This unhappy circumstance made the time for parting not unwelcome.

In 1747 Burke's name had been entered at the Middle Temple, and after taking his degree, he prepared to go to England to pursue the ordinary course of a lawyer's studies.

He arrived in London in the early part of 1750.
A period of nine years followed, in which the circumstances of Burke's life are enveloped in nearly complete obscurity.

He seems to have kept his terms in the regular way at the Temple, and from the mastery of legal principles and methods which he afterwards showed in some important transactions, we might infer that he did more to qualify himself for practice than merely dine in the hall of his inn.

For law, alike as a profession and an instrument of mental discipline, he had always the profound respect that it so amply deserves, though he saw that it was not without drawbacks of its own.