A Book About Lawyers Part 20

From the days when Alexander Wedderburn, in his new silk gown, to the scandal of all sticklers for professional etiquette, made a daring but futile attempt to seize the lead of the circuit which seventeen years later he rode as judge, 'The Northern' had maintained the _prestige_ of being the most important of the English circuits. Its palmiest and most famous days belong to the times of Norton and Wallace, Jack Lee and John Scott, Edward Law and Robert Graham; but still amongst the wise white heads of the upper house may be seen at times the mobile features of an aged peer who, as Mr. Henry Brougham, surpa.s.sed in eloquence and intellectual brilliance the brightest and most celebrated of his precursors on the great northern round. But of all the great men whose names ill.u.s.trate the annals of the circuit, Lord Eldon is the person most frequently remembered in connexion with the jovial ways of circuiteers in the old time. In his later years the port-loving earl delighted to recall the times when as Attorney General of the Circuit Grand Court he used to prosecute offenders 'against the peace of our Lord the Junior,' devise practical jokes for the diversion of the bar, and over bowls of punch at York, Lancaster, or Kirkby Lonsdale, argue perplexing questions about the morals of advocacy. Just as John Campbell, thirty years later, used to recount with glee how in the mock courts of the Oxford Circuit he used to officiate as crier, "holding a fire-shovel in his hand as the emblem of his office;" so did old Lord Eldon warm with mirth over recollections of his circuit revelries and escapades. Many of his stories were apocryphal, some of them unquestionably spurious; but the least truthful of them contained an element of pleasant reality. Of course Jemmy Boswell, a decent lawyer, though better biographer, was neither duped by the sham brief, nor induced to apply in court for the writ of 'quare adhaesit pavimento;'

but it is quite credible that on the morning after his removal in a condition of vinous prostration from the Lancaster flagstones, his jocose friends concocted the brief, sent it to him with a bad guinea, and proclaimed the success of their device. When the chimney-sweeper's boy met his death by falling from a high gallery to the floor of the court-house at the York a.s.sizes, whilst Sir Thomas Davenport was speaking, it was John Scott who--arguing that the orator's dullness had sent the boy to sleep, and so caused his fatal fall--prosecuted Sir Thomas for murder in the High Court, alleging in the indictment that the death was produced by a "certain blunt instrument of _no value_, called a _long speech_." The records of the Northern Circuit abound with testimony to the hearty zeal with which the future Chancellor took part in the proceedings of the Grand Court--paying fines and imposing them with equal readiness, now upholding with mock gravity the high and majestic character of the presiding judge, and at another time inveighing against the levity and indecorum of a learned brother who had maintained in conversation that "no man would be such a----fool as to go to a lawyer for advice who knew how to get on without it." The monstrous offender against religion and propriety who gave utterance to this execrable sentiment was Pepper Arden (subsequently Master of the Rolls and Lord Alvanley), and his punishment is thus recorded in the archives of the circuit:--"In this he was considered as doubly culpable, in the first place as having offended, against the laws of Almighty G.o.d by his profane cursing; for which, however, he made a very sufficient atonement by paying a bottle of claret; and secondly, as having made use of an expression which, if it should become a prevailing opinion, might have the most alarming consequences to the profession, and was therefore deservedly considered in a far more hideous light. For the last offence he was fin'd 3 bottles. Pd."

One of the most ridiculous circ.u.mstances over which the Northern Circuit men of the last generation delighted to laugh occurred at Newcastle, when Baron Graham--the poor lawyer, but a singularly amiable and placid man, of whom Jeckyll observed, "no one but his sempstress could ruffle him"--rode the circuit, and was immortalized as 'My Lord 'Size,' in Mr.

John s.h.i.+eld's capital song--

"The jailor, for trial had brought up a thief, Whose looks seemed a pa.s.sport for Botany Bay; The lawyers, some with and some wanting a brief, Around the green table were seated so gay; Grave jurors and witnesses waiting a call; Attorneys and clients, more angry than wise; With strangers and town-people, throng'd the Guildhall, All watching and gaping to see my Lord 'Size.

"Oft stretch'd were their necks, oft erected their ears, Still fancying they heard of the trumpets the sound, When tidings arriv'd, which dissolv'd them in tears, That my lord at the dead-house was then lying drown'd.

Straight left _tete-a-tete_ were the jailor and thief; The horror-struck crowd to the dead-house quick hies; Ev'n the lawyers, forgetful of fee and of brief, Set off helter-skelter to view my Lord 'Size.

"And now the Sandhill with the sad tidings rings, And the tubs of the taties are left to take care; Fishwomen desert their crabs, lobsters, and lings, And each to the dead-house now runs like a hare; The gla.s.smen, some naked, some clad, heard the news, And off they ran, smoking like hot mutton pies; Whilst Castle Garth tailors, like wild kangaroos, Came tail-on-end jumping to see my Lord 'Size.

"The dead-house they reach'd, where his lords.h.i.+p they found, Pale, stretch'd on a plank, like themselves out of breath, The coroner and jury were seated around, Most gravely enquiring the cause of his death.

No haste did they seem in, their task to complete, Aware that from hurry mistakes often rise; Or wishful, perhaps, of prolonging the treat Of thus sitting in judgment upon my Lord 'Size.

"Now the Mansion House butler, thus gravely deposed:-- 'My lord on the terrace seem'd studying his charge And when (as I thought) he had got it compos'd, He went down the stairs and examined the barge; First the stem he surveyed, then inspected the stern, Then handled the tiller, and looked mighty wise; But he made a false step when about to return, And souse in the river straight tumbled Lord 'Size.'

"'Now his narrative ended, the butler retir'd, Whilst Betty Watt, muttering half drunk through her teeth, Declar'd 'in her breast great consarn it inspir'd, That my lord should sae cullishly come by his death;'

Next a keelman was called on, Bold Airchy by name, Who the book as he kissed showed the whites of his eyes, Then he cut an odd caper attention to claim, And this evidence gave them respecting Lord 'Size;--

"Aw was settin' the keel, wi' d.i.c.k Slavers an' Matt, An' the Mansion House stairs we were just alongside, When we a' three see'd somethin', but didn't ken what, That was splas.h.i.+n' and labberin', aboot i' the tide.

'It's a fluiker,' ki d.i.c.k; 'No,' ki Matt, 'its owre big, It luik'd mair like a skyet when aw furst seed it rise;'

Kiv aw--for aw'd getten a gliff o' the wig-- 'Ods marcy! wey, marrows, becrike, it's Lord 'Size.

"'Sae aw huik'd him, an' haul'd him suin into the keel, An' o' top o' the huddock aw rowl'd him aboot; An' his belly aw rubb'd, an' aw skelp'd his back weel, But the water he'd druck'n it wadn't run oot; So aw brought him ash.o.r.e here, an' doctor's, in vain, Furst this way, then that, to recover him tries; For ye see there he's lyin' as deed as a stane, An' that's a' aw can tell ye aboot my Lord 'Size.'

"Now the jury for close consultation retir'd: Some '_Death Accidental_' were willing to find; 'G.o.d's Visitation' most eager requir'd; And some were for 'Fell in the River' inclin'd; But ere on their verdict they all were agreed, My Lord gave a groan, and wide opened his eyes; Then the coach and the trumpeters came with great speed, And back to the Mansion House carried Lord 'Size."

Amongst memorable Northern Circuit worthies was George Wood, the celebrated Special Pleader, in whose chambers Law, Erskine, Abbott and a mob of eminent lawyers acquired a knowledge of their profession. It is on record that whilst he and Mr. Holroyde were posting the Northern round, they were accosted on a lonely heath by a well-mounted horseman, who reining in his steed asked the barrister "What o'clock it was?"

Favorably impressed by the stranger's appearance and tone of voice, Wood pulled out his valuable gold repeater, when the highwayman presenting a pistol, and putting it on the c.o.c.k, said coolly, "_As you have_ a watch, be kind enough to give it me, so that I may not have occasion to trouble you again about the time." To demur was impossible; the lawyer, therefore, who had met his disaster by _going to the country_, meekly submitted to circ.u.mstances and surrendered the watch. For the loss of an excellent gold repeater he cared little, but he winced under the banter of his professional brethren, who long after the occurrence used to smile with malicious significance as they accosted him with--"What's the time, Wood?"

Another of the memorable Northern circuiteers was John Hullock, who, like George Wood, became a baron of the Exchequer, and of whom the following story is told on good authority. In an important cause tried upon the Northern Circuit, he was instructed by the attorney who retained him as leader on one side not to produce a certain deed unless circ.u.mstances made him think that without its production his client would lose the suit. On perusing the deed entrusted to him with this remarkable injunction, Hullock saw that it established his client's case, and wis.h.i.+ng to dispatch the business with all possible prompt.i.tude, he produced the parchment before its exhibition was demanded by necessity. Examination instantly detected the spurious character of the deed, which had been fabricated by the attorney. Of course the presiding judge (Sir John Bayley) ordered the deed to be impounded; but before the order was carried out, Mr. Hullock obtained permission to inspect it again. Restored to his hands, the deed was forthwith replaced in his bag. "You must surrender that deed instantly,"

exclaimed the judge, seeing Hullock's intention to keep it. "My lord,"

returned the barrister, warmly, "no power on earth shall induce me to surrender it. I have incautiously put the life of a fellow-creature in peril; and though I acted to the best of my discretion, I should never be happy again were a fatal result to ensue." At a loss to decide on the proper course of action, Mr. Justice Bayley retired from court to consult with his learned brother. On his lords.h.i.+p's reappearance in court, Mr. Hullock--who had also left the court for a brief period--told him that during his absence the forged deed had been destroyed. The attorney escaped; the barrister became a judge.

[33] Lord Eldon, when he was handsome Jack Scott of the Northern Circuit, was about to make a short cut over the sands from Ulverstone to Lancaster at the of the tide, when he was restrained from acting on his rash resolve by the representations of an hotel keeper. "Danger, danger," asked Scott, impatiently--"have you ever _lost_ anybody there?"

Mine host answered slowly, "Nae, sir, nae body has been _lost_ on the sands, _the puir bodies have been found at low water_."

[34] With regard to the customary gifts of white gloves Mr. Foss says:--"Gloves were presented to the judges on some occasions: viz., when a man, convicted for murder, or manslaughter, came and pleaded the king's pardon; and, till the Act of 4 & 5 William and Mary c. 18, which rendered personal appearance unnecessary, an outlawry could not be reversed, unless the defendant came into court, and with a present of gloves to the judges implored their favor to reverse it. The custom of giving the judge a pair of white gloves upon a maiden a.s.size has continued till the present time." An interesting chapter might be written on the ancient ceremonies and usages obsolete and extant, of our courts of law. Here are a few of the practices which such a chapter would properly notice:--The custom, still maintained, which forbids the Lord Chancellor to utter any word or make any sign, when on Lord Mayor's Day the Lord Mayor of London enters the Court of Chancery, and by the mouth of the Recorder prays his lords.h.i.+p to honor the Guildhall banquet with his presence; the custom--extant so late as Lord Brougham's Chancellors.h.i.+p--which required the Holder of the Seals, at the installation of a new Master of Chancery, to install the new master by placing a cap or hat on his head; the custom which in Charles II.'s time, on motion days at the Chancellor's, compelled all barristers making motions to contribute to his lords.h.i.+p's 'Poor's Box'--barristers within the bar paying two s.h.i.+llings, and outer barristers one s.h.i.+lling--the contents of which box were periodically given to magistrates, for distribution amongst the deserving poor of London; the custom which required a newly-created judge to present his colleagues with biscuits and wine; the barbarous custom which compelled prisoners to plead their defence, standing in fetters, a custom enforced by Chief Justice Pratt at the trial of the Jacobite against Christopher Layer, although at the of trial of Cranburne for complicity in the 'a.s.sa.s.sination Plot,' Holt had enunciated the merciful maxim, "When the prisoners are tried they should stand at ease;" the custom which--in days when forty persons died of gaol fever caught at the memorable Black Sessions (May, 1759) at the Old Bailey, when Captain Clark was tried for killing Captain Innes in a duel--strewed rue, fennel, and other herbs on the ledge of the dock, in the faith that the odor of the herbage would act as a barrier to the poisonous exhalations from prisoners sick of gaol distemper, and would protect the a.s.sembly in the body of the court from the contagion of the disease.

CHAPTER XLIV.

LAWYERS AND SAINTS.

Notwithstanding the close connexion which in old times existed between the Church and the Law, popular sentiment holds to the opinion that the ways of lawyers are far removed from the ways of holiness, and that the difficulties encountered by wealthy travellers on the road to heaven are far greater with rich lawyers than with any other cla.s.s of rich men. An old proverb teaches that wearers of the long robe never reach paradise _per saltum_, but 'by slow degrees;' and an irreverent ballad supports the vulgar belief that the only attorney to be found on the celestial rolls gained admittance to the blissful abode more by artifice than desert. The ribald broadside runs in the following style:---

"Professions will abuse each other; The priests won't call the lawyer brother; While _Salkeld_ still beknaves the parson, And says he cants to keep the farce on.

Yet will I readily suppose They are not truly bitter foes, But only have their pleasant jokes, And banter, just like other folks.

And thus, for so they quiz the law, Once on a time th' Attorney Flaw, A man to tell you, as the fact is, Of vast chicane, of course of practice; (But what profession can we trace Where none will not the corps disgrace?

Seduced, perhaps, by roguish client, Who tempt him to become more pliant), A notice had to quit the world, And from his desk at once was hurled.

Observe, I pray, the plain narration: 'Twas in a hot and long vacation, When time he had but no a.s.sistance.

Tho' great from courts of law the distance, To reach the court of truth and justice (Where I confess my only trust is); Though here below the special pleader Shows talents worthy of a leader, Yet his own fame he must support, Be sometimes witty with the court Or word the pa.s.sion of a jury By tender strains, or full of fury; Misleads them all, tho' twelve apostles, While with the new law the judge he jostles, And makes them all give up their powers To speeches of at least three hours-- But we have left our little man, And wandered from our purpos'd plan: 'Tis said (without ill-natured leaven) "If ever lawyers get to heaven, It surely is by slow degrees"

(Perhaps 'tis slow they take their fees).

The case, then, now I fairly state: Flaw reached at last to heaven's high gate; Quite short he rapped, none did it neater; The gate was opened by St. Peter, Who looked astonished when he saw, All black, the little man of law; But charity was Peter's guide.

For having once himself denied His master, he would not o'erpa.s.s The penitent of any cla.s.s; Yet never having heard there entered A lawyer, nay, nor ever ventured Within the realms of peace and love, He told him mildly to remove, And would have closed the gate of day, Had not old Flaw, in suppliant way, Demurring to so hard a fate, Begg'd but a look, tho' through the gate.

St. Peter, rather off his guard, Unwilling to be thought too hard, Opens the gate to let him peep in.

What did the lawyer? Did he creep in?

Or dash at once to take possession?

Oh no, he knew his own profession: He took his hat off with respect, And would no gentle means neglect; But finding it was all in vain For him admittance to obtain, Thought it were best, let come what will, To gain an entry by his skill.

So while St. Peter stood aside, To let the door be opened wide, He skimmed his hat with all his strength Within the gate to no small length.

St. Peter stared; the lawyer asked him "Only to fetch his hat," and pa.s.sed him; But when he reached the jack he'd thrown, Oh, then was all the lawyer shown; He clapt it on, and arms akembo (As if he had been the gallant Bembo), Cry'd out--'What think you of my plan?

Eject me, Peter, if you can.'"

The celestial courts having devised no process of ejectment that could be employed in this unlooked-for emergency, St. Peter hastily withdrew to take counsel's opinion; and during his absence Mr. Flaw firmly established himself in the realms of bliss, where he remains to this day the black sheep of the saintly family.

But though a flippant humorist in these later times could deride the lawyer as a character who had better not force his way into heaven, since he would not find a single personal acquaintance amongst its inhabitants, in more remote days lawyers achieved the honors of canonization, and our forefathers sought their saintly intercession with devout fervor. Our calendars still regard the 15th of July as a sacred day, in memory of the holy Swithin, who was tutor to King Ethelwulf and King Alfred, and Chancellor of England, and who certainly deserved his elevation to the fellows.h.i.+p of saints, even had his t.i.tle to the honor rested solely on a remarkable act which he performed in the exercise of his judicial functions. A familiar set of nursery rhymes sets forth the utter inability of all the King's horses and men to reform the shattered Humpty-Dumpty, when his rotund highness had fallen from a wall; but when a wretched market-woman, whose entire basketful of new-laid eggs had been wilfully smashed by an enemy, sought in her trouble the aid of Chancery, the holy Chancellor Swithin miraculously restored each broken sh.e.l.l to perfect shape, each yolk to soundness. Saith William of Malmesbury, recounting this marvellous achievement--"statimque porrecto crucis signo, fracturam omnium ovorum consolidat."

Like Chancellor Swithin before him, and like Chancellor Wolsey in a later time, Chancellor Becket was a royal tutor;[35] and like Swithin, who still remains the pluvious saint of humid England, and unlike Wolsey, who just missed the glory of canonization, Becket became a widely venerated saint. But less kind to St. Thomas of Canterbury than to St. Swithin, the Reformation degraded Becket from the saintly rank by the decision which terminated the ridiculous legal proceedings inst.i.tuted by Henry VIII. against the holy reputation of St. Thomas.

After the saint's counsel had replied to the Attorney-General, who, of course, conducted the cause for the crown, the court declared that "Thomas, sometime Archbishop of Canterbury, had been guilty of contumacy, treason and rebellion; that his bones should be publicly burnt, to admonish the living of their duty by the punishment of the dead; and that the offerings made at his shrine should be forfeited to the crown."

After the conclusion of the suit for the saint's degradation--a suit which was an extravagant parody of the process for establis.h.i.+ng at Rome a holy man's t.i.tle to the honors of canonization--proclamation was made that "forasmuch as it now clearly appeared that Thomas Becket had been killed in a riot excited by his own obstinacy and intemperate language, and had been afterwards canonized by the Bishop of Rome as the champion of his usurped authority, the king's majesty thought it expedient to declare to his loving subjects that he was no saint, but rather a rebel and traitor to his prince, and therefore strictly charged and commanded that he should not be esteemed or called a saint; that all images and pictures of him should be destroyed, the festivals in his honor be abolished, and his name and remembrance be erased out of all books, under pain of his majesty's indignation and imprisonment at his grace's pleasure."

But neither St. Swithin nor St. Thomas of Canterbury, lawyers though they were, deigned to take the legal profession under especial protection, and to mediate with particular officiousness between the long robe and St. Peter. The peculiar saint of the profession was St.

Evona, concerning whom Carr, in his 'Remarks of the Government of the Severall Parts of Germanie, Denmark, &c.,' has the following pa.s.sage: And now because I am speaking of Petty-foggers, give me leave to tell you a story I mett with when I lived in Rome. Goeing with a Romane to see some antiquityes, he showed me a chapell dedicated to St. Evona, a lawyer of Brittanie, who, he said, came to Rome to entreat the Pope to give the lawyers of Brittanie a patron, to which the Pope replied, that he knew of no saint but what was disposed to other professions. At which Evona was very sad, and earnestly begd of the Pope to think of one for him. At last the Pope proposed to St. Evona that he should go round the church of St. John de Latera blindfold, and after he had said so many Ave Marias, that the first saint he laid hold of should be his patron, which the good old lawyer willingly undertook, and at the end of his Ave Maryes he stopt at St. Michael's altar, where he layed hold of the Divell, under St. Michael's feet, and cry'd out, this is our saint, let him be our patron. So being unblindfolded, and seeing what a patron he had chosen, he went to his lodgings so dejected, that a few moneths after he died, and coming to heaven's gates knockt hard. Whereupon St.

Peter asked who it was that knockt so bouldly. He replied that he was St. Evona the advocate. Away, away, said St. Peter, here is but one advocate in Heaven; here is no room for you lawyers. O but, said St.

Evona, I am that honest lawyer who never tooke fees on both sides, or pleaded in a bad cause, nor did I ever set my Naibours together by the ears, or lived by the sins of the People. Well, then, said St. Peter, come in. This newes coming down to Rome, a witty poet wrote on St.

Evona's tomb these words:--

'St. Evona un Briton, Advocat non Larron.

Hallelujah.'

This story put me in mind of Ben Jonson goeing throw a church in Surrey, seeing poore people weeping over a grave, asked one of the women why they wept. Oh, said shee, we have lost our pretious lawyer, Justice Randall; he kept us all in peace, and always was so good as to keep us from goeing to law; the best man ever lived. Well, said Ben Jonson, I will send you an epitaph to write upon his tomb, which was--

'G.o.d works wonders now and then, Here lies a lawyer an honest man.'

An important vestige of the close relations which formerly existed between the Law and the Church is still found in the ecclesiastical patronage of the Lord Chancellor; and many are the good stories told of interviews that took place between our more recent chancellors and clergymen suing for preferment. "Who sent you, sir?" Thurlow asked savagely of a country curate, who had boldly forced his way into the Chancellor's library in Great Ormond Street, in the hope of winning the presentation to a vacant living. "In whose _name_ do you come, that you venture to pester me about your private affairs? I say, sir--what great lords sent you to bother me in my house?" "My Lord," answered the applicant, with a happy combination of dignity and humor, "no great man supports my entreaty; but I may say with honesty, that I come to you in the name of the Lord of Hosts." Pleased by the spirit and wit of the reply, Thurlow exclaimed, "The Lord of Hosts! the Lord of Hosts! you are the first parson that ever applied to me in that Lord's name; and though his t.i.tle can't be found in the Peerage, by ---- you shall have the living." On another occasion the same Chancellor was less benign, but not less just to a clerical applicant. Sustained by Queen Charlotte's personal favor and intercession with Thurlow, the clergyman in question felt so sure of obtaining the valuable living which was the object of his ambition, that he regarded his interview with the Chancellor as a purely formal affair. "I have, sir," observed Lord Thurlow, "received a letter from the curate of the parish to which it is my intention to prefer you, and on inquiry I find him to be a very worthy man. The father of a large family, and a priest who has labored zealously in the parish for many years, he has written to me--not asking for the living, but modestly entreating me to ask the new rector to retain him as curate. Now, sir, you would oblige me by promising me to employ the poor man in that capacity." "My lord," replied Queen Charlotte's pastor, "it would give me great pleasure to oblige your lords.h.i.+p in this matter, but unfortunately I have arranged to take a personal friend for my curate."

His eyes flas.h.i.+ng angrily, Thurlow answered, "Sir, I cannot force you to take this worthy man for your curate, but I can make him the rector; and by ---- he shall have the living, and be in a position to offer you the curacy."

Of Lord Loughborough a reliable biographer records a pleasant and singular story. Having p.r.o.nounced a decision in the House of Lords, which deprived an excellent clergyman of a considerable estate and reduced him to actual indigence, the Chancellor, before quitting the woolsack, addressed the unfortunate suitor thus:--"As a judge I have decided against you, whose virtues are not unknown to me; and in acknowledgment of those virtues I beg you to accept from me a presentation to a living now vacant, and worth 600 per annum."

Capital also are the best of many anecdotes concerning Eldon and his ecclesiastical patronage. Dating the letter from No. 2, Charlotte Street, Pimlico, the Chancellor's eldest son sent his father the following anonymous epistle:--

"Hear, generous lawyer! hear my prayer, Nor let my freedom make, you stare, In hailing you Jack Scott!

Tho' now upon the woolsack placed, With wealth, with power, with t.i.tle graced, _Once_ nearer was our lot.