hand across his own neck; so Mr.
William Wallace fully understood that access
to the record depositories of the province
appertaining to Cathedral number two, was nearly
equivalent to getting into a freemason's lodge
after it has been " tiled," or to obtaining
admission to St. Paul's Cathedral without
two-pence.

He therefore waived as perfectly impossible
that item of the treaty. For the public,
however, the evidence of that gentleman is hardly
necessary to bring them acquainted with the
manner in which the trust imposed on the
Registrar and his Deputy is performed; for
while the Deputy Registrar and Mr. William
Wallace are settling their differences over the
next clause of their treaty, we shall dip into
the reports of the Ecclesiastical Commission
issued in 1832, to show what the state of
things was at that time; and to any one who
can prove that those venerable documents
have been by any means rescued from decay
since that year, the public will doubtless be
much obliged. At page one hundred and
seventy of the report, Mr. Edward
Protheroe, M.P., states, on oath, that in the
instance of every Court he had visited the
records suffered more or less from damp and
the accumulation of dust and dirt. Then,
speaking of the Registry of this same Cathedral
number two, he declares its documents
to have been in a scandalous state. " I found
them," he continues, " perfectly to accord
with the description I had received from
various literary and antiquarian characters
who had occasion to make searches in the
office; and I beg leave to remark that the
place must have been always totally inade-
quate as a place of deposit for the records,
both as to space and security." Some of
the writings he found in two small cells,
"in a state of the most disgraceful filth;"
others in " two apertures in the thick walls,
scarcely to be called windows; and the only
accommodation for these records are loose
wooden shelves, upon which the wills are
arranged in bundles, tied up with common
strings, and without any covering to them;
exposed to the effect of the damp of the
weather and the necessary accumulation of
dirt." To these unprotected wills the Deputy
Registrar was perhaps wise in his generation
to deny access; for Mr. Protheroe says in
addition that, "if it was the object of any
person to purloin a will, such a thing might
be accomplished." Perfectly and safely acces-
sible copies might be made, at " an expense
quite trifling." What? Mr. Protheroe, would
you rob these poor Registrars of a shilling of
their hard earnings, just to save landed and
other property, of some millions value, from
litigation and fraud? Would you discount their
twenty thousand a year by even a fraction per
cent?

At page three hundred and thirty-nine, the
Deputy Registrar himself is recorded to
have owned that the place of custody for
wills is a room not fire-proof, which everybody
knew; but that it was free from
damp, which was not in accordance with Mr.
Protheroe's evidence. It is "storm-covered"
with lead, is twenty-two feet long, and twenty-one
feet wide (about the size of an ordinary
parlour!), made less capacious by being
divided into four aisles, each seventeen feet
long, and five feet wide. " There is one room
for searching and examining Wills; but it is
not very commodious." Yet, in 1850, it has
no greater accommodation than it had in
1832, when, perhaps, it was not so full of
smoke as Mr. William Wallace found it. No
part of the building is smoke-proof any more
than fire-proof.

The clause of the treaty, offensive and
defensive, which was being negotiated all this
while, between the Deputy Registrar and his
visitor, was drawn up by the former in these
concise words, " How long do you want to be
here?"

That, Mr. Wallace replied, would depend
upon the facilities afforded him, the condition
of the calendars and indexes, and the assistance
he might be allowed to call in. After
much battling, the conference ended by Mr.
William Wallace, and a friend who
accompanied him, being allowed to set to work upon
the calendars of such wills as had been
deposited before the year 1500.

The two antiquaries would have commenced
their researches immediately; only, on
examining their dress, they found it in such a
state of filth from the smoke with which the
office had been filled during the arrangement
of this important compact, that they were
obliged to return to the hotel to change their
linen. The prospect of spending a week in
such a place was not altogether agreeable.
Mr. Wallace did not enjoy the notion of being
smoke-dried; and of returning to the Middle
Temple a sort of animated ham. A sojourn
in the place was not to be thought of without
terror; yet the poor clerks endured their
smoking fate with fortitude. Use was to them
a second nature; and every man connected
with these Registries must be completely
inured to dust. But the man of the Middle
Temple was a kind of knight-errant in the
matter of rescuing ancient documents from
their tombs of filth; and not to be daunted.
He and his friend opened the campaign
directly in the face of the enemy's fire—
which, so great was their ardour, they only
wished would become a little more brisk and
less smoky.

That day and the next day they bored
on with patience and perseverance through
every obstacle. When they found in the
calendar a reference to what they wanted,
every possible obstacle was thrown in their
way. The required document was either
lost, or had been stolen, or had strayed. Nor
was there the slightest reason to doubt that
this was true. It was well known to the