to him a man against whom his heirs wished to take out a statute of lunacy. He examined him very attentively, and put various questions to him, to all of which he made the most pertinent and apposite answers. "This man mad!" thought he; "verily, he is one of the ablest men I ever met with." Towards the end of his examination, however, a little scrap of paper, torn from a letter, was put into Lord Loughborough's hands, on which was written "Ezekiel." This was enough for such a shrewd and able man as his lordship. He forthwith took his cue. "What fine poetry," said the Chancellor, "is in Isaiah!" "Very fine," replied the man, "especially when read in the original Hebrew." "And how well Jeremiah wrote !" "Surely," said the man. "What a genius, too, was Ezekiel!" "Do you like him ?" said the man; "I'll tell you a secret-I am Ezekiel !"

SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH AT BOMBAY. SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH was lamentably thrown away on such society as that of Bombay. Accustomed to lead in the conversations of the conversation-men of the metropolis-such as Sharpe, Rogers, Dumont―he found himself transplanted amongst those who afforded a sad and bitter contrast. It was like Goethe's oakplant, with its giant fibres, compressed within the dimensions of a flower-pot. On the third day after his arrival, most forcibly was he reminded of the contrast, when one of the council, the conversation turning upon quadrupeds, addressing him, inquired, what was a quadruped? It was the same sagacious

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Solomon who asked him for the loan of some book in which he could find a good account of Julius Cæsar. Mackintosh jocosely took down a volume of Lord Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, in which mention is made of a Sir Julius Cæsar, Master of the Rolls in the time of Charles I. The wiseacre actually took the book home with him, and after some days brought it back to Sir James, remarking that he was disappointed on finding that the book referred to Julius Cæsar only as a lawgiver, without the slightest mention of his military exploits!

THE PLAIN TRUTH.

SIR JOHN TREVOR, whose meanness we have just noticed, was cousin to Lord-Chancellor Jefferies, and seems to have been nearly as notoriously corrupt. He was twice Speaker of the House of Commons, and officially had the mortification to put the question to the House," whether himself ought to be expelled for bribery ?" The answer was "Yes."

PARLIAMENTARY PRIVILEGES.

IN 1621, Mr. Edward Floyde was punished by the House of Commons for scoffing at the Elector and Electress Palatine; it being adjudged that they, being the son-in-law and daughter of the King, the head of the parliament, any reflections upon them were a breach of the undoubted privileges of the house. The sentence is thus reported:-"1. Not to bear arms as a gentleman, nor be a competent witness in any court of justice. 2. To ride with his face to

the horse's tail, to stand on the pillory, and his ears nailed, &c. 3. To be whipped at the cart's tail. 4. To be fined in 5000l. 5. To be perpetually imprisoned in Newgate. It was put to the question first, whether Floyde should be whipped or not, which some lords doubted to yield to, because he was a gentleman; yet it was agreed, per plures, that he shall be whipped. Then it was put to the question, whether Floyde's ears shall be nailed to the pillory or not, and agreed, per plures, not to be nailed."

Members were formerly exposed to a somewhat distressing exercise of authority:-"In 1626, Mr. Moor was sent to the Tower for speaking out of season. Sir William Widdrington and Sir Herbert Price, sent to the Tower for bringing in candles against the desire of the House." (Dwarris on Statutes.)

If ancient precedents were to be revived and acted upon, a good many modern orators might speedily find themselves in the same predicament as Mr. Moor.

FITZGIBBON AND THE FEE.

AN odd story is told of Fitzgibbon, of the Irish bar, respecting a client who brought his own brief and fee, that he might personally apologize for the smallness of the latter. Fitzgibbon, on receiving the fee, looked rather discontented. "I assure you, Counsellor," said the client, mournfully, "I am ashamed of its smallness; but, in fact, it is all I have in the world." "Oh, then," said Fitzgibbon, "you can do no more; as it's all you have in the world-why-hem-I must take it !"

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AMERICAN JUSTICE.

Two Quakers resident in Philadelphia, applied to their society, as they do not go to law, to decide the following difficulty:-A, uneasy about a ship that ought to have arrived, meets B, an insurer, and expresses a wish to have the vessel insured. The matter is agreed upon. A returns home, and receives a letter informing him of the loss of his ship. What shall he do? He is afraid that the policy is not filled up, and should B hear of the matter soon, it is all over with him. He therefore writes to B thus :-"Friend B, if thee hasn't filled up the policy, thee needsn't, for I've heard of the ship." "Oh! oh!" thinks B to himself "cunning fellow he wants to do me out of the premium." So he writes thus to A:-"Friend A, thee bee'st too late by half an hour-the policy is filled." A rubs his hands with delight. Yet B refuses to pay. Well, what is the decision? The loss is divided between them. This may be even-handed justice, though unquestionably it is an odd decision.

MACKINTOSH HOAXED.

DURING Sir James Mackintosh's Recordership of Bombay, a singular incident occurred. Two Dutchmen having sued for debt two British lieutenants, these officers resolved to waylay and assault them. This was rather a resolve made in a drunken excitement than a deliberate purpose. Fortunately, the Dutchmen pursued a different route from that which they had intended, and they prosecuted the two officers for

the offence of lying in wait with intent to murder. Previous to his pronouncing judgment, however, Sir James received an intimation that the prisoners had conceived the project of shooting him as he sat on the bench, and that one of them had, for that purpose, a loaded pistol in his writing-desk. It is remarkable that the intimation did not induce Mackintosh to take some precautions to prevent its execution,—at any rate, not to expose himself needlessly to assassination. On the contrary, the circumstance only suggested the following remarks:-"I have been credibly informed that you entertain the desperate project of destroying your own lives at that bar, after having previously destroyed the judge who now addresses you. If that murderous project had been executed, I should have been the first British judge who ever stained with his blood the seat of justice. But I can never die better than in the discharge of my duty." All this eloquence might have been spared. One of the lieutenants submitted to the judge's inspection of his writing-desk; and showed him that, though it contained two pistols, neither of them was charged. It is supposed to have been a hoax-a highly mischievous one, indeed ;-but the statement was primâ facie so improbable, that it was absurd to give it the slightest credence.

MALADY SOLVED.

DURING the legal absence of Mr. (now Lord) Campbell, on his matrimonial trip with the ci-dévant Miss Scarlett, Mr. Justice Abbott observed, when a cause was called on in the Court of King's Bench, “I