Graced as thou art, with all the power of words,

So known, so honour'd, at the House of Lords.

The second of these lines is a great falling-off from the first; they were thus parodied by Colley Cibber:

Persuasion tips his tongue whene'er he talks,

And he has chambers in the King's Bench Walks.

To these chambers Pope has an allusion in one of the least read, but not least beautiful of his compositions-his imitation of the first ode of the fourth book of Horace:

The two last verses allude to an unsuccessful address made by his lordship, in the early part of his life, to a lady of great' wealth. Pope adverts to it in the following lines:

Shall one, whom nature, learning, birth conspir'd

To form, not to admire, but be admir'd,

Sigh, while his Chloe, blind to wit and worth,
Weds the rich dulness of some son of earth?

It has been argued that his knowledge of the law was by no means profound; and that his great professional eminence was owing more to his oratory than his knowledge. To this early charge against him, Pope thus alludes:

The Temple late two brother serjeants saw,
Who deem'd each other oracles of law;
Each had a gravity would make you split,
And shook his head at Murray as a wit.

Imitations of Horace, book ii. epist. ii.

A CURIOUS TRIAL.

In 1771, a strange trial took place, before Lord Mansfield, in the Court of King's Bench, with the object of recovering the sum of a wager of five hundred guineas laid by the Duke of Queensbury (then Lord March) with a Mr. Pigot, whether Sir William Codrington or old Mr. Pigot should die first. It had singularly happened that Mr. Pigot died suddenly the same morning, of the gout in his head, but before either of the parties interested in the result of the wager could by any possibility have been made acquainted with the

fact. By the counsel for the defendant, it was agreed that (as in the case of a horse dying before the day on which it was to be run), the wager was invalid and annulled. Lord Mansfield, however, was of a different opinion; and after a brief charge from that great lawyer, the jury brought in a verdict for the plaintiff of five hundred guineas, and sentenced the defendant to pay the costs of the suit.

TWOFOLD ILLUSTRATION.

Sir Fletcher Norton was noted for his want of courtesy. When pleading before Lord Mansfield on some question of manorial right, he chanced unfortunately to say, "My lord, I can illustrate the point in an instance in my own person; I myself have two little manors." The judge immediately interposed with one of his blandest smiles, "We all know it, Sir Fletcher.'

Lord Sandwich said of Mansfield, that "his talents were more for common use, and more at his fingers' ends, than those of any other person he had known."

DUNNING, LORD ASHBURTON.

Dunning got nothing for some years after his call to the Bar, which was about 1756. "He travelled the Western Circuit," says the historian of Devonshire, Mr. Polwhele, "but had not a single brief; and had Lavater been at Exeter in the year 1759, he must have sent Counsellor Dunning to the hospital of idiots. Not a feature marked him for the son of wisdom." He was, notwithstanding, recommended by Mr. Hussey, a King's Counsel, to the Chairman of the East India Company, who was looking out for some one to draw up an answer to a memorial delivered by the Dutch government. The manner in which Dunning performed this piece of service gained him some useful connexions; and an opportune fit of the gout, which disabled one of the leaders of the Western Circuit, did still more for him. The leader in question handed over his briefs to Dunning, who made the most of the opportunity. His crowning triumph was his argument against the legality of "general warrants," delivered in 1765. He was indebted for his brief in this famous case to Wilkes, whose acquaintance he had formed at Nando's, the Grecian, and other coffeehouses about the Temple, which, at that time, were still the resort of men of wit and pleasure.

When Dunning was Solicitor-General, he diverted himself by making an excursion, in vacation-time, to Prussia. From his title of Solicitor-General, the king supposed him to be a general officer in the British army; so he invited him to a great review of his troops, and mounted him, as an eminent military person, upon one

of his finest chargers. The charger carried the Solicitor-General through all the evolutions of the day, the "General" in every movement being in a most dreadful fright, and the Horse's duty never allowing him to dismount. He was so terrified and distressed by this great compliment, that he said he would never go abroad again as a general of any sort.

NOVEL-READING.

Lord Camden was a great reader of novels, upon which Charles Butler remarks: "Surely the hour of relaxation is as well employed in reading Tom Jones, or Clarissa, or any of the novels attributed to Sir Walter Scott, as in the perusal of the productions of party pens."

At a house of great distinction, ten gentlemen of taste were desired to frame, each of them, a list of the ten most entertaining works which they had read. One work only found its way into each list it was Gil Blas.

LORD KENYON'S PARSIMONY AND ILL-TEMPER.

Lord Kenyon studied economy even in the hatchment put up over his house in Lincoln's-inn-fields after his death. The motto was certainly found to be "Mors janua vita”—this being at first supposed to be the mistake of the painter. But when it was mentioned to Lord Ellenborough, "Mistake!" exclaim his lordship, "it is no mistake. The considerate testator left particular directions in his will that the estate should not be burdened with the expense of a diphthong!" Accordingly, he had the glory of dying very rich. After the loss of his eldest son, he said with great emotion to Mr. Justice Allan Park, who repeated the words soon after to the narrator— "How delighted George would be to take his poor brother from the earth, and restore him to life, although he receives 250,000l. by his decease!" Lord Kenyon occupied a large, gloomy house in Lincoln's-inn-fields: where, it was said,-" All the year through it is Lent in the kitchen and Passion-week in the parlour." Some one having mentioned that, although the fire was very dull in the kitchen-grate, the spits were always bright,-"It is quite irrelevant," said Jekyll, "to talk about the spits, for nothing 'turns' upon them."

Chief-Justice Kenyon was curiously economical about the adornment of his head. It was observed for a number of years before he died, that he had two hats and two wigs-of the hats and the wigs one was dreadfully old and shabby, the other comparatively spruce. He always carried into court with him the very old hat and the

comparatively spruce wig, or the very old wig and the comparatively spruce hat. On the days of the very old hat and the comparatively spruce wig, he shoved his hat under the bench, and displayed his wig; but on the days of the very old wig and the comparatively spruce hat, he always continued covered. He might often be seen sitting with his hat over his wig, but the Rule of Court by which he was governed on this point is doubtful.

Lord Kenyon's hasty and ungovernable temper, and his partialities and antipathies, made him widely disliked by the Bar; while his absurd misapplication of a few stock Latin quotations made him notoriously ridiculous. He had, however, the singular good fortune to elicit two bon-mots from George III., who, on one occasion, said to him, "My Lord, by all I can hear, it would be well if you would stick to your good law, and leave off your bad Latin;" and on another occasion, the king remarked, "My Lord Chief-Justice, I hear that you have lost your temper, and from my great regard for you I am very glad to hear it, for I hope you will find a better

one."

BAR BLUNDERS.

The Bar has its misses. General knowledge is unquestionably necessary for the lawyer. Ludicrous mistakes have frequently occurred through the deficiencies of some of them in this respect. We have heard an anecdote somewhere of an eminent barrister examining a witness in a trial, the subject of which was a ship. He asked, amongst other questions, "Where the ship was at a particular time?" "Oh!" replied the witness, "the ship was then in quarantine." "In Quarantine, was she? And pray, sir, where is Quarantine?" Another instance, given by Mr. Chitty, of the value of general knowledge to the lawyer, is worth citing. It is well known that a judge was so entirely ignorant of insurance causes, that, after having been occupied for six hours in trying an action "on a policy of insurance upon goods (Russia duck) from Russia, he, in his address to the jury, complained that no evidence had been given to show how Russia ducks (mistaking the cloth of that name for the bird) could be damaged by sea water, and to what extent!"

A learned barrister once quoting some Latin verses to a brother "wig," who did not appear to understand them, "Don't you know the lines?" said he; "they are in Martial." "Marshall," replied his friend, "Marshall-oh! I know the Marshall who wrote on underwriting." When this anecdote was related to a certain judge of the Court of Review, he is reported to have said, "Why, after all, there is not much difference between an underwriter and a minor poet,"

CONSCIENTIOUS FEES.

A general retainer of 1000 guineas was brought to Topping, to cover the Baltic cases then in progress. His answer was, that this indicated either a doubt of his doing his duty on the ordinary terms known to the profession (one guinea, particular, or five guineas general retainer,) or an expectation that he should do something beyond the line of his duty; and therefore he must decline it. His clerk then accepted the usual fee of five guineas, and he led on these important cases for the defendants.-Lord Brougham.

A certain Serjeant was once arraigned before the Circuit mess for unprofessional conduct in taking silver from a client, when he defended himself by saying, "I took all the poor devil possessed in the world, and I hope you don't call that unprofessional." But the learned Serjeant was fined notwithstanding.

PROVING AN ALIBI.

"The usual defence of a thief, (says H. Fielding, on the Increase of Robbers,) especially at the Old Bailey, is an alibi: to prove this by perjury is a common act of Newgate friendship; and there seldom is any difficulty in procuring such witnesses. I remember a felon to have been proved to be in Ireland at the time the robbery was sworn to have been done in London, and acquitted; but he was scarce gone from the bar, when the witness was himself arrested for a robbery committed in London at that very time when he swore both he and his friend were in Dublin; for which robbery, I think, he was tried and executed."

"NO JUDGE."

A certain judge of our time, having somewhat hastily delivered judgment in a particular case, a king's counsel observed, in a tone loud enough to reach the bench, “Good heavens! every judgment of this court is a mere toss-up.' "But heads seldom win," observed a learned barrister sitting behind him. On another occasion this wit proposed the following riddle for solution-"Why does (the judge in question) commit an act of bankruptcy every day?" The answer was, "Because he daily gives judgment without consi

deration."

THE RULING PASSION.

A Mr., a Master in Chancery, was on his death-bed-a very wealthy man. Some occasion of great urgency occurred, in which it was necessary to make an affidavit; and the attorney, missing one or two other masters, whom he inquired after, ventured to ask if Mr. would be able to receive the deposition. The proposal