A Book About Lawyers Part 16

One prominent feature in the advocate's education must always be elocutionary practice. "Talk; if you can, to the point, but anyhow talk," has been the motto of Advocacy from time immemorial. Heneage Finch, who, like every member of his silver-tongued family, was an authority on matters pertaining to eloquence, is said to have advised a young student "to study all the morning and talk all the afternoon."

Sergeant Maynard used to express his opinion of the importance of eloquence to a lawyer by calling law the "ars bablativa." Roger North observes--"He whose trade is speaking must not, whatever comes out, fail to speak, for that is a fault in the main much worse than impertinence."

And at a recent address to the students of the London University, Lord Brougham urged those of his auditors, who intended to adopt the profession of the bar, to habituate themselves to talk about everything.

In past times law-students were proverbial for their talkativeness; and though the present writer has never seen any records of a Carolinian law-debating society, it is matter of certainty that in the seventeenth century the young students and barristers formed themselves into coteries, or clubs, for the practice of elocution and for legal discussions. The continual debates on 'mootable days,' and the incessant wranglings of the Temple cloisters, encouraged them to pay especial attention to such exercises. In Charles II.'s reign Pool's company, was a coterie of students and young barristers, who used to meet periodically for congenial conversation and debate. "There is seldom a time," says Roger North, speaking of this coterie, "but in every Inn of Court there is a studious, sober company that are select to each other, and keep company at meals and refreshments. Such a company did Mr. Pool find out, whereof Sergeant Wild was one, and every one of them proved eminent, and most of them are now preferred in the law; and Mr. Pool, at the latter end of his life, took such a pride in his company that he affected to furnish his chambers with their pictures." Amongst the benefits to be derived from such a club as that of which Mr. Pool was president, Roger North mentions "Aptness to speak;" adding: "for a man may be possessed of a book-case, and think he has it _ad unguem_ throughout, and when he offers at it shall find himself at a loss, and his words will not be right and proper, or perhaps too many, and his expressions confused: _when he has once talked his case over, and, his company have tossed it a little to and fro, then he shall utter it more readily, with fewer words and much more force_."

These words make it clear that Mr. Pool's 'company' was a select 'law-debating society.' Far smaller as to number of members, something more festive in its arrangements, but not less bent on furthering the professional progress of its members, it was, some two hundred years since, all that the 'Hardwicke' and other similar a.s.sociations are at the present.[29]

To such fraternities--of which the Inns of Court had several in the last century--Murray and Thurlow, Law and Erskine had recourse: and besides attending strictly professional clubs, it was usual for the students, of their respective times, to practise elocution at the coffee-houses and public spouting-rooms of the town. Murray used to argue as well as 'drink champagne' with the wits; Thurlow was the irrepressible talker of Nando's; Erskine used to carry his scarlet uniform from Lincoln's Inn Hall, to the smoke-laden atmosphere of Coachmakers' Hall, at which memorable 'discussion forum' Edward Law is known to have spoken in the presence of a closely packed a.s.sembly of politicians, idlers upon town, shop-men, and drunkards. Thither also Horne Tooke and Dunning used to adjourn after dining with Taffy Kenyon at the Chancery Lane eating-house, where the three friends were wont to stay their hunger for sevenpence halfpenny each. "Dunning and myself," Horne Tooke said boastfully, when he recalled these economical repasts, "were generous, for we gave the girl who waited on us a penny apiece; but Kenyon, who always knew the value of money, rewarded her with a halfpenny, and sometimes with a _promise_."

Notwithstanding the recent revival of lectures and the inst.i.tution of examinations, the actual course of the law-student has changed little since the author of the 'Pleader's Guide,' in 1706, described the career of John Surreb.u.t.ter, Esq., Special Pleader and Barrister-at-Law. The labors of 'pupils in chambers, are thus noticed by Mr. Surreb.u.t.ter:--

"And, better to improve your taste, Are by your parents' fondness plac'd Amongst the blest, the chosen few (Blest, if their happiness they knew), Who for three hundred guineas paid To some great master of the trade, Have at his rooms by _special_ favor His leave to use their best endeavor, By drawing pleas from nine till four, To earn him twice three hundred more; And after dinner may repair To 'foresaid rooms, and then and there Have 'foresaid leave from five till ten, To draw th' aforesaid pleas again."

Continuing to describe his professional career, Mr. Surreb.u.t.ter mentions certain facts which show that so late as the close of last century professional etiquette did not forbid special pleaders and barristers to curry favor with solicitors and solicitors' clerks by attentions which would now-a-days be deemed reprehensible. He says:--

"Whoe'er has drawn a special plea Has heard of old Tom Tewkesbury, Deaf as a post, and thick as mustard, He aim'd at wit, and bawl'd and bl.u.s.ter'd And died a Nisi Prius leader-- That genius was my special pleader-- That great man's office I attended, By Hawk and Buzzard recommended Attorneys both of wondrous skill, To pluck the goose and drive the quill.

Three years I sat his smoky room in, Pens, paper, ink, and pounce consuming; The fourth, when Epsom Day begun, Joyful I hailed th' auspicious sun, Bade Tewkesbury and Clerk adieu; (Purification, eighty-two) Of both I wash'd my hands; and though With nothing for my cash to show, But precedents so scrawl'd and blurr'd, I scarce could read a single word, Nor in my books of common-place One feature, of the law could trace, Save Buzzard's nose and visage thin, And Hawk's deficiency of chin, Which I while lolling at my ease Was wont to draw instead of pleas.

My chambers I equipt complete, Made friends, hired books, and gave to eat; If haply to regale my friends on, My mother sent a haunch of ven'son, I most respectfully entreated The choicest company to eat it; _To wit_, old Buzzard, Hawk, and Crow; _Item_, Tom Thornback, Shark, and Co.

Attorneys all as keen and staunch As e'er devoured a client's haunch.

And did I not their clerks invite To taste said ven'son hash'd at night?

For well I knew that hopeful fry My rising merit would descry, The same litigious course pursue, And when to fish of prey they grew, By love of food and contest led, Would haunt the spot where once they fed.

Thus having with due circ.u.mspection Formed my professional connexion, My desks with precedents I strew'd, Turned critic, danc'd, or penn'd an ode, Suited the _ton_, became a free And easy man of gallantry; But if while capering at my gla.s.s, Or toying with a favorite la.s.s, I heard the aforesaid Hawk a-coming, Or Buzzard on the staircase humming, At once the fair angelic maid Into my coal-hole I convey'd; At once with serious look profound, Mine eyes commencing with the ground, I seem'd like one estranged to sleep, 'And fixed in cogitation deep,'

Sat motionless, and in my hand I Held my 'Doctrina Placitandi,'

And though I never read a page in't, Thanks to that shrewd, well-judging agent, My sister's husband, Mr. Shark, Soon got six pupils and a clerk.

Five pupils were my stint, the other I took to compliment his mother."

Having fleeced pupils, and worked as a special pleader for a time, Mr.

Surreb.u.t.ter is called to the bar; after which ceremony his action towards 'the inferior branch' of the profession is not more dignified than it was whilst he practised as a Special Pleader.

It appears that in Mr. Surreb.u.t.ter's time (_circa_ 1780) it was usual for a student to spend three whole years in the same pleader's chambers, paying three hundred guineas for the course of study. Not many years pa.s.sed before students saw it was not to their advantage to spend so long a period with the same instructor, and by the end of the century the industrious student who could command the fees wherewith to pay for such special tuition, usually spent a year or two in a pleader's chambers, and another year or two in the chambers of an equity draughtsman, or conveyancer. Lord Campbell, at the opening of the present century, spent three years in the chambers of the eminent Special Pleader, Mr. Tidd, of whose learning and generosity the biographer of the Chancellors makes cordial and grateful acknowledgment.

Finding that Campbell could not afford to pay a second hundred guineas for a second year's instruction, Tidd not only offered him the run of his chambers without payment, but made the young Scotchman take back the 105 which he had paid for the first twelve months.

In his later years Lord Campbell delighted to trace his legal pedigree to the great pleader and 'pupillizer' of the last century, Tom Warren.

The chart ran thus: "Tom Warren had for pupil Sergeant Runnington, who instructed in the mysteries of special pleading the learned Tidd, who was the teacher of John Campbell." With honest pride and pleasant vanity the literary Chancellor maintained that he had given the genealogical tree another generation of forensic honor, as Solicitor General Dundas and Vaughan Williams, of the Common Pleas Bench, were his pupils.

Though Campbell speaks of _Tom Warren_ as "the greater founder of the special pleading race," and maintains that "the voluntary discipline of the special pleader's office" was unknown before the middle of the last century, it is certain that the voluntary discipline of a legal instructor's office or chambers was an affair of frequent occurrence long before Warren's rise. Roger North, in his 'Discourse on the Study of the Laws,' makes no allusion to any such voluntary discipline as an ordinary feature of a law-student's career; but in his 'Life of Lord Keeper Guildford' he expressly informs us that he was a pupil in his brother's chambers. "His lordship," writes the biographer, "having taken that advanced post, and designing to benefit a relation (the Honorable Roger North), who was a student in the law, and kept him company, caused his clerk to put into his hands all his draughts, such as he himself had corrected, and after which conveyances had been engrossed, that, by a perusal of them, he might get some light into the formal skill of conveyancing. And that young gentleman instantly went to work, and first numbered the draughts, and then made an index of all the clauses, referring to that number and folio; so that, in this strict perusal and digestion of the various matters, he acquired, not only a formal style, but also apt precedents, and a competent notion of instruments of all kinds. And to this great condescension was owing that little progress he made, which afterwards served to prepare some matters for his lordship's own perusal and settlement." Here then is a case of a pupil in a barrister's chambers in Charles II.'s reign; and it is a case that suffers nothing from the fact that the teacher took no fee.

In like manner, John Trevor (subsequently Master of the Rolls and Speaker of the Commons) about the same time was "bred a sort of clerk in old Arthur Trevor's chamber, an eminent and worthy professor of the law in the Inner Temple." On being asked what might be the name of the boy with such a hideous squint who sate at a clerk's desk in the outer room, Arthur Trevor answered, "A kinsman of mine that I have allowed to sit here, to learn the knavish part of the law." It must be observed that John Trevor was not a clerk, but merely a "sort of a clerk" in his kinsman's chamber.

In the latter half of the seventeenth century, and in the earlier half of the eighteenth century, students who wished to learn the practice of the law usually entered the offices of attorneys in large practice. At that period, the division between the two branches of the profession was much less wide than it subsequently became; and no rule or maxim of professional etiquette forbade Inns-of-Court men to act as the subordinates of attorneys and solicitors. Thus Philip Yorke (Lord Hardwicke) in Queen Anne's reign acted as clerk in the office of Mr.

Salkeld, an attorney residing in Brook Street, Holborn, whilst he kept his terms at the Temple; and nearly fifty years later, Ned Thurlow (Lord Thurlow), on leaving Cambridge, and taking up his residence in the Temple, became a pupil in the office of Mr. Chapman, a solicitor, whose place of business was in Lincoln's Inn. There is no doubt that it was customary for young men destined the bar thus to work in attorneys'

offices; and they continued to do so without any sense of humiliation or thought of condescension, until the special pleaders superseded the attorneys as instructors.

[29] The mention of 'the Hardwicke' brings a droll story to the writer's mind. Some few years since the members of that learned fraternity a.s.sembled at their customary plate of meeting--a large room in Anderton's Hotel, Fleet Street--to discuss a knotty point of law about anent Uses. The master of young men was strong; and amongst them--conspicuous for his advanced years, jovial visage, red nose, and air of perplexity--sate an old gentleman who was evidently a stranger to every lawyer present. Who was he? Who brought him? Was there any one in the room who knew him? Such were the whispers that floated about, concerning the portly old man, arrayed in blue coat and drab breeches and gaiters, who took his snuff in silence, and watched the proceedings with evident surprise and dissatisfaction. After listening to three speeches this antique, jolly stranger rose, and with much embarra.s.sment addressed the chair. "Mr. President," he said--"excuse me; but may I ask,--is this 'The Convivial Rabbits?'" A roar of laughter followed this enquiry from a 'convivial rabbit,' who having mistaken the evening of the week, had wandered into the room in which his convivial fellow-clubsters had held a meeting on the previous evening. On receiving the President's a.s.surance that the learned members of a law-debating society were not 'convivial rabbits,' the elderly stranger b.u.t.toned his blue coat and beat a speedy retreat.

PART VIII.

MIRTH.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX.

WIT OF LAWYERS.

No lawyer has given better witticisms to the jest-books than Sir Thomas More. Like all legal wits, he enjoyed a pun, as Sir Thomas Manners, the mushroom Earl of Rutland discovered, when he winced under the cutting reproof of his insolence, conveyed in the translation of 'Honores mutant mores'--_Honors change manners_. But though he would condescend to play with words as a child plays with sh.e.l.ls on a sea-beach, he could at will command the laughter of his readers without having recourse to mere verbal antics. He delighted in what may be termed humorous mystification. Entering Bruges at a time when his leaving had gained European notoriety, he was met by the challenge of a noisy fellow who proclaimed himself ready to dispute with the whole world--or any other man--"in omni scibili et de quolibet ente." Accepting the invitation, and entering the lists in the presence of all the scholastic magnates of Bruges, More gravely inquired, "An averia carucae capta in vet.i.tonamio sint irreplegibilia?" Not versed in the principles and terminology of the common law of England, the challenger could only stammer and blush--whilst More's eye twinkled maliciously, and his auditors were convulsed with laughter.

Much of his humor was of the sort that is ordinarily called _quiet_ humor, because its effect does not pa.s.s off in shouts of merriment. Of this kind of pleasantry he gave the Lieutenant of the Tower a specimen, when he said, with as much courtesy as irony, "a.s.sure yourself I do not dislike my cheer; but whenever I do, then spare not to thrust me out of your doors!" Of the same sort were the pleasantries with which, on the morning of his execution, he with fine consideration for others strove to divert attention from the cruelty of his doom. "I see no danger," he observed, with a smile, to his friend Sir Thomas Pope, shaking his water-bottle as he spoke, "but that this man may live longer if it please the king." Finding in the craziness of the scaffold a good pretext for leaning in friendly fashion on his gaoler's arm, he extended his hand to Sir William Kingston, saying, "Master Lieutenant, I pray you see me safe up; for my coming down let me shift for myself." Even to the headsman he gave a gentle pleasantry and a smile from the block itself, as he put aside his beard so that the keen blade should not touch it.

"Wait, my good friend, till I have removed my beard," he said, turning his eyes upwards to the official, "for it has never offended his highness."

His wit was not less ready than brilliant, and on one occasion its readiness saved him from a sudden and horrible death. Sitting on the roof of his high gate-house at Chelsea, he was enjoying the beauties of the Thames and the sunny richness of the landscape, when his solitude was broken by the unlooked-for arrival of a wandering maniac. Wearing the horn and badge of a Bedlamite, the unfortunate creature showed the signs of his malady in his equipment as well as his countenance. Having cast his eye downwards from the parapet to the foot of the tower, he conceived a mad desire to hurl the Chancellor from the flat roof. "Leap, Tom! leap!" screamed the athletic fellow, laying a firm hand on More's shoulder. Fixing his attention with a steady look, More said, coolly, "Let us first throw my little dog down, and see what sport that will be." In a trice the dog was thrown into the air. "Good!" said More, feigning delight at the experiment: "now run down, fetch the dog, and we'll throw him off again." Obeying the command, the dangerous intruder left More free to secure himself by a bar, and to summon a.s.sistance with his voice.

For a good end this wise and mirth-loving lawyer would play the part of a practical joker; and it is recorded that by a jest of the practical sort he gave a wholesome lesson to an old civic magistrate, who, at the Sessions of the Old Bailey, was continually telling the victims of cut-purses that they had only themselves to thank for their losses--that purses would never be cut if their wearers took proper care to retain them in their possession. These orations always terminated with, "I never lose _my_ purse; cut-purses never take _my_ purse; no, i'faith, because I take proper care of it." To teach his worship wisdom, and cure him of his self-sufficiency, More engaged a cut-purse to relieve the magistrate of his money-bag whilst he sat upon the bench. A story is recorded of another Old Bailey judge who became the victim of a thief under very ridiculous circ.u.mstances. Whilst he was presiding at the trial of a thief in the Old Bailey, Sir John Sylvester, Recorder of London, said incidentally that he had left his watch at home. The trial ended in an acquittal, the prisoner had no sooner gained his liberty than he hastened to the recorder's house, and sent in word to Lady Sylvester that he was a constable and had been sent from the Old Bailey to fetch her husband's watch. When the recorder returned home and found he had lost his watch, it is to be feared that Lady Sylvester lost her usual equanimity. _Apropos_ of these stories Lord Campbell tells--how, at the opening period of his professional career, soon after the publication of his 'Nisi Prius Reports,' he on circuit successfully defended a prisoner charged with a criminal offence; and how, whilst the success of his advocacy was still quickening his pulses, he discovered that his late client, with whom he held a confidential conversation, had contrived to relieve him of his pocket-book, full of bank-notes. As soon as the presiding judge, Lord Chief Baron Macdonald, heard of the mishap of the reporting barrister, he exclaimed, "What! does Mr. Campbell think that no one is ent.i.tled to _take notes_ in court except himself?"

By the urbane placidity which marked the utterance of his happiest speeches, Sir Nicholas Bacon often recalled to his hearers the courteous easiness of More's _repartees_. Keeping his own pace in society, as well as in the Court of Chancery, neither satire nor importunity could ruffle or confuse him. When Elizabeth, looking disdainfully at his modest country mansion, told him that the place was too small, he answered with the flattery of grat.i.tude, "Not so, madam, your highness has made me too great for my house." Leicester having suddenly asked him his opinion of two aspirants for court favor, he responded on the spur of the moment, "By my troth, my lord, the one is a grave councillor: the other is a proper young man, and so he will be as long as he lives." To the queen, who pressed him for his sentiments respecting the effect of monopolies--a delicate question for a subject to speak his mind upon--he answered, with conciliatory lightness, "Madam, will you have me speak the truth? _Licentia_ omnes deteriores sumus." In court he used to say, "Let us stay a little, that we may have done the sooner." But notwithstanding his deliberation and the stutter that hindered his utterances, he could be quicker than the quickest, and sharper than the most acrid, as the loquacious barrister discovered who was suddenly checked in a course of pert talkativeness by this tart remark from the stammering Lord Keeper: "There is a difference between you and me,--for me it is a pain to s-speak, for you a pain to hold your tongue." That the familiar story of his fatal attack of cold is altogether true one cannot well believe, for it seems highly improbable that the Lord Keeper, in his seventieth year, would have sat down to be shaved near an open window in the month of February. But though the anecdote may not be historically exact, it may be accepted as a faithful portraiture of his more stately and severely courteous humor. "Why did you suffer me to sleep thus exposed?" asked the Lord Keeper, waking in a fit of shivering from slumber into which his servant had allowed him to drop, as he sat to be shaved in a place where there was a sharp current of air. "Sir, I durst not disturb you," answered the punctilious valet, with a lowly obeisance. Having eyed him for a few seconds, Sir Nicholas rose and said, "By your civility I lose my life." Whereupon the Lord Keeper retired to the bed from which he never rose.

Amongst Elizabethan Judges who aimed at sprightliness on the Bench, Hatton merits a place; but there is reason to think that the idlers, who crowded his court to admire the foppishness of his judicial costume, did not get one really good _mot_ from his lips to every ten bright sayings that came from the clever barristers practising before him. One of the best things attributed to him is a pun. In a case concerning the limits of certain land, the counsel on one side having remarked with explanatory emphasis, "We lie on this side, my Lord;" and the counsel on the other side having interposed with equal vehemence, "We lie on this side, my Lord,"--the Lord Chancellor leaned backwards, and dryly observed, "If you lie on both sides, whom am I to believe?" In Elizabethan England the pun was as great a power in the jocularity of the law-courts as it is at present; the few surviving witticisms that are supposed to exemplify Egerton's lighter mood on the bench, being for the most part feeble attempts at punning. For instance, when he was asked, during his tenure of the Mastership of the Rolls, to _commit_ a cause, _i.e._, to refer it to a Master in Chancery, he used to answer, "What has the cause done that it should be committed?" It is also recorded of him that, when he was asked for his signature to a pet.i.tion of which he disapproved, he would tear it in pieces with both hands, saying, "You want my hand to this? You shall have it; aye, and both my hands, too."

Of Egerton's student days a story is extant, which has merits, independent of its truth or want of truth. The hostess of a Smithfield tavern had received a sum of money from three graziers, in trust for them, and on engagement to restore it to them on their joint demand.

Soon after this transfer, one of the co-depositors, fraudulently representing himself to be acting as the agent of the other two, induced the old lady to give him possession of the whole of the money--and thereupon absconded. Forthwith the other two depositors brought an action against the landlady, and were on the point of gaining a decision in their favor, when young Egerton, who had been taking notes of the trial, rose as _amicus curiae_, and argued, "This money, by the contract, was to be returned to _three_, but _two_ only sue;--where is the _third_? let him appear with the others; till then the money cannot be demanded from her." Nonsuit for the plaintiffs--for the young student a hum of commendation.

Many of the pungent sayings current in Westminster Hall at the present time, and attributed to eminent advocates who either are still upon the forensic stage, or have recently withdrawn from it, were common jests amongst the lawyers of the seventeenth century. What law-student now eating dinners at the Temple has not heard the story of Sergeant Wilkins, who, on drinking a pot of stout in the middle of the day, explained that, as he was about to appear in court, he thought it right to fuddle his brain down to the intellectual standard of a British jury.

This merry thought, two hundred and fifty years since, was currently attributed to Sir John Millicent, of Cambridgeshire, of whom it is recorded--"being asked how he did conforme himselfe to the grave justices his brothers, when they met, 'Why, in faithe,' sayes he, 'I have no way but to drinke myself downe to the capacitie of the Bench.'"

Another witticism, currently attributed to various recent celebrities, but usually fathered upon Richard Brinsley Sheridan--on whose reputation have been heaped the brilliant _mots_ of many a speaker whom he never heard, and the indiscretions of many a sinner whom he never knew--is certainly as old as Shaftesbury's bright and unprincipled career. When Charles II. exclaimed, "Shaftesbury, you are the most profligate man in my dominions," the reckless Chancellor answered, "Of a subject, sir, I believe I am." It is likely enough that Shaftesbury merely repeated the witticism of a previous courtier; but it is certain that Sheridan was not the first to strike out the pun.

In this place let a contradiction be given to a baseless story, which exalts Sir William Follett's reputation for intellectual readiness and argumentative ability. The story runs, that early in the January of 1845, whilst George Stephenson, Dean Buckland, and Sir William Follett were Sir Robert Peel's guests at Drayton Manor, Dean Buckland vanquished the engineer in a discussion on a geological question. The next morning, George Stephenson was walking in the gardens of Drayton Manor before breakfast, when Sir William Follett accosted him, and sitting down in an arbor asked for the facts of the argument. Having quickly 'picked up the case,' the lawyer joined Sir Robert Peel's guests at breakfast, and amused them by leading the dean back to the dispute of the previous day, and overthrowing his fallacies by a skilful use of the same arguments which the self-taught engineer had employed with such ill effect. "What do you say, Mr. Stephenson?" asked Sir Robert Peel, enjoying the dean's discomfiture. "Why," returned George Stephenson, "I only say this, that of all the powers above and under earth, there seems to me no power so great as the gift of the gab." This is the story. But there are facts which contradict it. The only visit paid by George Stephenson to Drayton Manor was made in the December of 1844, not the January of 1845. The guests (invited for Dec. 14, 1844), were Lord Talbot, Lord Aylesford, the Bishop of Lichfield, Dr. Buckland, Dr. Lyon Playfair, Professor Owen, George Stephenson, Mr. Smith of Deanston, and Professor Wheatstone. Sir William Follett was not of the party, and did not set foot within Drayton Manor during George Stephenson's visit there. Of this, Professor Wheatstone (who furnished the present writer with these particulars), is certain. Moreover, it is not to be believed that Sir William Follett, an overworked invalid (who died in the June of 1845 of the pulmonary disease under which he had suffered for years), would sit in an arbor before breakfast on a winter's morning to hold debate with a companion on any subject. The story is a revival of an anecdote first told long before George Stephenson was born.

In lists of legal _facetiae_ the habit of punning is not more noticeable than the prevalent unamiability of the jests. Advocates are intellectual gladiators, using their tongues as soldiers of fortune use their swords; and when they speak, it is to vanquish an adversary. Antagonism is an unavoidable condition of their existence; and this incessant warfare gives a merciless asperity to their language, even when it does not infuse their hearts with bitterness. Duty enjoins the barrister to leave no word unsaid that can help his client, and encourages him to perplex by satire, baffle by ridicule, or silence by sarcasm, all who may oppose him with statements that cannot be disproved, or arguments that cannot be upset by reason. That which duty bids him do, practice enables him to do with terrible precision and completeness; and in many a case the caustic tone, a.s.sumed at the outset as a professional weapon, becomes habitual, and, without the speaker's knowledge, gives more pain within his home than in Westminster Hall.

Some of the well-known witticisms attributed to great lawyers are so brutally personal and malignant, that no man possessing any respect for human nature can read them without endeavoring to regard them as mere biographic fabrications. It is recorded of Charles Yorke that, after his election to serve as member for the University of Cambridge, he, in accordance with etiquette, made a round of calls on members of senate, giving them personal thanks for their votes; and that on coming to the presence of a supporter--an old 'fellow' known as the ugliest man in Cambridge--he addressed him thus, after smiling 'an aside' to a knot of bystanders--"Sir, I have reason to be thankful to my friends in general; but I confess myself under particular obligation to you for the very _remarkable countenance_ you have shown me on this occasion."

There is no doubt that Charles Yorke could make himself unendurably offensive; it is just credible that without a thought of their double meaning he uttered the words attributed to him; but it is not to be believed that he--an English gentleman--thus intentionally insulted a man who had rendered him a service.

A story far less offensive than the preceding anecdote, but in one point similar to it, is told of Judge Fortescue-Aland (subsequently Lord Fortescue), and a counsel. Sir John Fortescue-Aland was disfigured by a nose which was purple, and hideously misshapen by morbid growth. Having checked a ready counsel with the needlessly harsh observation, "Brother, brother, you are handling the case in a very lame manner," the angry advocate gave vent to his annoyance by saying, with a perfect appearance of _sang-froid_, "Pardon me, my lord; have patience with me, and I will do my best to make the case as plain as--as--the nose on your lordship's face." In this case the personality was uttered in hot blood, by a man who deemed himself to be striking the enemy of his professional reputation.

If they were not supported by incontrovertible testimony, the admirers of the great Sir Edward c.o.ke would reject as spurious many of the overbearing rejoinders which escaped his lips in courts of justice. His tone in his memorable altercation with Bacon at the bar of the Court of Exchequer speaks ill for the courtesy of English advocates in Elizabeth's reign; and to any student who can appreciate the dignified formality and punctilious politeness that characterized English gentlemen in the old time, it is matter of perplexity how a man of c.o.ke's learning, capacity, and standing, could have marked his contempt for 'Cowells Interpreter,' by designating the author in open court Dr.

Cowheel. Scarcely in better taste were the coa.r.s.e personalities with which, as Attorney General, he deluged Garnet the Jesuit, whom he described as "a Doctor of Jesuits; that is, a Doctor of six D's--as Dissimulation, Deposing of princes, Disposing of kingdoms, Daunting and Deterring of Subjects, and Destruction."

In comparatively recent times few judges surpa.s.sed Thurlow in overbearing insolence to the bar. To a few favorites, such as John Scott and Kenyon, he could be consistently indulgent, although even to them his patronage was often disagreeably contemptuous; but to those who provoked his displeasure by a perfectly independent and fearless bearing he was a malignant persecutor. For instance, in his animosity to Richard Pepper Arden (Lord Alvanley), he often forgot his duty as a judge and his manners as a gentleman. John Scott, on one occasion, rising in the Court of Chancery to address the court after Arden, who was his leader in the cause, and had made an unusually able speech, Lord Thurlow had the indecency to say, "Mr. Scott, I am glad to find that you are engaged in the cause, for I now stand some chance of knowing something about the matter." To the Chancellor's habitual incivility and insolence it is allowed that Arden always responded with dignity and self-command, humiliating his powerful and ungenerous adversary by invariable good-breeding. Once, through inadvertence, he showed disrespect to the surly Chancellor, and then he instantly gave utterance to a cordial apology, which Thurlow was not generous enough to accept with appropriate courtesy. In the excitement of professional altercation with counsel respecting the ages of certain persons concerned in a suit, he committed the indecorum of saying aloud, "I'll lay you a bottle of wine." Ever on the alert to catch his enemy tripping, Thurlow's eye brightened as his ear caught the careless words; and in another instant he a.s.sumed a look of indignant disgust. But before the irate judge could speak, Arden exclaimed, "My lord, I beg your lordship's pardon; I really forgot where I was." Had Thurlow bowed a grave acceptance of the apology, Arden would have suffered somewhat from the misadventure; but unable to keep his abusive tongue quiet, the 'Great Bear' growled out, in allusion to the offender's Welsh judgeship, "You thought you were in your own court, I presume."

More laughable, but not more courteous, was the same Chancellor's speech to a solicitor who had made a series of statements in a vain endeavor to convince his lordship of a certain person's death. "Really, my lord," at last the solicitor exclaimed, goaded into a fury by Thurlow's repeated e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of "That's no proof of the man's death;" "Really, my lord, it is very hard, and it is not right that you won't believe me. I saw the man dead in his coffin. My lord, I tell you he was my client, and he is dead." "No wonder," retorted Thurlow, with a grunt and a sneer, "_since he was your client_. Why did you not tell me that sooner? It would kill me to have such a fellow as you for my attorney." That this great lawyer could thus address a respectable gentleman is less astonishing when it is remembered, that he once horrified a party of aristocratic visitors at a country-house by replying to a lady who pressed him to take some grapes, "Grapes, madam, grapes! Did not I say a minute ago that I had the _gripes_!" Once this ungentle lawyer was fairly worsted in a verbal conflict by an Irish pavier. On crossing the threshold of his Ormond Street house one morning, the Chancellor was incensed at seeing a load of paving-stones placed before his door.

Singling out the tallest of a score of Irish workmen who were repairing the thoroughfare, he poured upon him one of those torrents of curses with which his most insolent speeches were usually preluded, and then told the man to move the stones away instantly. "Where shall I take them to, your honor?" the pavier inquired. From the Chancellor another volley of blasphemous abuse, ending with, "You lousy scoundrel, take them to h.e.l.l!--do you hear me?" "Have a care, your honor," answered the workman, with quiet drollery, "don't you think now that if I took 'em to the other place your honor would be less likely to fall over them?"