In the meanwhile he felt his father’s business become every day more irksome; and it was definitively arranged that he should enter into some branch of the law; a plan which he was enabled to execute by the accession to the family of a considerable legacy. At the age of sixteen, he was articled to Mr. Lally for five years, with a view of succeeding to him as one of the six clerks in Chancery. The society, however, of Mr. Lally and the pursuit of his literary tastes had greater attractions for him than the regular occupation of the office; and although he scrupulously performed the duties required of him, his favourite classics engrossed a large portion of his time, and his mind was still intent upon a life of peaceful retirement, and the prospect of literary fame.
At the expiration of the term of his apprenticeship, however, he determined, much against the opinion of many of his friends, to study at one of the inns of court, and to be called to the bar. His real motive in deciding against a clerkship in chancery, which was then only to be obtained by purchase, was little suspected at the time; it was, that he might not be obliged to call for his share of the legacy just alluded to, amounting to 2000_l._; which he knew it would be very inconvenient to his father to pay. This trait of pious benevolence was, by a just retribution, the pivot upon which his future fortunes more immediately turned.
It was not till he had attained his twenty-first year that he entered upon these new studies; and they were pursued with so much persevering assiduity, that at length he became seriously indisposed, and all application was for months prohibited by his medical advisers. So serious an interruption to his pursuits was likely to be most injurious to him in his profession; when, fortunately, an opportunity occurred of making an excursion to the continent. The Rev. John Roget, who had recently married his sister, had been attacked with a pulmonary complaint, which obliged him to remove with her to a southern climate, leaving behind them in England their first and then only child. They were no sooner settled at Lausanne, than they ardently desired to have this child conveyed to them, and Mr. Romilly, from a deep sense of the obligations he already owed to his brother-in-law for assisting him in his studies, and supplying that judicious and well-timed encouragement, which, on a susceptible and ardent mind, ever acts as the most powerful incentive to exertion, readily undertook the charge. The change of air and scene, the lively interest he took in visiting new countries, and the consciousness of rendering no small service to relatives to whom he was most affectionately attached, produced a rapid and favourable change upon his health. Still more important was the effect produced on the tone of his mind by this renewed intercourse with a friend, who had early discerned his latent abilities and extraordinary capacity, and who, on this occasion, placing before his view the wide field on which those talents might be advantageously exercised, and the important services he might thus be capable of rendering to his fellow-creatures, produced impressions which were indelible, and which, as he himself has often said, had a marked influence upon the subsequent events of his life.