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which he declared he adopted only to save the feelings of a hitherto worthy officer of the Circuit, and to avert the indignation he saw ready to burst forth upon his head. There was immediately entered a resolution to that effect, and further, that "George Wood continually do cry;" to which I found reference made in the records, by the entry, that "the Crier had called the Court like a cherub." These allusions to his outward form originated in his being peculiarly ill-favoured, and walking in a most awkward and infirm style; so that he was sometimes termed "the Wood Dæmon" (from a melodrame then in vogue); and sometimes likened, when he became judge, to the knight at chess, on account of his peculiarly amorphous head, and the uncouthness of his movement.

He was, however, highly esteemed among us, for his profound knowledge of special pleading, his accurate understanding and sound judgment, and his inflexible honesty. He had property in Yorkshire, which involved him in tithe-suits and quarrels: hence he, both at the bar and on the bench, was a bitter enemy to the parson's claims, and, without meaning any wrong, seldom gave his case entirely fair-play. This perhaps affected him towards a great prelate, whose conduct he attacked; and when, at the episcopal palace, complaint was made of his vehement language, he shortly, and with his wonted dryness, said, “I did not think a bishop would have committed a fraud" (which he pronounced "fraad").

Among lesser qualifications, he was famous for the extreme conciseness of his style. This followed him to the bench: his charges to the jury, in explaining any matter of law, were models of clearness and of conciseness. It was not, however, very safe to set him right, when he had by mistake omitted or misrepeated any part of the evidence, for he would then say, "True, gentlemen, it is as the learned counsel says, but so much the worse for his argument."

To illustrate the singular conciseness of his manner, may be given a story which, it may well be said, "he used to tell," for I believe he never told any other, and that one he was constantly called upon to tell at the Circuit table, and always told it in the same words, and always with the same unbounded applause. It was as follows, for, having so often heard it, we knew it by heart: "A man having stolen a fish, one seeing him carry it away, half under his coat, said, Friend, when next you steal, take a shorter fish, or wear a longer coat." In this narrative-which certainly represents the scene perfectly, and gives an epigrammatic speech-there are not above one-andthirty words-particles included.

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Having mentioned the humours of the Grand Court, and said that they at first seemed mummery-and somewhat elaborate, if not tiresome mummery-to my young vision, I must now confess how entirely I was mistaken, and how even I became sensible of their great importance, for which reason I have described them. In the speeches of the great law officers, the Attorney and Solicitor-General, each leader in his turn was made the subject of comment, always jocose— but not seldom wrapping up censure upon some exceptionable proceeding, as of manner to a junior; of tameness towards the Bench; of flattery towards the provincial grandees; of infirmity of temper towards other leaders. The joke passed away, the laugh was innocuous; but the hint was taken, and the lesson remained. Then again, a member of the Circuit had dined in company with an attorney, possibly at his country-house. This was carefully noted, and he was congratulated upon his extensive, or his very select acquaintance, for which he paid so many gallons of claret to the Circuit purse-that being the denomination of the coin in which fines were paid; or he had been seen to condole with an attorney on the loss of his wife; and was therefore himself condoled with,

by the Grand Court, on the heavy affliction which had befallen him in the melancholy decease of worthy Mrs. Quirkly. The distinguished preferment attained by D. Giles, in consequence of his love of letters, has been already mentioned. J. Allan Park had somewhat puffed Richardson to an attorney or two, as a young man of excellent promise; and stated that he had so high an opinion of him, that he had made him his executor. The Attorney-General failed not to note this in his next speech at the Grand Court, which seriously alarmed Richardson, and drew from him a solemn declaration, that he should consider any such recommendations as hostile, and not friendly acts. This, however, did not save him from the title of Executor; till some one, observing the testator's ruddy face of health, and the executor's very pale and emaciated appearance, made the two change places, and gave Richardson the name of the Defunct.

Now in all this there was implied, and not at all concealed, a most salutary watchfulness over the professional conduct of the Circuit. Every one felt that he was observed in all he did, out of court, as well as in. No one, indeed, was suffered to withdraw himself from the jurisdiction, as by not frequenting the Bar table. If any person remained several days absent from the mess, and it appeared that he had dined in his lodgings, being in good health, he was cited to appear; and, if necessary, the messenger of the Circuit, with his assistants, was despatched to bring him bodily into court. The certainty that any undue means taken to obtain practice would be visited by punishment, and if persisted in, by disgrace, even by expulsion from the Circuit, was kept ever before the eyes of all. Even the jests were subservient—ancillary, as we say-to the same end. They kept us ever in mind of the serious visitations ready at any moment to come down upon real offences; they were like the crack of the waggoner's whip, to be followed

by the stroke, if the ear had been assailed in vain. Then, to the mummery of the Circuit all were forced to bow. Whoever appeared in coloured clothes had to pay for it by a fine, following a lecture by the Attorney-General, in which the propriety of mode and dressing of the person was the subject of discourse: the rich wardrobes of various leaders were gorgeously described; how Mr. Serjt. Cockell might, if he chose, dazzle the astonished sight with whole yards of cloth of gold across his portly paunch; how Mr. Law himself could revel in the most flowery satins; how the very Crier could appear so bedizened in lace that he might burn for hundreds of pounds. The sumptuary laws were intended to diminish the expense of the Circuit to poorer men. The rest of the rules were meant to prevent malpractices in the profession. The constantly flowing jest about small matters was calculated to beget a habit of not taking offence on grave occurrences; a very necessary thing in a profession, the constant practice of which exposes every one to hear things said, and tempts most men to say things, somewhat painful to the feelings. Now and then a man would appear among us who was either too high or too sore to bear with the rude pleasantry of the body. Woe betide him if he showed such feelings! He might, without intending it, be very unexpectedly created a Duke, or even a Grand Duke, for his loftiness; or mayhap, an Archdeacon, for keeping slyly out of the way; or a Doctor of the Sorebonne, if he testified sensitiveness of jokes. I forget which fate overtook a learned Serjt. (Davenport) when he was wroth with Mr. Solicitor-General for filing against him an indictment for manslaughter, because a man had fallen out of the gallery during his address to the jury. It set forth that he feloniously did kill and slay J. S., being in the peace of our Lord the King, with a certain blunt instrument, of no value, called a long speech. But I think my able, learned,

and lamented friend Ralph Carr was raised to the Doctorate (of the Sorebone) when he took occasion to remark, that "he perceived the whole of the Circuit set against him, from Mr. Attorney-General Law down to Professor Christian,"-a joke eminently pleasing to Law, who held his cousin Christian in little respect.

Young Burke came, I believe, one circuit or two; but it was during a time I was prevented from attending; and I heard that nothing could be conceived more ill-conducted than this young man, though certainly a person of abilities and well informed, and of a very honourable character. But his vanity was overbearing, spoilt as he had been by the preposterous admiration of his father, and the fondness of his uncles; and his temper was so proud and irritable, that he had one or two personal quarrels nearly ending in duels, the first circuit or year he joined.

Jack Lee and Wedderburn were before my time, as was Wallace. Wedderburn was, to be sure, a very poor lawyer. His coming the circuit for the first time with a silk gown, upon Sir Fletcher Norton being promoted, an irregularity which he aggravated by the highly indelicate act of taking Norton's clerk for his own, occasioned an immediate resolution of the Circuit not to hold briefs with him. As a king's counsel cannot open pleadings, and must have a junior if concerned for the plaintiff, this resolution therefore must have been fatal to Wedderburn, if adhered to; and for the moment he was in imminent danger of being driven from the Circuit, when Wallace, a most able lawyer, who had very recently joined, broke through the rule, and agreed to hold briefs. All were then obliged to give in, else Wallace would have had a monopoly of junior briefs, proportioned to Wedderburn's success, as falling into Norton's practice. In my time this never would have been permitted. Wallace dared not have held those junior briefs, and would have been driven from the Circuit had he attempted it. Even in his own time

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