Sir Frank Lockwood, a Queen's Counsel and Member of Parliament, delivered this lecture in 1893 at the Morley Hall, Hackney, at the request of Lord Russell of Killowen, then Attorney-General. The text preserves the informal, witty tone of a spoken address, opening with Lockwood's confession that he spent his university years "avoiding lectures." He frames his subject by noting the unpopularity of lawyers in fiction—"you never find a lawyer introduced either into a play or into a three-volume novel except for the purpose of exposing him as a scoundrel." Turning to Dickens, he finds a writer who treated the legal profession with unusual impartiality.

Three Solicitors, Reordered

Lockwood devotes a substantial portion of the lecture to ranking the three solicitors who appear in The Pickwick Papers: Perker, Dodson & Fogg, and Pell. He argues that readers have misjudged them. Perker, universally admired, would "undoubtedly have been tried for the part he took in the Eatanswill election" if he lived in 1827. Dodson & Fogg, universally denounced, merely brought a breach-of-promise action—some think such actions should never be brought—and made an unprofessional arrangement over costs. Lockwood points out that Mr. Pickwick had "absolutely nothing to complain of in their conduct." Pell, meanwhile, is "suffered to remain unnoticed," yet against him "there is absolutely nothing to be said" beyond a trifling exaggeration about friendship with the Lord Chancellor. Lockwood awards Pell first place, Dodson & Fogg second, and Perker third—a deliberate reversal of popular opinion.

Mr. Prosee and the Equity Bar

Among the barristers mentioned in Pickwick, Lockwood singles out Mr. Prosee, "a member of the Bar who is seldom alluded to." Prosee appears only as a dinner guest at Perker's, part of a dull party that included "two good country agents, Mr. Snicks, the Life Office Secretary, Mr. Prosee, the eminent counsel, three solicitors, one Commissioner of Bankrupts, a special pleader from the Temple, a small-eyed, peremptory young gentleman, his pupil." Lockwood confesses he has "always associated Mr. Prosee with the Equity Bar," a guess based on the name's sound rather than any textual evidence. This moment reveals Lockwood's method: he treats even minor characters as worthy of scrutiny, using them to illuminate the social world of Dickens's legal profession.

The Lecturer's Own Voice

Lockwood's tone is consistently self-deprecating and conversational. He admits that lecturing is "very little in my way" and that his constituents suggested he give a lecture without caring much about the subject. He jokes about the appeal of "lecturing those who had so many opportunities of reading, no doubt very useful lectures to me." This personal framing gives the lecture a distinctive voice, blending legal expertise with amateur enthusiasm. The text includes asides to the Attorney-General and the audience, and Lockwood frequently uses the phrase "I do not know how it is, but so it is" to shrug off the inexplicable. His analysis of Pell's speech—"private and confidential, gentlemen"—shows an ear for Dickens's comic rhythms, and he quotes Pell's rattling of "three-halfpence with terrible determination" to illustrate the character's absurd dignity.

Lockwood's lecture is best read as a period piece of Victorian legal culture, not as a comprehensive guide to Pickwick Papers. He assumes his audience knows the novel intimately and jumps between characters without summarizing plot. Readers unfamiliar with the novel may wish to have a copy at hand. The lecture's value lies in its specific, opinionated readings of minor legal figures—especially Pell and Prosee—and in the glimpse it offers of a working barrister's playful engagement with Dickens's world.