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Horace Walpole tells his readers that Charles Yorke "was reported to have received 100,000 guineas in fees;" but his fee-book shows that his professional rise was by no means so rapid as those who knew him in his sunniest days generally supposed.
Whilst making the first statement, he doubtless remembered the passage in 'Pepys's Diary. For the second statement, he refers to 'Layton's Conversation with Chief Justice Hale. It is fair to assume that Lord Macauley had never seen Sir Francis Winnington's fee-book.
At Stanford Court, Worcestershire, is preserved a fee-book kept by Sir Francis Winnington, Solicitor-General to the 'merry monarch, from December 1674 to January 13, 1679, from the entries of which record the reader may form a tolerably correct estimate of the professional revenues of successful lawyers at that time.
A hundred and thirty years since a Scotch barrister who earned 500l. per annum by his profession was esteemed notably successful. Just as Charles Yorke's fee-book shows us the pecuniary position of an eminent English barrister in the middle of the last century, John Scott's list of receipts displays the prosperity of a very fortunate Crown lawyer in the next generation.
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