"An estate in fee-simple is the highest estate known to the law of England. The court, sir, is indebted to you for this information." There was only one person present who did not perceive the irony, and that was the learned counsel who incurred it. But though impervious to irony, it was impossible even for his selflove to avoid understanding the home-thrust lunged by the judge at the conclusion of his harangue. He had exhausted the year-books, and all the mysteries of real-property law in a sleepy oration, which effectually cleared the court, insensible alike to the grim repose of the bench and the yawning impatience of the ushers; when, at the close of some parenthetical and apparently interminable sentences, the clock struck four, and the judges started to their feet, he appealed to know when it would be their pleasure to hear the remainder of his argument. "Mr. P.," rejoined the chief-justice, "we are bound to hear you, and shall do so on Friday, but pleasure has been long out of the question."-Townsend's Lives of Eminent Judges.

LORD ERSKINE'S PUNS.

ERSKINE often disported himself with boyish glee in punning. He fired off a double-barrel when encountering his friend, Mr. Maylem, at Ramsgate. The latter observed that his physician had ordered him not to bathe. "Oh, then," said Erskine, "you are Malum prohibitum." "My wife, however," rejoined the other, "does bathe." "Oh, then," said Erskine perfectly delighted, "she is Malum in se."

A JUDGE IN THE STOCKS. 129

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HORNE TOOKE'S DESCRIPTION OF LAW. THE opinion of Horne Tooke on the subject of law deserves to be kept on record, as admirable and comprehensive. Law," he said, "ought to be not a luxury for the rich, but a remedy to be easily, cheaply, and speedily obtained by the poor." Some person observing to him, how excellent were the English laws, because they were impartial, and the courts of justice open to all persons without distinction-" And so," said Horne Tooke, "is the London Tavern-to such as can afford to pay for their entertainment."

A JUDGE IN THE STOCKS.

LORD CAMDEN once presided at a trial, in which a charge was brought against a magistrate for false imprisonment, and for setting the plaintiff in the stocks. The counsel for the magistrate, in his reply, said the charges were trifling, particularly that of setting in the stocks, which everybody knew was no punishment at all. The Chief Justice rose, and, leaning over the bench, said in a half whisper, "Brother, were you ever in the stocks?" "In the stocks, my Lord!-no, never!" "Then I have been," returned his Lordship; “and I assure you, brother, it is no such trifle as you represent." His Lordship's knowledge of the stocks arose from the following circumstance. When he was on a visit to Lord Dacre, his brother-in-law, at Alveley, in Essex, he walked out one day with a gentleman remarkable for his absence

I

of mind. When they had reached a hill, at some distance from the house, his Lordship sat down on the parish stocks, which stood by the roadside; and after some time, he asked his companion to open them, as he wished to know what the punishment was. This being done, the absent gentleman took a book from his pocket, and sauntered about, till he forgot both the judge and his situation, and returned to Lord Dacre's house. When the judge was tired of the experiment he had so rashly made, he found himself unable to open the stocks, and asked a countryman, who passed by chance, to assist him. no, old gentleman," was the rustic's response; “you was not set there for nothing." Lord Camden protested his innocence, but in vain; the countryman walked on, and left his Lordship to meditate for some time longer on his foolish situation, until some of Lord Dacre's servants, happening to pass that way, released him.

"No,

SERGEANT MAYNARD AND WILLIAM III.

WHEN old Sergeant Maynard waited on William III. with an address of loyalty and congratulation from the gentlemen of the bar, the King complimented the old man on his looking so well at his extreme age; adding, that he had outlived all his brother lawyers. "Yes, Sire," said the Sergeant in reply; "and had it not been for your Majesty's arrival, I should have outlived the law itself."

COUNSEL AND WITNESSES. 131

A GOOD APOLOGY.

IN the Court of Session, in Scotland, the judges who do not attend or give a proper excuse for their absence, are by law liable to a fine. This law, however, is never enforced; but it is, or was, common, on the first day of the session, to send an excuse to the Lord President. Lord Stonefield having sent such an excuse, and the Lord President mentioning it, the Lord Justice-Clerk, Braxfield, said, in his broad dialect, "What excuse can a stout fallow like him hae?" "My Lord," said the President, "he has lost his wife." The Justice-Clerk, who was fitted with a Xantippe, replied, "Has he? that's a gude excuse

indeed. I wish we a' had the same!"

PASSAGES BETWEEN COUNSEL AND WITNESSES.

A GENTLEMAN who was severely cross-examined by Mr. Dunning (afterwards Lord Ashburton), was repeatedly asked if he did not lodge in the verge of the court—that is, in sanctuary; and at length he answered that he did. "And pray, sir," inquired the counsel, "for what reason did you take up your residence in that place?" "To avoid the rascally impertinence of dunning," answered the witness.

When Sergeant Cockle was on the northern circuit, he once told a witness that he was very saucy, and followed up the remark by asking him, "Pray, what sauce do you like best?" "Any sauce but Cockle sauce," was the reply.

A witness at Kilkenny assizes, being asked if, when he was examined before a magistrate, he did not give a different account of a certain transaction from what he now gave, admitted the fact, but said that he had been humbugged in the business. "Humbugged! my man," exclaimed the counsel on the opposite side, who was not very famous for the brilliancy of his talents, "I don't know what you mean." "Don't you, sir?" replied the man; "why, then, upon my conscience, I must try to explain it in your own way, by putting a case. Suppose now I should tell his Lordship here, and the gentlemen of the jury, that you were an able counsel, and they were to believe me, every mother's son of them would be humbugged, my dear, that's all !"

At a trial in Westminster Hall, an Irishman, who was a witness in a cause respecting some circumstance that occurred at a table where he dined frequently, being asked in cross-examination how he could possibly recollect the circumstances of that day in particular, when he had dined constantly at the same table for months-" Recollect it!" replied the Irishman, "how could I forget it? The dinner was a roast shoulder of mutton, in July, without potatoes!"

Curran was once examining Lundy Foot - the celebrated Dublin tobacconist, and inventor or compounder of the snuff that bears his name—and put a question, at which the witness hesitated a good deal. "Lundy," said Curran, "that's a poser; a deuce of a pinch, Lundy!"