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be-"the staff of honesty and the shield of innocence;" but he added, that "it actually is a two-edged sword of craft and oppression." Esop has a fable to the effect that a swallow built her nest under the eaves of a court of justice. Before her young brood could fly, a serpent glided out of his hole and devoured them up.

The lawyer has frequent opportunities for indulging eccentricity and humour. We offer a specimen or two:

Counsellor Lamb, an old man when Lord Erskine was at the height of his reputation, was a man of timid manners and nervous temperament; and usually prefaced his plea with an apology to that effect. On one occasion, when opposed to Erskine, he happened to remark that he felt himself growing more and more timid as he grew older. "No wonder," replied the witty but relentless barrister, "every one knows that the older a lamb grows, the more sheepish he becomes."

Sergeant Prime-on a certain occasion, when the weather was intensely hot, and the court densely crowded, the case being one of more than ordinary interest-made a speech of three hours' duration, whose soporific influence, aided by the oppressive atmosphere of the court, caused a boy, who had seated himself on a transverse beam over the heads of the spectators, to fall, not only asleep, but also on the people below. His own injuries were unimportant, but several individuals in court were seriously hurt: and as the blame was laid upon the prosy counsel's long yarn, he was tried at the circuit table, found guilty, and sentenced to pay a fine of three dozen of wine, which he did without wincing or complaining. As an incident of noble independence of character, we might refer to the incident recorded of the celebrated Lord Chancellor Thurlow. As speaker of the House of Peers, he was distinguished for the dignity with which he enforced the rules of debate. Upon one occasion he called the Duke of Grafton to order, who, incensed at the interruption, insolently reproached the chancellor with his plebeian origin, and recent admission into the peerage. Previous to this time, Thurlow had spoken so frequently that he was listened to by the House

with evident impatience. When the duke had concluded his speech, his lordship arose from the woolsack, and advanced slowly to the place from whence the chancellor generally addresses the assembled peers; then fixing upon the duke the look one may suppose Jove to have assumed as he grasped the thunder—“I am amazed," he said, "at the attack which the noble lord has made upon me; yes, my lords, I repeat, I am amazed at his grace's speech," his voice and manner still increasing in earnestness; "the duke cannot look before him, behind him, or on either side of him, without seeing some noble peer who owes his seat in this House to his successful exertions in the profession to which I belong. Does he not feel that it is as honourable to owe it to these, as to being the accident of an accident? To all these noble lords, the language of the noble duke is as applicable and as insulting as it is to myself; but I do not fear to meet it singly and alone. No one venerates the peerage more than I do; but, my lords, I must say the peerage solicited me, not I the peerage. Nay, more, I can say, and will say, that, as a peer of Parliament, as Speaker of this right honourable House, as keeper of the Great Seal, as guardian of his majesty's conscience, as Lord High Chancellor of England, nay, even in that character alone in which his grace would think it an affront to be considered, but which none can deny me—as a man-I am at this moment as respectable-I beg leave to add, I am at this moment as much respected as the proudest peer I now look down upon." The effect of this speech, both within and without the walls of Parliament, was prodigious; it gave Lord Thurlow an ascendancy in the House, unsurpassed by any previous incumbent of the woolsack, and has placed him in a no less plausible aspect with the people of all times and all political creeds. Not only was this worthy representative of the high court of equity a most convivial bon vivant, he was, also, in the popular acceptation of the term, a wit. As brevity is said to be the soul of the article aforesaid, we present the reader with the following small dose. Once at table, Pitt was expatiating on the superiority of the Latin over the English language, and

cited as an instance, the fact that two negatives made a thing more positive than one affirmative could do. "Then your father and mother!" exclaimed Thurlow, in his usual gruff style, "must have been themselves two negatives, to have introduced such a positive fellow as you are." Thurlow, in law, has been regarded something in the same light with Abernethy in physic; very rough, rude, and even insolent—a feature that tarnished his reputation, and which ultimately was the cause of his being deprived of the chancellorship.

The following characteristic notice of his lordship's irreligious tendencies, and we take our leave of him. His brother, the bishop of Durham, possessed but slender influence over him in this respect, for, in seeking to vindicate his character before some company on one occasion, he had to admit that his appeals to the Divine Being were only audible when suffering from acute twinges of that fashionable, but by-no-means-to-becoveted complaint the gout!

We have already referred to Chancellor Eldon, no less renowned for his doubting propensity. Many were the squibs, in prose and verse, of which this Fabius of chancellors was the subject. To one, by Sir George Rose, a happy retort was made by his lordship, as seen in the subjoined extract :—

"Sir George Rose, when at the bar, having the note-book of the regular reporter of Lord Eldon's decisions put into his hand, with a request that he would take a note for him of any decision which should be given, entered in it the following lines, as a full record of all that was material which had occurred during the day:

"Mr. Leach

Made a speech,

Angry, neat, but wrong;

"Mr. Hart,

On the other part,

Was heavy, dull, and long:

"Mr. Parker

Made the case darker,

Which was dark enough without:

"Mr. Cooke

Cited his book,

And the Chancellor said-'I DOUBT.'

This jeu d'esprit, flying about Westminster Hall, at length reached the Chancellor, who was much amused with it, notwithstanding its personal allusion. Soon after, Rose having to argue before him a very untenable proposition, the chancellor gave his opinion very gravely, thus: for these reasons, the judgment must be against your clients; and here, Mr. Rose, the Chancellor DOES NOT DOUBT.'

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Mr. Plunkett, while pleading one day, observing the hour to be late, said it was his wish to proceed with the trial, if the jury would set. "Sit, sir," said the judge, correcting him, "not set; hens set." "I thank you, my lord," was the reply. Shortly after, the judge had occasion to observe, "that if such were the case, he feared the action would not lay." lord," said the barrister, "not lay; hens lay."

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Lord Kenyon's classical acquirements are well known to have been but slender. He was nevertheless exceedingly fond of ornamenting his judgments with Latin quotations, which did not always fall exactly into their right places. Upon one occasion, he is said to have concluded his summing up in the following manner: "Having thus discharged your consciences, gentlemen of the jury, you may retire to your homes and your hearths in peace; and, with the delightful consciousness of having well performed your duties as citizens, you may lay down your heads upon your pillows, and say, aut Cæsar aut nullus!" Upon another occasion, his Lordship, wishing to illustrate in a strong manner the conclusiveness of some fact, thus addressed the jury: "Why, gentlemen of the jury, it is as plain as the noses upon your faces!—Latet anguis in herbà!” Even death could not divorce him from his bad Latin. Upon his hatchment it is said, there was inscribed Mors janua vit O. On this fact being related to Lord Ellenborough, his Lordship observed, "Yes, sir: it was by his own particular directionsand moreover, it saved the expense of a diphthong!"

Curran's versatile and ready wit has long been proverbial;

like Lord Norbury, his name has been classed among those of Voltaire, Swift, and the humorists of their day. One or two instances will suffice.

Mr. Curran was engaged in a legal argument; behind him stood his colleague, a gentleman whose person was remarkably tall and slender, and who had originally intended to take orders. The judge observing that the case under discussion involved a question of ecclesiastical law-" Then," said Curran, “I can refer your lordship to a high authority behind me, who was once intended for the church, though in my opinion he was fitter for the steeple."

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"No man," said a wealthy but weak-headed barrister, "should be admitted to the bar, who has not an independent landed property." "May I ask, sir," said Mr. Curran, “how many acres make a wise-acre ? "Could you not have known this boy to be my son, from his resemblance to me?" asked a gentleman. Mr. Curran answered, "Yes, sir, the maker's name is stamped upon the blade." Mr. Curran being asked, "what an Irish gentleman, just arrived in England, could mean by perpetually putting out his tongue ?" answered, "I suppose he's trying to catch the English accent."

One of the eminent British lawyers was engaged, some time since, to defend an Irishman, who had been charged with theft. Assuming the prerogative of his position, the counsel, in a private interview with his client, said to him, "Now, Patrick, as I am to defend you, I want you to tell me frankly whether you are guilty or not. Did you steal the goods ?" "Faith, then," said Pat, "I s'pose I must tell yez. In troth, I did stale 'em!" "Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself, to come here and disgrace your country by stealing!" said the honest counsel. "In troth, sir, may-be I ought; but then if I didn't stale, you wouldn't have the honor and credit of getting me off!"

It will be remembered a curious instance occurred, of a witness confounding a counsel, at Gloucester, England, some years ago. The witness, on being asked his name, gave it Ottiwell Woodd. He pronounced it hurriedly several times,

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