'You don't mean to say that there is any affinity between nautical matters and ecclesiastical matters ?' 'I don't, indeed, my dear boy,' he returned; 'but I mean to say that they are managed and decided by the same set of people, down in that same Doctors' Commons.

You shall go there one day, and find them blundering through half the nautical terms in Young's Dictionary, apropos of the "Nancy" having run down the "Sarah Jane", or Mr.Peggotty and the Yarmouth boatmen having put off in a gale of wind with an anchor and cable to the "Nelson" Indiaman in distress; and you shall go there another day, and find them deep in the evidence, pro and con, respecting a clergyman who has misbehaved himself; and you shall find the judge in the nautical case, the advocate in the clergyman's case, or contrariwise.

They are like actors: now a man's a judge, and now he is not a judge; now he's one thing, now he's another; now he's something else, change and change about; but it's always a very pleasant, profitable little affair of private theatricals, presented to an uncommonly select audience.' 'But advocates and proctors are not one and the same ?' said I, a little puzzled.

'Are they ?' 'No,' returned Steerforth, 'the advocates are civilians--men who have taken a doctor's degree at college--which is the first reason of my knowing anything about it.

The proctors employ the advocates.